Essay on Management Concepts: Planning and Leading in Business

This essay critically examines the management concepts of planning and leading, crucial for effective business operations, and their practical application in the global business environment. The essay uses the Commonwealth Bank of Australia as a case study to illustrate how managers can leverage these concepts to navigate challenges and maximize value creation. It explores strategic planning, the importance of leadership, and the impact of management decisions on organizational performance, referencing various controversies faced by the bank, such as financial scandals and money laundering issues. The essay concludes by emphasizing the significance of these concepts for organizational success and sustainability, particularly within the competitive financial sector. The analysis considers both the successes and failures of the bank's management in implementing these concepts, providing a comprehensive overview of their importance.

Running head: FUNDAMENTAL OF MANAGEMENT
FUNDAMENTAL OF MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1FUNDAMENTAL OF MANAGEMENT
Introduction
The objective of this essay will be to identify and critically discuss two management
concepts along with the explanation how they are relevant to the managers who are operating
different business houses across the global business environment. This paper will also discuss
about how the managers maximizes value creation within a company through the identified
management concepts. The selected management concepts are planning and leading, and the
selected organization is the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Rationale will be discussed about
selection of the above mentioned management concepts along with the importance of them on
the selected organization on which the focus of this essay will be there. Utilization of these two
management concepts will also be explained from the viewpoint of the manager in order to
create value to the organization of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
About the Company
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is a financial institution from Australia which was
founded in the year of 1911. They have their presence outside the region of Australia, and, thus,
is regarded as a multinational company. Apart from Australia, the bank possess their operations
in the regions of Asia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. In spite of
having a worldwide presence, the management of this financial institution had to face a number
of issues which has hampered the overall brand image and goodwill, which has hampered the
flow of the business operations. Activities related to the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef,
loss of information data of 20 million customers, financial planning scandal, insurance division
scandal and money laundering are some of the controversies that has been faced by the
management of this financial company. The purpose of this introduction of the Commonwealth

2FUNDAMENTAL OF MANAGEMENT
Bank of Australia will be to discuss the management concepts of planning and leading, and
utilizing them to tackle these controversies from the viewpoint of the manager so that it will help
to create value to the organization (commbank.com.au 2020).
Critical Discussion
Management Concepts
Concepts of management helps to fulfill the management objectives of an organization
and helps the management to set the mission, vision and value statements which helps to perform
different business operations in the market places where the organization is present. All these
concepts or functions help to assure the smooth running of the business houses like that of the
Commonwealth Bank of Australia. There are five such management functions, which are
planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling. As discussed earlier, two management
concepts has been identified and will be discussed in this paper, which are planning and leading
(Von Haaren et al 2014).
Planning
Planning turns out to be one of the important functions and a pillar of foundation of
management. It forms the base on which the other fields of management are constructed. It is the
process which evaluates the present position of the company and estimates where it will stand in
the upcoming years. Planning, thus, helps to determine the exact course of action and then
implement it to achieve the aims and objectives of that particular company. Strategic planning
involves analyzing the internal and external factors by the management which may hamper the
goals of the company. It is a continuous procedure where immediate strategies can be required to
be put in action in the time of crisis. For reaching certain goals, the company may also have to
change its course of action depending on the situation. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia

3FUNDAMENTAL OF MANAGEMENT
believes in making plans to become the finest financial service provider by improving the
customer services. In turn this will not only benefit their shareholders but also enhance their
reputation. They strive to improve their customer service by reinvigorating their sales and service
programs, increasing customer engagement with more investments, simplifying the business to
reach out easily to the mass and providing services and products to the customers that are truly
value-for-money. The bank is also striving to expand their business banking by offering related
services in a greater number of retail branches. They are also planning of extending and offering
services to reach out to both online and offline business banking customers.
The planning also involves the management of information technology to ensure
improved efficiency and consistent delivery services in order to intensify their scale advantages.
The company focuses on improvement of team spirit and trust too, create stronger leadership and
develop effective collaboration. The bank has an unmatched momentum of gaining their strategic
priorities. The reputation of the bank has been affected by some scandals in its financial planning
area. The Senate Inquiry reported that there was fraudulence and dishonest cover-up of material
facts. This incident which occurred in October 2008 was compensated with a public apology
from the CEO of the bank along with the announcement of a compensating scheme. They finally
acknowledged that unfair financial planners existed and this resulted independent advisors to be
less inclined while recommending the products of the bank (Rothaermel 2016). The dividend
outcome or yield is outnumbered by most of its rival banking companies. There was another
scandal faced by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in the year 2017 as the money laundering
scandal. Several court proceedings revealed that CBA has violated money laundering and
terrorism financial legislations for about 53,700 occasions. The violations included the usage of
intelligent deposit machines or IDMs by the bank. The CBA is also hugely exposed to the

4FUNDAMENTAL OF MANAGEMENT
blooming housing market of Australia. It can result into cracks that may start appearing, proving
to cause a large damage for the financial planning of the bank. Another important feature of
planning involves market research, in which CBA is lacking behind. As a result, it can make
wrong decisions based on old data while the customers will upgrade over the time period.
Leading
This management function helps to motivate others to get their job done. This is one of
the most important management concept that helps a particular company to move forward in
their respective field of business operations. Leaders or managers are the persons who increases
the morale of the employees in the organizations where they work and improve the overall
productivity of the business house by improving the standard of performances of the employees.
In the context of the leaders or the managers of the organization of the Commonwealth Bank of
Australia, it can be said that they have mislead others and have performed illegal things by
engaging others in illegal activities. This has led to controversies like destruction of the Great
Barrier Reef, loss of information data of 20 million customers, financial planning scandal,
insurance division scandal and money laundering, which has hampered the flow of business
operations along with hampering the brand image and goodwill of the organization. Leading, in
other words, mean to show the right path of success to others which has already crossed by the
leader or the manager to reach into their current position (Rothaermel 2016). But, instead of
doing so, some of the leaders used the power of their position and got involved in serious crimes
like financial planning scandal that happened in the year of 2008 and invested in terrorism
financing and breached money laundering in between the years of 2012 and 2015. These are all
examples of misleading the leaders who, instead of guiding and motivating others for efficient
and ethical practices, motivated some of the employees to involve in all these unethical practices.

5FUNDAMENTAL OF MANAGEMENT
Several cases has been registered against this financial institution, who lost many customers due
to all these unethical practices. Still, they managed to come out of these and maintain the leading
position in the market places where they perform their financial operations.
Value Creation
Managers utilises these two management concepts through the daily business operations
of the business entities where they work. They plan their daily activities and leads their
respective teams or colleagues to accomplish the individual targets in order to maintain the
productivity of the organization. It is a continuous procedure where immediate strategies can be
required to be put in action in the time of crisis. Planning helps to structure all the tasks and
proceedings in a systematic way and leading is the way of transforming them to their assigned
task. This adds value to the organization where the managers are working and it can be noted that
effective planning and efficient leading helps those business houses to gain the competitive
advantage over other institutions who are present in their respective market places (Nickols
2016).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that management concepts of planning
and leading are equally important to all the business entities that perform in the global business
environment, and helps the employees to maintain their performance level and help their
respective company to sustain in this global market places. It can be said that financial and
banking sector is one of the most competitive business sector among all the business sectors that
exists in the global business environment. The management of the Commonwealth Bank of
Australia has failed to plan effectively as well as lead efficiently, which has created lots of

6FUNDAMENTAL OF MANAGEMENT
controversies and hampered the flow of business operations and brand image of the bank
globally.

7FUNDAMENTAL OF MANAGEMENT
Reference
Nickols, F., 2016. Strategy, strategic management, strategic planning and strategic
thinking. Management Journal, 1(1), pp.4-7.
Personal banking including accounts, credit cards and home loans - CommBank. (2020).
Retrieved 26 February 2020, from https://www.commbank.com.au/
Rothaermel, F.T., 2016. Strategic management: concepts (Vol. 2). McGraw-Hill Education.
Von Haaren, C., Albert, C., Barkmann, J., de Groot, R.S., Spangenberg, J.H., Schröter-Schlaack,
C. and Hansjürgens, B., 2014. From explanation to application: introducing a practice-oriented
ecosystem services evaluation (PRESET) model adapted to the context of landscape planning
and management. Landscape ecology, 29(8), pp.1335-1346.