MGT203 Operations Management Report: Bank of New Zealand Case Study

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the Bank of New Zealand's operations management, focusing on challenges stemming from location, layout, supply chain, human resources, and marketing strategies, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report identifies specific issues such as electricity problems in rural branches, the impact of the pandemic on online services, supply chain disruptions, human resource challenges, and marketing strategy limitations. It then proposes several mitigation strategies, including alternative power sources, employee training, layout design improvements, IT support, cash flow management, and human resource adjustments like remote work and transportation options. The report emphasizes the importance of adapting to challenges to maintain business continuity and economic growth.

Running head: OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
MGT203: Operational management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Analysing the current situation..............................................................................................3
Discovering and explanation of possible changes.................................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
There are so many departments existing within any organization. Among all of the
departments, the operational department has major importance for the business because of
managing of various business activities (Wanke & Barros, 2014). This management system is
legally responsible for conducting the improvement of the business productivity. Here,
making a comparison with this scenario, the nominated organization relates with the banking
sector. The Bank of New Zealand selects for completing this report. The base of this report
orients with the operations management on banking sector and how the banking sector faces
such operational challenges. In this report, the operational challenges come from the
background of location, layout, supply chain as well as human resource and also marketing
strategy (Bech & Malkhozov, 2016). Moreover, the solution is also provided inside this
report. However, the solutions for the challenging situation is needful for attaining the
business strategy of the organization.
Discussion
As declaration by name, the operation management is a method that includes such
actions employing planning, organizing or managing as well as controlling the production or
the manufacturing process of any organization (Parekh, 2016). The primary intention of this
management is provide the products or services within the time that means the conversion
from the input to output. A number of business activities take place to manage the business
operational strategy. Moreover, this operation management is full utilization of resources
which leads to the organization towards their success edge. Here, depending upon the
selection of the organization, the Bank of New Zealand selects from the background of
banking sector (Baghla & Garai, 2016). This organization delivers a set of banking services
to the customers for growing the economy of the nation. But currently this organization has

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handled such challenges regarding few factors which needs to mitigate on the urgent basis for
their business growth.
Analysing the current situation
Due to Covid-19 pandemic situation, this banking organization has faced some of the
challenges regarding the location, layout, supply chain as well as human resource and also
marketing strategy. Because of this pandemic situation, it leads to the slow economy of the
nation and for that this effect reflects on the banking sectors (Sarvaiya et al., 2018). Here
some of the challenges are given in below that has been faced by this banking sectors.
Location – The Bank of New Zealand is one of the biggest banking sector in New Zealand.
Though this banking sector operates as the retail business and other operations, therefore
across New Zealand, this banking organization set up various retailing branches for making
an attachment with the customers even at rural areas. Since to be rural areas, there are no
enough facilities for operating any business (Bindseil, 2016). The electricity is the major
issue for conducting the operational activities in this banking organization. However, to
operate any kind of machineries for operational purpose, it requires the power of the
electricity. For that, this banking organizations faces issues for those retail branches which
are at rural places. On other hand, in the rural areas, major percentage of people do not have
literacy with a proper volume. For that, they do not understand all of the facilities of the
banking sector and it is impossible for banking employees to understand the people about the
facilities of the banks (Geismar et al., 2017). These issue create such challenging situation for
this banking sector and cause of financial losses.
Layout – Due to the pandemic situation created by Covid-19, it spoils the layout of this
banking sector. The banking sector always creates such an innovative layout so that they are
capable to achieve the customers’ satisfaction. This layout includes the services or products

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which are truthfully beneficial for the customers. Generally, the banking sectors utilize their
layout designing through online services so that they can reach at least to most of the
customers by their online services. But due to this pandemic situation, it affects on the
internet system because this situation slows down the internet speed. In addition to this,
within the online platform services, there may occurs different kinds of internet related issues
(Agbozo et al., 2017). But during this situation, there are not having enough IT based
employees to fix these issues and for that, in this way, the banking organization face these
kind of layout based issue.
Supply chain – Through supply chain, the banking organization provides the financial
services to the other business sectors. Through this management, the banking organization
provides the working capital for both of the buyers or sellers (O'Brien & Kanbur, 2014). This
finance services uses business solutions which helps to optimize the working capital or
liquidity for the other organizations for business purposes. But this pandemic situation makes
the slow rate of flow of the capital and for that the bank do not supply the proper financial
services to the other organizations. This effects on their business strategy.
Human resource system – The human resource management system is one of the significant
system for any type of organization. Almost the entire business activities depend on this
management system since it is connected with managing the workers of the organization. But
because of this Covid-19 situation, most of the workers are not coming to the retail branches
(Humpage, 2018). However, there is not enough amount of transportation and as a result, few
number of workers come to the banking retails for handling the operational activities.
Moreover, it is tough situation for this banking sector to manage all of the operational
banking services for customers’ satisfaction. Though there is a factor for making as issue that
lack of online operating skills (Sabir et al., 2014). However, it is impossible for all of the

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employees to operate the online platform of this banking sector. This makes a serious issue
for this sector.
Marketing strategy – The marketing strategy is measured as the important section for the
banking industry because with the help of this sector, the banking sector promotes their
business through various online platform including social media or other promotional
activities. But due to this Covid-19 situation, the banking sector does not promote their
services through the online platform (Li et al., 2017). However, in this critical situation, it is
tough for the people for surviving in the society. For that, the customers only active to obtain
at least basic financial services like financial transaction or others. Moreover, to promote the
marketing strategy it requires lots of financial support for the banking organization. But in
this critical scenario, the organization only provides the financial transactions to the
customers. However, they have no proper cash flow which helps to promote them for
increasing their marketing strategies (Wadsworth, 2018). Since they do not promote their
business in a proper way therefore they do not set themselves for making the competition
edge with others. In this way, this banking industry has faced few problems in marketing
strategy.
Discovering and explanation of possible changes
The banking sector has the responsibility to mitigate these critical issues for spreading
their operational strategy to the customers. The banking organization promotes their business
by setting retail branches as well as being as financial institutions and also providing financial
support to the other businesses (d’Udekem et al., 2014). This banking sector is liable for
growing the economy of the nation. For that, to support the nation’s economy, it is utmost
required to overcome the organizations from these operational issues. The mitigation
strategies of this organization are as follows:

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Mitigation of locational problems – In the description of issues, it has analysed that due to
having retail branches in the rural areas, there rises an issue of electricity which causes a
main problem for this banking organization to conduct the operational issues (Bascand,
2015). To mitigate this issue it is required to have an alternative system of electricity by
which the organization conduct their operational activities so that they can make a touch with
the customers. Another issue is that the banking industry does not spread their facilities to the
rural people due to lack of literacy. For that, the banking organization requires to teach the
employees how to behave with the customers about various facilities. The employees need to
take the initiatives for teaching the customers about the facilities so that they can understand
the benefits of the facilities (McDermott & Williams, 2018). By following these ways, the
organization requires to mitigate the locational issues.
Innovation of layout design – With the help of this layout system, the organization provides
their services to the customers through online platform. In the online websites, there requires
to make some changes in the layout designs do so that it is easy for all the customers handle
the online services of this banking sector (Ozkan et al., 2017). The layout of the online
platform should be clear and concise as well as easy for being understood by most of the
customers. On other hand, during the situation, there may occur some of the internet based
issues whose mitigation is necessary for getting the smoothing operation. For that, the IT
based workers should be active in their working hours so that they can fix the online website
based problems. Moreover, since most of the customers can utilize the online system for their
transaction purpose, therefore it is the responsibility for this banking industry to establish the
proper security system for securing the financial transactions (Hunt, 2017). However, due to
lack of security, the hacking procedures may occur in this industry which degrades the
marketing review of this banking industry.

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Set a rate of cash flow – As discussed in the issues description, it is analysed that the supply
chain helps to the banking industries to supply the working capital or liquidity of cash to the
other organizations for business purposes. But due to this pandemic situation, the bank of
New Zealand has failed to provide the proper financial services to the other businesses. In
this case, they require to set an exact rate of cash flow by which they can at least provide the
minimum amount of financial services to the organizations (Nejad et al., 2016). Also, they
need to set the financial services for a particular time that means a single organization can
help only one time financial support in a month. This kind of strategy helps to the other
organizations at least to conduct their business. In this way, the banking industry utilize the
supply chain by a certain rate of cash flow and can make a stability in their business to
compete with other competitors.
Human resource strategy – In accordance with the analysis of the human resource based
issues, the issues may rise that major number of employees are not coming are not coming to
the retail branches for their working because there is not having proper transportation in the
roads. For that, it is required for the human resource to arrange the work from home facilities
to the employees so that they can at least support to the operational activities of this banking
services. Otherwise, there may an arrangement of transportation along with the pick and drop
facility so that the workers can come to the offices by travelling through those transports. On
other hand, few number of employees have the skills for operating the online platform of this
organization for supporting the operational activities. For that, during the training period, the
human resource management requires to provide the training to the employees regarding the
operating of the online platform of this organization so that they can provide the proper
support to the customers. Apart from that, the human resource department should provide the
strict instructions to the IT based employees to implement the appropriate security services
for overcoming the hacking issues of the organization. However, within the database system,

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it consists lots of sensitive information of the organization and it is required to prove the
proper security to protect the information. Though this sector relates with the financial
purpose and customers based public sector, therefore among the sensitive data, it consists of
more information of the customers and for that the protection of the data is utmost necessary.
Marketing strategy – The marketing strategy helps to the organization for promoting their
business. Through this strategy, the organization can promote their businesses through the
online services (Goh et al., 2014). They can use various online platforms like social media or
other platform. Not only the social media but also for conducting the marketing strategy the
organization must use the offline method of marketing. With the help of offline method, the
organization can conduct their marketing strategy for promoting their business. To bearing
this marketing strategy through online medium, it requires to invest lots of money for
stimulating their business. But due to this pandemic situation, the economy of the nation
already slows down day by day because of having locked down. For that, there is not enough
amount of cash flow for the banking sectors. Due to not having enough cash flow, in this
critical situation, the main responsibility of the banking sector is to handle the customers by
providing proper financial support. But if the banking industry invest money in their online
marketing strategy, therefore it is tough for this industry to handle the customers in this
critical scenario. Therefore, in this situation, this banking industry should support the
customers by helping them to conduct the financial transactions. Apart from that, if the
banking company does their marketing strategy through phone calls or messages or emails,
therefore it helps to save money in this critical situation. As a result, it helps to conduct the
marketing strategy for the business purposes and on other hand, they can able to provide the
proper finance support to the persons in this serious situation.

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Conclusion
The conclusion part holds that the summary of the overall description of this report.
However, in this report, it has drew in a detailed manner that how the Bank of New Zealand
has faced various kinds of operational issues in the present scenario. The operational issues
may rise from the different background including location, layout as well as supply chain,
Human resource management and also marketing strategy. Due to Covid-19 situation, this
banking industry has faced various issues that the employees are unable to come to the office.
On other hand, the banking sector does not provide the sufficient amount of cash to the other
businesses due to this serious condition. For that, it causes slowdown of the economy for the
nation. They cannot conduct their marketing strategy fluently to promote their business which
leads to come back in the competition situation. In this dangerous situation, the main
responsibility of this banking sector is to offer minimum financial support to the customers
for surviving in their daily life. It helps them to stable their competition edge in the market. In
this way, the Bank of New Zealand can mitigate their operational issues by implementing
various innovative techniques.

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