Strategic Information Systems for Business: CBA Case Study

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the strategic information systems employed by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA). It begins by outlining the bank's organizational structure and the operational challenges it faces, including declining market share and customer dissatisfaction. The report then examines the strategies adopted by CBA to address these challenges, focusing on customer-centric approaches, technological advancements, and productivity improvements. The system acquisition methods used by the organization, including commercial software, custom software, and ERP systems, are discussed. Furthermore, the report includes a system flowchart illustrating the bank's procedures and identifies potential control problems and fraud risks. The second part of the report delves into the development and adaptation of accounting software packages by CBA, assessing the current market size, key players, and competitive advantages. Finally, the report highlights the gaps and challenges encountered by users of these accounting software packages and offers recommendations to mitigate these issues. This resource is helpful for students studying Strategic Information Systems for Business and Enterprise.

Running Head: STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Strategic Information System
[Name of the Student]
[Name of the University]
[Author note]

Introduction:
Accounting software is nothing but a software which is having the function of executing the
different type of transactions. The software also consists of another function that is to track and
operate the various kind of transactions along with the execution of the transactions. Different
types of business models are associated with the usage of the software due to the reason that this
type of software are very much efficient and are associated with favoring the various processes
that are included in the business(Grabinskia, Kedziora and Krasodomska 2014). This is a
literature review which is associated with discussing about the organization known as the
“Commonwealth Bank of Australia” which is one of the top four bank of Australia. The
Accounting software acts as the information system that is associated with performing various
processes related to accounting. The third party providers are associated with providing this
software to various companies that want to use the accounting software. Once an organization
wishes to use the software then the vendors are associated with distributing this software to the
organization (Aletkin 2014). Despite of this in some cases it has also been seen that the
accounting software often acting as an integration of both the two cases mentioned above but are
consisting of some type of alterations. There exists two type of accounting software and this
classification has been done depending upon the environment in which they work. The two main
categories mainly includes the online accounting software and computer based accounting
software. Besides this this kind of software are associated with providing the facility of giving
access of the accounts to the users any time and from anywhere (Malíková and Brabec 2012).
The literature review regarding the Commonwealth bank of Australia would be
associated with providing an overview of the structure that the organization is having along with
reviewing the various type of operational problems which the organization facing due to the

structure of the organization. Then the literature review has been associated with discussing the
system acquisition method adopted by the organization which includes the commercial software,
custom software along with the ERP. Followed by this a system flowchart has been provided
regarding the procedures in the bank. Lastly the control problems have been identified along
with identifying the various kind of frauds that might occur in the Commonwealth bank of
Australia.
The second part of the literature review discusses about the development and adaptation
of the accounting software packages by the Commonwealth bank of Australia. The second part
also provides an overview of the current market size along with identifying the leaders in the
market and what are the things that are associated with providing the bank with a competitive
advantage. Lastly the gaps ad challenges has been identified which are encountered by the users
or the customers of the accounting software packages and certain recommendations have been
also been provided in order to tackle the challenges.
Discussion:
Part 1:
About the Organization: Commonwealth Bank of Australia
Commonwealth bank of Australia is listed as one of the top four bank of Australia having
the highest number of market shares which has its branches operating in several other areas all
across the globe. The Commonwealth bank has been operating in various regions of the world to
provide various kind of services related to finance such as the “ services related to fund
management”, “ services like giving of loans and making of investments”, “retail banking”,
“education loans”, “other types of loan” and many more (Commbank.com.au. 2018). The

Australian Securities Exchange also known as the ASE has been associated with listing the
Commonwealth bank of Australia as the best bank in its report published in the year of 2015.
The major operations of the bank started in 1911 which was operated by the government of
Australia. The major competitors of this bank includes the Australia New Zealand bank, Westpac
and lastly the NAB or the National Australian Bank. Despite of being established by the
Australian government it become totally private in the 1996.
Structure of the Organization: Commonwealth Bank of Australia
The organizational structure of the Commonwealth bank of Australia comprises of the
management as well as the corporate sections of the bank. Along with the management the
corporate section the structure also consists of the various bodies responsible for managing the
organization along with the employees of the organization (Commbank.com.au. 2018). The
customers have also been considered as an important section of the structure. The figure that is
given below is mainly associated with showing the organizational structure of Commonwealth
bank of Australia. The various sections of the organization has been shown below:

Figure 1: Organizational structure of Commonwealth Bank of Australia
(Source: Commbank.com.au, 2018)
Problems Faced by the Organization: Commonwealth Bank of Australia
The Commonwealth bank of Australia is the largest bank of Australia but still it faces certain
problems and in this literature review we would be discussing about the major problems which
are faced by the bank, Commonwealth bank of Australia. From the latest market survey it was
found that there has been occurring a drastic fall of the market shares of this bank and due to this
fall in the value of the shares, the bank is facing certain problems while conducting its various
business processes mainly during the process of providing service to the customers (Sam et al.

2012). From the records collected in last few years it has been seen the major reason for this
facing this type of problem is mainly because of the reason that the Commonwealth bank of
Australia is making of strategies which are not at all suitable for the organization and the services
that they provide. After identification of the reasons that lies behind the major problems faced by
them the Commonwealth bank of Australia, they have started to implement certain steps which
would be helping them a lot in tackling of the problems that has been identified by them
(Commbank.com.au. 2018). This steps would also be helping them in making improvements as
well. but still some problems exists even after taking certain steps and it was found that the way
in which they were operating in order to tackle the problems were totally wrong and the major
reason due to which the strategies were considered wrong was because of the fact that they did
not understood the constant changes which were taking place within the market. The major
reason lying behind the alterations of mainly due to the organizational structure that the
Commonwealth bank of Australia was having and also due to competitions that exists between
the chosen bank and the other banks present in Australia. The problems were not only restricted
to this and started to grow even more when the requirements of the customers were not being
satisfied (Hammad, Jusoh and Ghozali 2013). It has been found that the customers are not at all
satisfied with the services that are provide by the Commonwealth bank of Australia because the
necessities of the customers were at all being fulfilled. This problem could be better understand
by making use of one example that is the bank was not capable of providing loans to the
customers and along with the interests which were also charged by the bank on the loans were
also high as compared to the other banks of Australia. This incapability of providing loans
according the needs of the customers also acted as one of the reason lying behind the downfall of
the shares (Leon 2014). All this reasons like the higher rate of interest and getting unable to get

loans when needed made the customers lose their interest upon the bank. Besides all this even
after getting loans the customers were not capable of making the payments for the loans that they
have taken in an easy way. Better to say that the payment of the loans was a very complicated
process which initially resulted in making the customers stop taking of loans from the
Commonwealth bank of Australia and made them opt for others bank that were having low rate
of interest and the payment and taking of loans is easy (Monk and Wagner 2012). This also
affected the new customers as well as they were afraid of creating new accounts in this bank and
made them move to other banks which consisted of a much more secure system and where they
can get loans in an easy way. The figure which has been presented below is associated with
showing the downfall of the shares of the bank. From the figure collected from a survey it is seen
that the shares of the Commonwealth bank of Australia was more than 76 (Sheridan and Jang
2012). At that time the shares was at a good position but it initially started to degrade with
passing of time. The figure has also been associated with indicating the fact that the efficiency
which is required for the purpose of holding of the customers is not at all present. Besides this
the effect of this downfall in shares is not only on the organization but is also having a huge
impact over the customers as well. The downfall in shares made the customers fell frightened
wile investing their money in this bank. Besides this the customers were also losing their interest
to take loan from this bank due to the fall of share values and higher rate of interest (Hartmann
2012). Besides this there also exited another problem which is the rude behavior of the bank
staffs towards the customers which acts as a major reason lying behind the creation of a negative
image of the bank amongst the customers.

Figure 2: Downfall of shares in Commonwealth Bank
(Source: Commbank.com.au, 2018)
Strategies adopted by the Organization: Commonwealth Bank of Australia
After deification of the major reason that lies behind the problems which are faced by the
organization certain strategies were identifies which are to be adopted by the Commonwealth
bank of Australia to eliminate the major problems and to achieve success. The major strategies
which the bank has chosen in order to do so are listed below
Customer related Strategies: Commonwealth bank of Australia realized that the
customers are the major assets of the bank and they should be considering the customers as the
element which would be acting as the first and foremost one, and this would be helping the
commonwealth bank of Australia to achieve success if they do so (Bansal 2012). Without the
presence of any customer a bank would become totally non-functional and absence of the
customers would be responsible for the closure of the bank.

Technology: Another major element in which the organization Commonwealth bank of
Australia needs to focus is the technology. It has been seen that the bank is associated with the
usage of traditional technology, so there is an essential need of focusing on this element. The
thought that is bank is having regarding the new technologies relate to banking needs to be
changes along with understanding the ways by which the new technology would be helping the
bank in achieving success and to eliminate the problems which are mainly occurring due to the
usage of traditional technology (Tsai et al. 2012).
Strength: The capabilities that the various teams of the organization Commonwealth
bank of Australia is having is associated with depicting the strength of the bank. The major
responsibilities of the staffs and the employees mainly includes the working together in order to
achieve the various objectives and goals that the Commonwealth bank of Australia is having
(Bryant 2012).
Productivity: Lastly comes the strategies related to productivity which is also one of the
major element associated with helping the bank in achieving success. The major thing which is
to be done by the bank is that they should keep an track of the annual records related to
productivity which the employees are having along with keeping a record of the entire
organization (Kumar and Reinartz 2018).
The figure presented below depicts the strategies and at what percentage they have been
adopted by the Commonwealth bank of Australia.

Customer 40%
40%
Technology 15%
15%
Strength 15%
15%
Productivity 30%
30%
Strategies
Customer 40% Technology 15% Strength 15% Productivity 30%
Figure 3: Strategies of Commonwealth Bank of Australia
(Source: Commbank.com.au, 2018)
System Acquisition method: Commonwealth Bank of Australia
The ERP or the enterprise resource planning has been adopted by almost each and every
organization in order to simplify the business processes. The Commonwealth bank of Australia
has also been associated with the usage of the Enterprise Resource Planning. The major reason
lying behind the usage of the ERP is for the purpose of creating various kind of controls that
would be helping the bank for its various business processes. The ERP used by the bank is also
associated with amalgamating the major portion of the business also (Chen 2012). Besides this
the information system required for the management and the ERP is mainly obtained by
combining the various major areas of the business that includes elements like the marketing,
planning, sales, finance, purchasing and human resources. Additionally the bank has also been
using the SAP or the systems, application and product model in order to manage the different

processes of the organization. By introducing the SAP in the business model of Commonwealth
bank of Australia the processes would become easy by this process of introduction is a very
complicated process which requires a lot of knowledge along with training in order to achieve
success while using this (Shamsuddin and Xiang 2012). The proficiency of the bank along with
the flexibility of the bank would be greatly increased by the usage of this SAP. This would also
be associated with integrating all the modules of the business at a rapid rate. Besides the usage of
the SAP is also very cost efficient. The major reasons lying being the creation of the problems
were the wrong strategies that were adopted by the bank in last few decades (Padmavathy Balaji
and Sivakumar 2012). The SAP model is updated and renewed at a regular basis for the purpose
of making the shares of the bank become much more stead. Besides this it is also being tried by
the shareholders of the bank to reduce the rate of interest rates of the banks for the purpose of
making the clients getting more interested upon the various processes of the bank.

Figure 4: Systems Flowchart of Commonwealth Bank
(Source: Commbank.com.au, 2018)
The figure presented above depicts the flowchart which is associated with showing the flow of
the various processes in the organization, Commonwealth bank of Australia. This figure is
associated with depicting the different kind of processes that are taking place in the
Commonwealth bank of Australia along with helping in the identification of the various
loopholes that are present in the different processes of the Commonwealth bank of Australia. The
flowchart depicted above have been divided into three categories which mainly included the
review, evaluation and lastly the response (Payne and Frow 2013)