Strategic Information System Analysis: Westpac Bank Overview

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Westpac Bank's Strategic Information System (SIS). It begins with an introduction to SIS and its importance in business, followed by an overview of Westpac Bank, including its structure, core business activities, and organizational changes. The report then delves into the problems faced by the bank, such as falling share prices and customer service issues, and the strategies adopted to address these challenges. These strategies include a focus on customers, technology, team strength, and productivity. The report also examines the system acquisition method, specifically the use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems like SAP, and discusses control problems within the system. Furthermore, the report touches upon accounting software packages, market size, and market leaders in the financial sector. The analysis highlights the bank's strategic initiatives, challenges, and the role of technology in its business operations, concluding with a summary of the key findings and recommendations.

Running head: STRATEGIC INFORATION SYSTEM
Strategic Information System: Westpac Bank
[Name of the Student]
[Name of the University]
[Author note]

1STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Part 1:...............................................................................................................................................3
About the Organization: Westpac Bank......................................................................................3
Structure of the bank: Westpac Bank..........................................................................................3
Problems Faced by the Organization: Westpac Bank of Australia..............................................5
Strategies adopted by the Organization: Westpac Bank of Australia..........................................7
System Acquisition method: Westpac Bank of Australia............................................................9
Control Problems in the System: Westpac Bank of Australia...................................................11
Part 2..............................................................................................................................................12
Accounting Software Packages.................................................................................................12
Market Size................................................................................................................................13
Market Leaders and Competitors...............................................................................................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................14
References:....................................................................................................................................15

2STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Introduction:
SIS or the Strategic Information System can be defined as the Information System which
has been developed in order to respond to the various business initiatives. In a business there
exists several business initiatives which are required for the purpose of making the organization
successful and to reach all the goals and objectives of the organization (Galliers & Leidner,
2014). The SIS or the strategic information system also associated with providing different kinds
of competitive advantage which initially makes the organization very popular and significant for
everyone. The SIS is also subsequently associated with delivering typical services and products
which are having extremely low cost and is focused upon the typical market segments. Another
significant advantage of the SIS is that it helps the organization in becoming much more
innovative by providing different kind of innovations for the processes and operations of the
business. The SIS acts as an important feature or characteristic of the IS or the information
system. The SIS helps in categorization, storing, processing and transformation of the
information (Arvidsson, Holmström & Lyytinen, 2014). The ERP or the Enterprise Resource
Planning can be considered as the effective and efficient method which is used for the integration
of the processes of the business. Thus it can stated that it is an integrated management system for
most of the business processes and this is mediated by different type of software.
The literature review which has been done below is mainly associated with discussing
about one of the major bank present in Australia known as the Westpac Bank. The review is
associated with discussing about the selected ERP for the bank which would be helping them in
conducting their various business processes (westpac.com.au, 2018). The review is also
associated with discussing about the requirements of the bank for various business processes, the
requirements of the system and many more.

3STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Part 1:
About the Organization: Westpac Bank
Westpac Banking Corporation or Westpac is an Australian based bank and financial
service provider which has its headquarter in the Westpac Palace situated in Sydney. This is one
of the Australia’s “Big four” bank. This is the Australia’s largest branch network having almost
1429 branches and 3850 ATMs. This is the Australia’s second largest bank in term of assets.
This bank also has its branches in New Zealand and is the second largest bank over there. This
bank started its business operations in the year of 1817 and was named as Bank of New South
Wales which was the first bank of Australia (westpac.com.au, 2018). Its core business activities
can be classified into five key divisions which mainly includes the “Consumer Bank”,
“Commercial and Business Bank”, “BT Financial Group”, “Westpac Institutional Bank” and
“Westpac New Zealand”.
Structure of the bank: Westpac Bank
The structure of the Westpac bank mainly includes the management section along with the
corporate section. Along with the management and the corporate section there also exists the
managing bodies and the employees. The customers are also included in the organizational
structure (Laudon & Laudon, 2016). There has been certain changes in the structure of the
organization. The Australian Financial Services or the AFS doesn’t exists anymore with the
CEOs of the Westpac retail and business banking. This model is responsible for strengthening of
the unique portfolio of this brand along with maintenance of the one team approach which has
been acting as one of the most important feature for the success of eth organization (Haux et al.,
2013). The figure provided below shows the organizational structure of the organization:

4STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Fig 1: Organizational structure of the organization: Westpac bank
(Source: westpac.com.au, 2018)
Fig 2: The block diagram of the organizational structure: Westpac bank
(Source: westpac.com.au, 2018)

5STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
Problems Faced by the Organization: Westpac Bank of Australia
Westpac is considered as one of the Big four Banks of Australia which has its business
running over almost all across Australia as well as New Zealand. The main business of this bank
includes the customer banking assisted by centers for home loans. Other business of this bank
includes the business banking, institutional banking, fund management and many more
(Pearlson, Saunders & Galletta, 2016). All this are done through interests in the BT Fund
Management. Despite of all this business processes the bank is facing a lot of problems. The
price of the share of Westpac has fallen by 5% at one point to almost an amount of $29.29. The
business processes did not looked too bad. The earnings by cash rose by 3% along with the
increase in the revenue by 5%. This isn’t any kind of development for the bank. A lower level of
profit has been seen due to the low price in the market. The figure which has been provided
below shows the performance of the Westpac bank in last few years. From the figure it is clearly
understandable that the stocks peaked few years ago with a $40 per share (Willcocks, 2013). But
now the share costs around $30 per share. The trend has remained to go down and with this the
shares has gone down to $28 per share. From this it is clearly understandable that the
fundamental backdrop is getting worse and worse for the organization Westpac bank.

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Fig 3: Shares of Westpac bank in last few years
(Source: westpac.com.au, 2018)
One of the problem which is included in the Westpac bank of Australia is the problems regarding
the employees who are working in the bank and also the staffs. It is often seen that in the bank
the officials are reacting in a rude way towards the clients. This is another problem which is
associated with the creation of a negative impact on the minds of the clients. For eliminating all
this problems the bank is associated with taking certain steps (Cassidy, 2016). This steps would
not only be associated with eliminating the problems but would also be helping in the
improvement of shares which they are having. However, the strategies which are being adopted
by the Westpac bank is not sufficient to tackle all the problems. This mainly happened due to the
fact that most of the strategies which were adopted by the bank were not sufficient in order to
match the constant changes which were taking place inside the market. The reason which lies

7STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
behind all the problems faced by Westpac is due to its organizational structure. In many cases it
was seen that the bank was not capable of fulfilling the needs of the customers and this initially
lead to different type of problems. Other reasons due to which the customers lost their interest
over the bank included high interest rate and the complicated way of loan payments. The major
impact on the customers due to fall in the shares was that the new customers as well as the old
customers were afraid of making any type of further investments in the bank (Majchrzak &
Malhotra, 2013). The fall in shares also made the customers afraid of creating new accounts in
the bank as well.
Strategies adopted by the Organization: Westpac Bank of Australia
After facing various type of problems it was understood by the bank that they need to
adopt certain strategies in order to tackle all the problems that they are facing right now in their
various business operations. In order to tackle all the problems the bank has been thinking of
adopting four elements for their various business process to succeed. The elements which have
been identified by the bank are listed below with a brief description.
 Strategy 1: Customer related Strategies
Westpac bank has understood the fact that the first and most important element required
for running a bank is the Customer. The bank having more number of customers to likely to
succeed. The bank would become totally non-functional if the customers stop visiting the
banks. Due to this they are thinking of focusing more on their customers rather on any other
aspects in order to satisfy their customers and to attract more customers towards the bank
(Amrollahi, Ghapanchi & Talaei-Khoei, 2013).
 Strategy 2: Technology related Strategies

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The second element where the bank needs to focus is the technology. The bank should
change the way they think about the new technologies. Technologies plays a very vital role in
success in today’s world. The bank has understood that they require new and more innovative
technology in order to deal with the various types of problems. The technology that they would
be adopting would not only be helping them in eliminating the problems but would also be
helping them in becoming more successful. The adaptation of the new technologies would be
helping the staffs as well as all the work that they do would become easier.
 Strategy 3: Strength related Strategy
The main strength of the bank is totally dependent on the capability that the various team of
the bank is having. Team work would not nly be helping the bank but is also necessary in each
and every organization. The staffs and the employees of the bank has the responsibility of
working together ((Ramazani, Zanjani & Vali, 2012). By working together the bank would be
capable of achieving all the goals and objectives that they are having.
 Strategy 4: Productivity related Strategies
The last element which is included is the productivity. This is one of the important feature
which is needed by the business in order to succeed. It is the responsibility of the bank to keep a
track record of the employee’s productivity. Along with keeping track of the employee
productivity the productivity of the entire organization should be recorded.
The figure provided below depicts the percentage of the strategies that have been adopted by
the Westpac bank.

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Strategies
Customer 40% Technology 15% Strength 15% Productivity 30%
Figure 4: Strategies of Westpac bank of Australia
(Source: westpac.com.au, 2018)
System Acquisition method: Westpac Bank of Australia
In today’s world it is seen that most of the organizations are associated with the usage of
the ERP or the Enterprise Resource Planning. The Westpac has also been associated with the
usage of the ERP (Luet al., 2012). Assisted by this ERP the bank has been capable of
manufacturing a variety of control associated with the amalgamating of the major portion of the
business. the management of the bank consists of the information system or the IS and the ERP
which are combined together for various type of processes of the bank which mainly includes
the marketing, planning, sales, finance and many more (Kumar & Reinartz, 2012). Westpac is
also associated with the use of basic systems along with the applications and different product
model or SAP model in order to conduct the various business process. With the introduction of
the SAP in the business model of Westpac there has arouse the need of lot of knowledge and this

10STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
has happened mainly due to the fact that the introduction of the SAP is a very complex process.
The introduction of the SAP would not only be increasing the proficiency of the bank but would
also be increasing the flexibility of the organization. The SAP would also be integrating the
various models of the business at an extreme rate (Kirmaci, 2012). The SAP is also very cost
effective. The adaptation of the wrong strategies in the past days is one of major reason lying
behind the problems faced by Westpac. The SAP is updated and renewed is done for the purpose
of making the shares much more steady. Besides this it is also being tried by the shareholders to
reduce the rate of interest and to make the clients much more interested towards the bank.
Figure 5: Systems Flowchart of Westpac Bank

11STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEM
(Source: westpac.com.au, 2018)
The figure which has been given above is mainly associated depicting the flow of
different processes in the bank. The figure has also been associated with illustrating the different
kind of procedures which are conducted by the bank and this illustration has been provided in
detail. Along with the illustration of the processes the figure has also been associated with
helping in the process of finding the loopholes which mainly exists in the processes of the bank.
The flowchart consists of three major categories and which mainly includes the review,
evaluation and lastly the responses (Kwak, et al., 2012).
Control Problems in the System: Westpac Bank of Australia
The different type of modifications that has taken place in the shares of the bank is
considered as the major reason lying being the problems which are faced by the Westpac Bank of
Australia (Hasibuan & Dantes, 2012). Along with this the different aspects that are responsible
for the growth of bank is totally dependent upon the shareholders, clients and the marketing team
of Westpac bank of Australia. The problems in the system has been greatly affecting the
reputation of the Westpac bank of Australia.
Customer Relationship Management
CRM or the Customer Relationship Management is associated with acting as one of the
major feature for any kind of organization especially for the banks (Alqahtani & Saba, 2013).
Westpac Bank is associated with the usage of the CRM in order to deal with the clients and it is
totally the responsibility of the bank to fulfill all the requirement of the clients. Customer
Relationship Management is the characteristic, which mainly refers to the techniques and the
various strategies which is used by the bank in order to maintain a good relation with their clients