Westpac Bank's System Thinking Approach: A Case Study Analysis

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Systems Thinking
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Part A: Proposal Individual
Westpac is an Australian Bank headquartered in Sydney. It provides banking and financial
services to its customers. It covers the worldwide area and aims to build its customer base.
Westpac is facing several issues which include online banking, disturbance in the innovation,
increased number of scrutiny, etc (Grosser, et. al., 2017). The Westpac Banking Corporation in
order to solve these issues make use of System thinking approach so as to take better and
detailed decisions to cover the problems and achieve its goals and objectives. System thinking
approach refers to a holistic approach which focuses on the constituent part of the system that
interrelates and how it works so as to improve the working conditions of the company and
improve the ability of the employees to think. It is a theory which helps in solving the problems
when the company is in a complex situation (Armold, et. al., 2015).
Westpac has used a system thinking approach in its business operations in order to face the
challenges and brings innovation and fight against the competitors by covering large market
share and attracting more numbers of customers. System thinking approach is a problem solving
approach which helps in balancing the reductionist thinking and holistic thinking, which means it
is better to ask more questions so as to understand the situations in a better way and determine
how the various systems interact so that it becomes easier and convenient for the management of
the Westpac to design impactful and better solutions. System thinking approach focuses on
working as a team and allows all the members to provide a solution. It will help in the
identification of all the issues and creating solutions. System thinking approach also helps in
building participative nature and is a cost-effective approach and takes less time in providing
better solutions. Using a system thinking approach Westpac can bring various innovations in the
company by gathering creative and new ideas.
Intended or unintended consequences on stakeholders may include:
1) Failure of innovation, which means customers, may not necessarily like the new and
innovative idea Westpac has offered. This will affect stakeholders unintentionally. It will hamper
the image of the company and the profits of the company will decline.
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2) Customers switching to competitors: Another unintended consequence which stakeholders
might face is cheap and better quality offers provided by the competitors. This will result in
switching of existing customers to the competitors providing better offers.
Recommendations:
1) Westpac before launching the new innovative product in the market must test it on its
employees and ensure that whether the people would like it or not. It must charge the amount
which is in the capacity of the customers.
2) The Westpac can provide several offers or packages to its privileged or loyal customers which
can help in attracting more customers.
Westpac has used a tool named CATWOE which is a system thinking tool which analyzes the
problems critically and looks into the resources and environment to provide a solution to the
problem and inspire the stakeholders (Wang, et. al., 2015). CATWOE stands for:
Image: CATWOE
Source: By Author, 2019
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CustomersC
ActorsA
Transformation ProcessT
World WideW
OwnersO
Environmental ConstraintsE

Part B: Critique Individual
In Part A all the current problems faced by the Westpac has been discussed properly and
critically by considering the organizational and environmental conditions. The Westpac
Corporation has made proper use of system thinking approach and tools such as CATWOE to
determine the factors affecting the company and providing solutions so as to build the confidence
and trust of the shareholders as well. Through CATWOE tools all the problems and
consequences have been identified and Westpac has made proper use of it in improving its
customer base by promoting team building and team participation. The company has gathered
ideas from its employees and introduces the innovative product to attract a high number of
customers and increase its revenues and profitability.
There were some missing components such as taking approval of the stakeholders before using
system think approach and its tool. The stakeholders play a vital role in the revenues and profits
of the company. The decisions made by the company will affect its stakeholders as well and can
result in selling of its stakes to the third party (Parra-Valencia, et. al., 2018). This can result in
the diminishing of the image of the company and the loss of its loyal and existing customers. The
company shall conduct a meeting and inform the stakeholders of what it is planning to do to
solve certain issues as faced by the company. This will build their trust in the company and
goodwill will improve.
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References:
1) Grosser, K., & Moon, J. (2017). CSR and feminist organization studies: Towards an integrated
theorization for the analysis of gender issues. Journal of Business Ethics, 1-22.
2) Arnold, R. D., & Wade, J. P. (2015). A definition of systems thinking: a systems approach.
Procedia Computer Science, 44, 669-678.
3) Parra-Valencia, J. A., Lizcano, A. R., & Pineda, E. (2018). Strategic dynamic thinking to
manage public order: A systemic approach. African Journal of Political Science and International
Relations, 12(4), 54-62.
4) Wang, W., Liu, W., & Mingers, J. (2015). A systemic method for organizational stakeholder
identification and analysis using Soft Systems Methodology (SSM). European Journal of
Operational Research, 246(2), 562-574.
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