Under A New Boss, It'S Abc Time At Anz

On December 16, a drama of a different kind was unfolding at Kala Mandir, the well-known auditorium in upmarket Shakespeare Sarani in south Calcutta. The top management of ANZ Grindlays Bank, led by its country head Anuroop `Tony' Singh, was explaining the new vision for the bank to its employees from the city and the outskirts.

The task wasn't simple: considerable confusion and misconception surrounded the ANZ gameplan and many of the employees were prone to viewing Singh with a fair degree of suspicion. After all, he had only recently joined ANZ from Bank of America, and had, quite suddenly, got into overdrive, meeting employees at similar dos, called "townhall meetings" , in New Delhi and other places. What was Singh up to?

 

Quite a lot, in fact. Since taking charge around the middle of last year, Singh, an aggressive banker who is also ANZ's regional head of personal financial services for south and west Asia, has been working on convincing the ANZ headquarters in Australia of the pressing need to restructure ANZ India entirely. To transform an apparently stodgy foreign bank operating in India to one which innovates and moves at a frenetic pace to deliver to the customer what competitors would think of delivering tomorrow. Singh was successful. And hence, began putting in place a detailed growth gameplan for the bank which sought to transform it completely.

Titled "Fast Forward to Win", the new ANZ growth recipe covers a huge array of areas _- business portfolios, technology and subsidiaries. The Indian management can spend Rs 150 crore over three years on this recast.

Says Singh, "Contrary to perception, ours is clearly an expansionist policy. We will grow the business and transform the bank to keep pace with the changes. The plan is to grow the business three times over the next five years. The plan will also be reviewed every year and minor course corrections made if necessary."

According to the plan, the investment areas would be in technology, distribution, new products, people and the brand.

With personal financial services (PFS) also his forte, Singh has set a target of getting the share of PFS in ANZ's India portfolio to rise substantially to 50 per cent, from the present 20 per cent now, in five years' time. By then, corporate financial services (CFS) will have an equal share of the cake. Not that corporate finance will decline, but just that with the overall business set to rise, the rate of growth of PFS is slated to be higher.

"We want to leverage our huge base of 500,000 customers and over 1000 corporates and emerge as a full service bank in every respect," explains Singh. The growth plan also aims at leveraging the fact that ANZ, with 40 branches, has the largest network among foreign branches in India now, and four new branch licences have already been acquired by the bank. "There is a corporate commitment to invest in the largest business outside of Australasia," he says.

Clearly, technology is also at the very core of the bank's plan to move forward. A spanking new technology platform, the Commercial Banking System (CBS), is being put in place which will lend a cutting edge to the bank's technology. The plan is also to transfer the success of its e-commerce leadership in Australia to its Indian business, as ANZ is certain that technology will determine the final stakes in Indian banking like never before.

ANZ plans to raise subordinate debt and liquidate surplus residential properties and has already identified 10 to 15 such properties for liquidation. The growth plans have also clearly been broken down to fit into ANZ's CFS and PFS priorities.

On CFS, the aim is to achieve market leadership in corporate and investment banking. Besides, a slew of new products are being lined up, including Web-enabled cash management solutions and channel financing for dealers. The plan also takes into account offering comprehensive risk management for corporates through currency options and interest rate derivatives.

The CFS offensive will also entail increasing ANZ's market dominance in advisory businesses including project finance, and mergers and acquisitions by investing in specific industries like oil and gas, information technology and the media. The unique selling proposition of the bank in the CFS area will be focused on high quality client services through dedicated customer service teams led by senior bankers.

On the PFS side, the offensive entails technology and Web-enabled services like Internet banking, enhanced branch access options, a greater number of branches and 365-day banking. Investments in non-branch channels are also being made, as in ATMs, doorstep banking, telephone banking and the like, to get the bank to the customer. Among new products are debit cards, global use credit cards, and demat OD.

ANZ has already obtained Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) approval for launching a debt fund through a separate asset management company. Also, the personal finance thrust will be made through subsidiary Esanda, where the ANZ stake of 51 per cent will be hiked to 75 per cent.

But ANZ knows that to put all this in place, a complete change in the attitude of the ANZ employees is required. Hence, Singh's townhall meetings, where he lays online the bank's agenda for the future and takes questions from employees. "The employees will need to change their approach, move from the rear to the front-room in some cases. There will be dramatic changes and they will be required to respond," Singh points out.

But the employees are not as bullish as he is. Says Dilip Dutta, general secretary, All-India Grindlays Bank Employees Federation:"We are not so sure it is an expansionist policy. The employees are very concerned about the security of their jobs in the changed environment, with a number of functions increasingly getting outsourced."

Dutta, whose union is affiliated to the Bank Employees' Federation of India (Befi) in West Bengal, says the employees do not have problems in accepting outsourcing where it has been provided for in the bank's agreements with employees, but the trend, he claims, is to get other non-agreement functions outsourced as well. A section of employees are also apprehensive about the impact of the CBS platform, once it is fully implemented. Besides, Dutta's union is also against the seven-day banking proposal, which he says goes against the West Bengal shops and establishment laws.

While Singh says that a Resource Management Centre (RMC) set up by the bank aims to assess employee skills and function as a kind of inhouse employment agency to redeploy people within departments, some employees feel the centre may be a first step towards identifying surplus employees.

In fact, the townhall meetings are also aimed at allaying such fears, says Singh, but even after attending the meeting, some employees and the union leadership view the plans with suspicion.

Singh is, however, clear that the spirit of open communication within ANZ Grindlays, which has now been articulated through the townhall meetings, will continue. The townhall meetings will now be held every six months, there will be external and internal customer satisfaction surveys and the bank will also encourage regular "skip level" meetings, where the boss of one department is not present when his team interacts with the next higher level.

"We are also putting together an intranet website for raising queries, disseminating information and addressing staff concerns," Singh says, adding that these initiatives are aimed at making the ANZ employee raise issues they want to and put in suggestions.

Singh is marketing his growth plan to employees by presenting it as a superior value proposition for them. How?

Tangible rewards will come in by way of pay for performance and recognition for contribution. There will be growth opportunities in the new regime by way of skill-building programmes and well-defined career progression. A greater sense of belonging will be instilled by better information access and frequent communication. Last, but not the least, a better work environment will come about by way of improved workplace conditions and enhanced technology, Singh says.

While the Kala Mandir meeting went off, by and large without a hitch, the challenge for Singh will now be to move the plan forward without any major resistance from the employees. A hardboiled banker, he will have to tread the middle path between meeting the needs of the fast-changing banking environment and a section of employees who fear their jobs may be the first casualties of this change.