ISSUE ANALYSIS BOARD PAPER

Table of Contents-

• Task 1: 2
• Introduction. 2
• Conclusion. 5
• Task - 2. 6
• Introduction. 6
• Discussion. 7
• Conclusion. 10
• References. 11

Task 1: The strategic issues faced by the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank

Introduction

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, which is popularly known as ADCB. It is the commercial  bank in the United Arab Emirates, which was founded in 1985 as a public share holding company along with limited liability. The bank was formed by merging Emirates Commercial Bank, Khaleej Commercial Bank and Federal Commercial Bank. The government of Abu Dhabi holds c.63% shares of the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank. It is the third largest bank of UAE, in terms of returns on investment, balance sheet size and offering of the wide range of retail banking and commercial services  to its customers. Moreover, the bank offers the products of financial markets in its local currency and USD (Azam, 2018).

Discussion

In a challenging economic environment, the performance of the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank has declined heavily. This is evident that there are certain issues, which needs to be addressed to combat the situation.

The strategic issues faced by the organization are as enlisted below –

• Only focused in UAE - Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is unable to generate sustainable growth in this current trend of changing market dynamics. The bank is only focused in UAE, this is because the higher authority thinks that they understand the market of UAE and their expertise lies in the lands of UAE. Not giving sufficient importance to any other group is taking the company towards its downfall. According to 2018, financial reports, 94% of the gross loans of the company are within the UAE. In order to perform better, in the upcoming financial years the bank need to change their thought processes and start concentrating outside UAE. All the other commercial banks are making money by focusing on the growing economies, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank also has to do the same thing for incurring more profits in the future (Khatibi, 2018).  
• Lower returns on fixed deposits – The current and savings account of the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is given much more importance than fixed deposits. The interest given to the customers on fixed deposits is very low, as compared to the other banks. As a result, the customers of the bank are shifting to other banks, where the rate of interest given against fixed deposits is higher. The bank must initiate new laws and change their rates of interest for fixed deposits, as this would help them in not only retaining old customers but also to attract new customers (Formica, 2018 ).  
• No customer centric services - Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is not focused in the creation of a great experience for the customers visiting the bank. The bank focuses in strengthening the technological aspect and is indulged only in the selling of the products offered by them. Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is unable to understand that in this hard core competition, it is impossible to withstand the competition without giving adequate services to the clients. Customers wish to receive a number of services and lack of fulfilment  of the desired wishes, is decreasing the number of clients associated with the bank. The bank has to change their approach in dealing the customers and start to give considerable importance to the customers and their needs and demands. Moreover, the bank need to understand the needs and demands of the customers in the first place, in order to fulfil them.
• No Risk strategy - All the commercial banks are engaged in some sort of pre identified strategies, in terms of risk and all of the banks has a separate department, which tries to identify upcoming threats and brings out a strong risk management strategy to mitigate the problems.  Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is the only bank, which does not follows such practise.  This ill practise has put the bank in to considerable amount of problems and due to lack of any strategy, the company is unable to combat the situation and this directly leads to loss.

For instance, in the year 2015, the shares of the bank went down considerably due to the low performance of the economy but due to no risk management strategy, the bank was unable to  overcome the situation (Cordesman, 2018 ).

• Inefficient workforce – The workforce of the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is not highly trained and efficient, as a result the quality of the services provided by them is also not up to the mark as compared to all the major commercial banks. This is the main reason of dissatisfaction among the customers and is leading to a large number of customers shifting to other commercial banks. This is hampering the profitability of the bank to a great extent. The reason for inefficient workforce in the bank may be due to lack of job recognition by the staffs or low morale and dissatisfaction among them. Thus the bank must take steps to increase the satisfaction among the employees, as happy employees tends to deliver their best.  The issue of the workforce must be solved as soon as possible, as it is  leading to low productivity of the organization (Rajaguru  et al., p. 80).
• Partnership – In this increased competitive market, collaborative nature of the commercial banks is the key to success. Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank lacks in this and as a result they fail to bring a big idea in to life. In most of the commercial banks, the relationship team treats their clients like that of the partners, as a result the customers feel wanted, which gives rise to the feeling of loyalty towards the organization. Moreover, the other banks also try to understand the nuances of the business, the specifications of the customers and their sensitiveness towards their culture. This is very beneficial in achieving the goals of the organizations. Thus, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank must start this practises to attract more customers and retaining the old customers (Woods, 2018).

Thus, the above given section deals with the issues which is contributing towards declination of the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank and steps must be taken by the bank to resolve the issues for its future profitability and sustainability.

Identification of the issues is not enough but combating the situation is. Thus, in the section the recommendations has been given to mitigate the issues, which has been already identified. The recommendations for the different issues are given below.

Considering the issue of, only focused in UAE, the recommendations are enlisted below –

• Much of concentration should be given to the growing economies for higher profitability
• The management of Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank must be flexible and should resolve to changes as and when needed.

Considering the issue of, lower returns on fixed deposits, the recommendations are enlisted below –

• The bank must initiate new laws and change their rates of interest for fixed deposits to retain old customers and to attract new customers.
• New schemes must be introduced for the benefit of the customers.

Considering the issue of, no customer centric services, the recommendations are enlisted below –

• Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank must become more customer centric and offer a range of services.
• Before initiation or implementation of a new scheme, the bank must keep in mind the needs and demands of the customers.

 Considering the issue of, no risk strategy, the recommendations are enlisted below –

• Initiation of a strong risk management strategy, in order to survive at the time of problems.
• Appointment of a separate team of employees, who will only be associated in creating a proper  risk management strategy and forecast of upcoming problems.

Considering the issue of, inefficient workforce, the recommendations are enlisted below –

• Introduction of various techniques to improve employee satisfaction.
• Various training and development programs must be implemented, for increasing the efficiency of the workers.

Conclusion

Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank is one of the most popular banks of United Arab Emirates. However due to lack of proper strategies, the bank is unable to deliver its best. The issues, which are contributing to the low performance of the company has been identified in this task along with suitable recommendations to combat the situation.  

Task 2

Introduction

The term strategic issue is known to be the question of fundamental policy or the affecting critical challenges to the mandates of an organization, values of mission, stakeholders, structure, resources, management, processes and service or product level as well as mix. As the highly regarded Chairman of Nissan that is Renault Carlos Ghosn was arrested recently in Japan and was also charged with respect to the illegal suppressing of his income. Hence, the present study is focused on the issues related to politics, globalization, ego, multinationals, hubris and similar others.

Discussion

Evaluation and analysis of the study

Carlos Ghosn was known to be the chief of a car industry who was arrested because he was found to be raid the funds of company and also concealed the bonuses regarding the dodge tax. He was known to be the chairman for the company of Renault Nissan and was found to detain by the prosecutors in Tokyo based on the financial misconduct which was alleged. The organization responded that there was improper practices based on Ghosn and also the representative director who was Greg Kelly regarding the reports which were whistle blower (Abdel-Basset et al., 2018). Carlos Ghosn was considered to be the most powerful executive based on the automotive. Hence, he was arrested by the Japanese prosecutors; this was a shockwave in the whole industry.

Ghosn was considered as a leading figure within the industry of global car, which was known to have a fraudulent alliance within the France’s Renault, Mitsubishi and Nissan which was known to create second largest manufacturer of cars. Based on the broadcaster of Japan NHK and the service news of Kyodo, Nissan was known to pay Ghosn around 10 billion yen from five years to the month of March and the year of 2015. Consternation was caused due to the arrest across the whole world (Bryson, 2018). There were concerns that the alliance of Renault- Nissan- Mitsubishi can be broken without Ghosn’s influence. Emmanuel Macron, who is known to be the French President considered his government the main stakeholder based on Renault.

Position of the Chairman

Ghosn was considered as the key figure that was known to be behind alliance which was joined by Mitsubishi in the year of 2016. It created four top car firms with respect to the series based on interlinked shareholdings. Ghosn also was known to give an impact over the politics of British people, through the outspoken comments regarding the effects based on hard Brexit on the site of Nissan’s Sunderland. Apart from this, he was also considered to involve personally in the assurances which were acquired from the prime minister (Child and Lu, 2018). Hence, it was assumed that the manufacturing sector of car was not seen to be harmed regarding the aftermath of Brexit vote in the year of 2016.

Reforms of Carlos Ghosn

Based on the moment related to the strategic partnership of Renault and Nissan, Renault was known to hold 36% shares of Nissan and also Louis Schweitzer was appointed as the new CEO. Carlos Ghosn was known to choose for ensuring the operations of the implementation based on the alliance. He was seen to choose a composed short team where were 35 people for the purpose of exchanging certain skills within two companies. He was seen to select specific experts regarding the instruction based on a better integration than being possible. This also included the new fields of work and also considered to help the organization (Galbreath, 2018). The top management level were known to be composed by the specialists regarding the domain where there was weak Nissan.

The applications based on Carlos Ghosn’s reform for the new plan of Nissan revivial

This new plan was seen to affect the businesses based on Nissan. The factors which were affected are mentioned below:

Decrease in the capacity of the production: In the year of 1999, the level based on the utilization of capacity was 53%, the plan of Nissan revival wanted to be 82% by the year of 2002. For the purpose of the particular goal, the organization was seen to turn off the plants of three assembly and the two power points (Singh and Maurya, 2018). Hence, they were known to reduce the car models from 24 to 15.

Decrease in the cost of purchasing: Based on the term common purchasing, the alliance within the two companies that is Renault and Nissan was seen to represent with a large advantage. The plan also provided reduction based on the purchasing of 20% which was known to be significant as the represented cost of purchasing was 60% (Gao, 2018). This was the measure which considered decreasing the supplier of the material from the partners of 1.145 to 600. The supplier of the equipment was also seen to decrease from 6.900 to 3.400.

Reduction of the staff: Reduction based on the capacity of production was seen to impact over the employees. The NRP was about to reduce the manufacturing employees for around 4000, 6.500 employers for the network of Japanese dealer, 6000 employees from administrative and selling department and 5000 employees in case of spin off (Seidl and Werle, 2018). However, it was increased by 500 employees based on the research as well as development. All those firing considered 21000 employees and also 14% staff of Nissan.

Ghosn’s skills as well as leadership in multicultural management

Based on the analysis of multicultural aspects and the theories through the case of Renault and Nissan, the attention can be focused on the leadership based on Carlos Ghosn who was the CEO of Nissan and Renault in the year of 2009. He was known to bring the backgrounds of the culture and the vision of his specific strategy based on a company regarding the ambitious project. Before the analysis of the methods of multicultural management and the strategic vision, the cultural background based on Carlos Ghosn was analyzed (Min and Chizema, 2018). Based on the biographic information of the chairman, there was an interesting background of multicultural in to the life of Carlos Ghosn.

Major differences of culture in the strategic partnership of Renault and Nissan

Collectivism versus individualism: The term individualism refers to the societies based on the interest of the individuals which is considered to prevail over the group interests. Renault follows the concept of individualism (Mohammed, 2018). However, Nissan follows the concept of collectivism as, they tend to believe in the group of power.

Distance of low and high power: This term denotes the relationship and its type which is perceived within the management and staff (Pflaum et al., 2018). The power distance is known to be high within Japan and France. The Hierarchy levels are respected strictly in Nissan as well as Renault.

Conclusion

Based on the above discussion of the present study, it can be said that, it emphasized the evaluation as well as the analysis of the present issue along with the position of Carlos Ghosn. It also highlighted the reforms of Carlos Ghosn along with the skills and leadership based on the multicultural management. The major differences regarding the culture of the strategic partnership based on the two companies of Nissan and Renault was also discussed in the above section.

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