Back to Basics at Westbank Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Back to Basics at Westbank - Essay Example In other words, Ms. Jones must have a serious meeting with members of the board and make sure that the company is heading in the right direction, and that everyone in the company is ‘on the same page,’ as it were. If the company does not have a common goal (or goals), now is the time to do it, since the departure of Mr. Smith definitely heralds a new and exciting time in WestBank’s history. Now the company can start afresh, knowing that it has had some failures in the past with securing student overdrafts as did HSBC, but now it is flailing amidst the sundry musings of a—most likely—underpaid and underinformed work force. Therefore, it is up to Ms. Jones to set the company aright, although, truth be told, she cannot do this alone—she needs help. Most definitely, one of the key elements to her success is how the board meeting goes. She must find the unity of the company’s mindset, generally, in order to know how to proceed and take the d irection of the company. II. WestBank’s Former Reputation (325 words) Obviously, WestBank got into a lot of trouble by backing a bunch of unsecured debts, and that is basically where it ran into troubles. Let’s hope that WestBank doesn’t eventually do what happened to HSBC’s original parent company. â€Å"[Britain’s Midland Bank] was the biggest in the world in 1934, and then went into a slow decline, eventually being taken over by HSBC in 1992, changing its name to HSBC Bank plc in 1999† (Siklos, Bohl, & Wohar, 2010, pp. 168). In order to maintain the WestBank brand, it is of premier importance that all of WestBank’s dealings be transparent with Premier, the parent company. That was not the case at HSBC. â€Å"At HSBC, the bank was 'happy to discuss some of the finer detail in private meetings, but prefer[red] to restrict circulation of the internal policies themselves'† (De Neve, 2008, pp. 249). Another bank, Santander, was e stablished by having replaced various UK banks that had formerly been well-known. â€Å"[Banco Santander] is headquartered at the Ciudad Financeria Santander (Santander Financial City) in Madrid and employs around 130,000 people worldwide. The history of BSCH began in 1857 when Banco Santander was established by royal decree†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Wankel, 2009, pp. 106). It still holds significant appeal for the UK in the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). â€Å"In January 2000 Santander's holding in RBS peaked at about 10 percent. Later, Santander's support was critical to the success of RBS's bid for National Westminster, completed in March 2000† (Guillen, 2005, pp. 109). One of the mistakes that WestBank must learn from in its past is to not make the same mistakes in the future. In the next section it will be discussed what is currently the state of this particular bank and what it has to do to overcome its obstacles—and what Ms. Jones is going to have to do to make WestBank a winning brand once again. Obviously, there are steps which must be taken now to ensure success. III. WestBank’s Current Dilemma (300 words) WestBank’s current dilemma is very similar to that of what HSBC went thorugh. Right now, HSBC is going through a difficult time. â€Å"[For HSBC, t]he first-quarter reading was in line with the long-run series average of 54.9. Still, the