Organizational Change in Umpqua Bank Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Organizational Change in Umpqua Bank - Essay Example According to the research findings, it can, therefore, be said that one of the biggest challenges the bank faced was the influence of the culture in the other acquired bank branches on the culture of Umpqua Bank. Adoption of other banks involved retaining the banks’ employees. These employees had got used to a different culture and it was, therefore, a major challenge to make them adjust to a new culture smoothly. To overcome this problem, the leadership injected Umpqua’s culture into the other bank branches by bringing their employees in busloads to Umpquas stores to offer them with orientation. This enabled a real firsthand introduction to a new business world and which in turn made the employees feel the desire to change and hence adapt faster. It was a challenge for Umpqua to run its operations in a harmonious manner especially considering the fact that its individual stores were different in terms of size, demographics, and layout. In addition, the branches were al so different in the sense that their loan and deposit potential varied considerably. This, therefore, demanded individual stores be handled differently. The bank created a cross-functional task force to look for the best means by which the challenge could be overcome. The task force provided a strategic financial proposal which later streamlined its operations. Competition from other large banks posed a serious challenge to Umpquas desire to succeed. Banks such as Washington Mutual and Bank of America sent the leadership of Umpqua bank to the drawing board to come up with new strategies that would aid in retaining its culture now that their competitors had started copying their already-in-use strategies. In 2002, for example, Washington Mutual had its first ‘occassio’ branch opened whereas the Bank of America started holding experiments to ascertain the effectiveness of the branch design. To counter this, the leadership at Umpqua decided to invest in the best customer s ervice delivery as compared to their competitors. Umpqua's customer service, especially its in-store customer service which was unique, was its competitive edge and so it had to be perfect.