Summary: An institutionalized process implies that the policy-makers know best. When working with people, companies with a global presence have to be sensitive to the cultural contexts they come in contact with, which may be very different indeed from what they're used to.
We grew up believing that you stored money and valuables much as squirrels store nuts! The idea being that thus untouched, our savings in the Bank grow slowly, securely.
That process institutionalized in our minds.
Breaking tradition
Banks, assuming new avatars, are shaking up our traditional views. Now they themselves discourage you against things like long term fixed deposits or excessive liquidity.
Mutual funds are in high fashion, and ‘aggressive’ is the new banking catchword. Recently, Standard Chartered Bank won an award for investment advice in India, so obviously that’s what ordinary people are beginning to give the nod to.
Kudos for process?
In drawing in heavy investments from customers the powers-that-be might claim kudos for the new institutionalized process.
But I wonder, because on the other hand, SCB’s own credit card divisions in India seem, most intriguingly, to do their best to put off even existing customers!
Bound inflexibly
An institutionalized process implies that the policy-makers know best. following the overall business approach, strategy is thought out in fixed sequences - the same process formulation to be used everywhere, Asia, Africa, Europe, wherever.
Credit card schemes, for example, are bound inflexibly to the internally focused process with the new technology of call centres. Cost control finds them cheaper and recommends use, but customers and staff alike might agree that they’re rather ineffective for purpose – at least in India.
Cultural contexts
Management knowing exactly what to do and how to do it worked well in the days of the manual worker. But the new paradigm is that management does not know... diversity, for instance.
When working with people, companies with a global presence have to be sensitive to the cultures they come in contact with, which may be very different indeed from what they are used to.
For instance, the Western – e.g., UK/USA - view of company purpose generally is the short-term interest of shareholders; while in the non-Western view – e.g., Japan - it is seen more as the creation and maintenance of social harmony.
Depersonalizing process
Besides, management policy shouldn’t base solely on technology. As Peter Drucker said:
The foundations [of policy] have to be customer values and customer decisions…
Strategic decisions set to ignore the importance of context could well destroy the value for business it's expected to create.
For example, the credit card divisions in India probably fall down on customer satisfaction because of the telemarketing call-centres – since culturally neither maker of the call nor its receiver may be comfortable with the starkly depersonalizing process.
What’s missing is the face-to-face interaction that makes sense to the people of the region.
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