First, describe your organization’s structure, citing your information source, including the “unit, department” to which you are assigned.

 

Undoubtedly answering questions and writing assignments on topics instantly relating to one’s job or favuorite priorities can be both an interesting and a worthwhile activity. Fortunately, I work in a Banking venture “The Nordea Bank AB” in Oslo Norway as a Banking Consultant.

 

This Nordea Bank AB is the main branch in Norway, but originally it is a “Stockholm-based financial services group”operating in Northern Europe, and it is the largest financial services group in Northern Europe (Scandinavian and Baltic countries).

 

The bank’s multifunctional activities as stated by its prospective show that “Nordea has leading positions within corporate merchant banking as well as retail banking and private banking”. (Nordea Bank – Facts and Figures 2012).

 

Due to its high credit rating, Nordea has greatly expanded, both vertically (in its services and relations) and horizontally (in opening new branches). Today Nordea has about one thousand and four hundred “1 400 branches and call centres in all Nordic countries and has a highly competitive e-bank”(Nordea Bank i.b.d). For these reasons Nordea has now the largest distribution network in the Nordic and Baltic Sea regions.

 

www.nordea.com

 

The organization structure looks like the following as the diagram below illustrates:

 

Diagram 1 - Group Organization

 

The department which I am assigned is wholesale Banking department (specializing in Sales & Strategic Alliances, Acquiring).  The structure of wholesale banking is pretty similar to the organizational structure, since this Wholesale banking is divided into smaller sections that consist of Management, Financial and Risk Control, Strategy, Human Recourses and Compliance.

 

Diagram 2 - Wholesale Banking

In following John Child’s “Organizational Structure” in which he defines the components of organization, I might be able to conclude some general observations.

 

Firstly, structurally, Nordea has “basic structure” with hierarchy levels and layers of specializations consisting of roles, groups and units, and procedures which define the rules and the standards.

 

Secondly, I believe that the leaders in my organization have adopted this structure because it is very clear and straightforward. Their choice could have been motivated by the kind of governance and the defining of the tasks and responsibilities into which every employee is assigned.

 

Thirdly, this structure does not shape the framework of Nordea Banking in Norway alone, but is also used in other countries where Nordea exists (Sweden, Denmark, and Finland etc.)

 

My source of information, which I had access to, is Nordea`s local network (Internet) and some informal conversations with the leaders at different levels in the organization.

 

Nordea banking group has both a vision and a hope and for which it works hardly. That objective is to become a great European and probably an international bank. To make that dream possible, the organization has to define its primary processes. In John Child’s identifications, the key organizing processes necessary are: integration, control and reward. These organizing processes, in my opinion, are essential for my organization to achieve its “strategic objectives”.

 

Integration, as an organizational process, in my organization (Nordea) is mostly conducted and achieved through direct, horizontal communication and relationships between employees by e-mails, phones or meetings. When it comes to control, my organization personnel use different- several strategies of control. The large part of control is conducted by developing personal identification with management goals and few formal controls, but at the same time small parts of control is done through breaking down of tasks to definable elements, including budgetary, reward and punishment systems. The control strategy in my organization is therefore, a “mixture” of cultural- and bureaucratic control”. Finally we should review the reward system.  My organization usually rewards the good and qualified employees, but unfortunately there is no standard rewarding system yet.

 

“Boundary – crossing, as John Child 2004 describes is “transaction across an organization’s boundaries. In other words, this means sharing and exchanging of ideas, information and experience with allied firms, banks or organizations. In this sense, Nordea has won many business partners; one most important alliance is Nets Norway. Nordea has lately outsourced the whole IT unit in Acquiring department to Nets Norway, which is an allied to Nordea. The main reason for this alliance is to benefit from the knowledge of Nets Norway. John Child also describes “Outsourcing” that involves defining the activities to be undertaken within a company in relation to.”

 

References:

Nordea`s local network (Intranett) and internal documents from the organization.

John Child 2004 Organization: Contemporary Principles and Practice John Wiley and Sons Ltd