SQSM Oman Arab Bank

Introduction of the chosen organization

Oman Arab Bank SAOC is a great financial institution that was built in Oman in 1984 for presenting financial services for the Omani people such as loans services, depositing money, helping in establishing local projects and online services for money transfer and online purchasing. OAB has been expanding and developing its services to cope with the changing environment of the financial market locally and internationally and to increase its productivity and profitability depending on a strong operation management that is keen on developing the bank and achieving its organizational goals. The bank's operation management tends to provide innovative services of high quality to its customers including Islamic banking, investment banking, online banking, retail banking, trade finance, corporate and project finance and different ATM machines with the latest trends in credit, debit and master cards services for enabling its clients be able to make easy money transactions and different financial processes and projects with the help of the bank's services. The bank is also trying to meet the needs and wishes of its customers by applying new services they look for such as the Islamic banking services that was highly requested from the Omani society and the Arab world especially in the Gulf area.(oman-arabbank, 2016)

• AC 1.1: Explain the importance of effective operations management in achieving organizational objectives

Any business organization that seeks achieving its organizational goals should focus on having effective operations management as this can help the organization set its objectives clearly and plan to achieve them. OAB has main objectives which are providing customers with the most advanced and up to date banking services, reaching good productivity, achieving high profits and improve the bank's total quality levels. Operation management that is effective can enhance the bank's productivity by ensuring efficiency of all the bank's operations and plan for achieving its organizational goals; operation management should be the main tool that the bank uses to improve its total quality which is a major objective and this can be achieved if operation management is run by efficient managers who are well aware of their strategic roles, able to control the operations systems and can guide employees well for achieving the bank's organizational goals and are working according to the bank's vision and for achieving its values. As operation management is a functional business field; it should state each employee and manager's responsibility clearly and distribute roles fairly through an organizational plan that is timely scheduled and are set according to what is required to achieve the organizational objectives. In Oman Arab Bank, operation management is used in an efficient way to ensure sustainability of efficient work as the bank's operations management focuses on running all the bank's activities for the purposes to achieve the organizational goals as resources of the bank such as human resources are chosen carefully to ensure having talents and experts who are skilled and have advanced training in different relevant banking issues that may develop yearly and require such skills and experiences to cope with the development occurring in local and international changes in banking and financial markets. (Mahadevan, 2010)   

• AC 1.2: Evaluate the success of existing operations management processes in meeting an organization’s overall strategic management objectives

Managing the business operations is the most important managing process as it helps the business organization meet the overall strategic management objectives through the different processes involved within operation management and these processes need to be efficient and inclusive for all the business's activities. OAB depends on its operation management processes to achieve its strategic management objective as there are special operation managers who are responsible for decision making, planning, motivating employees and organizing work as they set the bank's objectives as the main target that activities of the bank are all going around  and they are also responsible for stating the activities meant for achieving the objectives such as dealing with the bank's clients, presenting the services, advertising the bank's services and offers and controlling the online banking services and ATM machines services as tasks are distributed to each department of the bank; the bank also depends in its operation management on partially decentralization in order to enable head departments to act as operation managers and guide employees towards achieving the bank's total strategic objectives. OMA also depends on delegating authorities as power is delegated among employees and managers in order to enable individuals to work as operation managers in the future and to have good relationships with their managers and the work which enables them to achieve tasks effectively yet the bank is also asked to achieve continuous evaluation for the processes involved within operation management in order to maintain sustainable efficiency of such processes and the bank can get aids from the time to time auditing processes in addition to evaluate the delegation of power and authority processes in order to get effective operation management processes. ( Barnes, 2008)

• AC 2.1: Explain the importance of effective quality management in achieving organizational objectives

Achieving the organizational objectives require the business organization to have effective quality management as quality management can ensure quality in all areas of the business and ensures the products or services are presented to clients on high levels of quality in a way that meets customers' expectations and may exceed them. Effective quality management in OAB is considered very important as quality management in the bank cares for establishing the policies, processes and procedures that are connected to all the business activities following the latest and most updated quality standards in banking services as the bank management is keen on ensuring the continuous maintenance of its ATM machines and online sites in addition to presenting new banking services related to loans systems and new banking systems such as Islamic banking that depends on Shariaa and has different systems for interests and deposits and loans that suit the common requests of Muslim customers for this Islamic banking service. Oman Arab Bank has added quality management practices that are suitable and coping with the international quality standards in order to enable its clients to enjoy services that are highly needed by the current financial society such as the service of SWIFT codes for money transfer among countries of the world and Oman in order to facilitate money transfer among banks of the world easily and with high quality and reach customer satisfaction by having services with the least risky potentials which helps achieve the bank's organizational objectives. Effective quality management can help the organization realize any demerits and then to find solutions for them as in Oman Arab Bank, the operation management makes regular observation and monitoring on the different tasks and this helps in identifying what employees really lack and how to support them in order to fill the gaps in skills and experiences as this can be done by training them either inside the bank or outside it. (Evans, 2016)                                    

• AC 2.2: Evaluate the success of existing quality management processes in meeting an organization’s overall strategic management objectives

In Oman Arab Bank, there are quality management systems that are based upon making regular check on different quality areas in the bank as the bank adapts a quality management process that aims at achieving high quality levels on all services and operations of the bank; the bank's existing quality management processes are based on achieving the bank's overall strategic management objectives by identifying certain techniques for measuring quality such as international ISO standards applied on banking systems and other testing solutions such as the Paragon software as the bank licensed FASTest for POS (Point of Sale) from the Paragon Application Systems (Paragon) in order to simulate and test the bank's used ISO 8583 financial message formats in the bank's payment infrastructure. This custom POS format was set by Paragon for OAB for supporting the bank's unique specifications.( paragonedge, 2014) The bank is then measure the quality levels in all its operations in order to improve the quality levels and it follows different criteria in making such evaluations such as the Evaluation of quality culture that tends to enhance the culture of quality in the bank, Efficiency of process criteria and the Evaluation for principles of sustained success management as this tends to ensure sustainability in all areas of quality in the bank. The bank uses auditing techniques to measure the degree of quality applied in all its processes and then applies evaluation on resources and materials to measure the costs and profits gained by evaluation. (Evans, 2016)                                

• AC 3.1: Plan a strategic quality change to improve organizational performance

According to Weinmann, (2016), in order to plan a strategic quality change for improving the bank's organizational performance; there are main steps that are important to plan this strategic quality change which are:

1. Making Categorization for OAB preliminary position.
2. Applying monitoring and measuring for the bank's position.
3. Checking the plan's direction.
4. Making efforts for achieving the plan's objectives.

The first step to apply such a change via a plan means to make deep assessment for the bank's quality change process in order to make effective analysis for the current strategic quality situation for the bank and identify its good and bad sides and reasons behind them. Then comes the next step which is progress monitoring and measuring for the bank's position and the plan's progress as quality management is to be checked from time to time in order to make sure that quality is done as required and according to the set measures that ensure achieving the organizational strategic objectives. After that comes the third step which is to check the direction of the quality application and to make sure that change is going into its right and desired way to achieve desired outcomes associated with achieving the organizational objectives and evaluation can be done by following methods to measure quality management in accordance with the international quality standards. The last step or part of the plan is to make sure that all efforts are exerted to assert quality assurance and to make sure that the plan of quality change is done perfectly and effectively in order to make sure of its success. (Balding, 2011)     

• AC 3.2: Define resources, tools and systems to support business processes in a strategic quality change

For defining resources, tools and systems that can support the business processes in a strategic quality change, it is important to stress that these three categories form the strategic quality change. Resources, according to Nickols, (2016) resources in OAB are those financial resources and human resources; the financial resources in the bank represent a great stability as it is a financial institution that need to have enough money, enough different types of currencies to satisfy the needs of the market and clients. The human resources are those employees and managers who support the quality change as they represent the manpower and the talents that the bank invests in and they the second priority in the bank's main assets after its financial resources. (Brown and Seidner, 2012) Tools can be defined as being the main techniques and values used to apply quality change in the bank as the techniques can represent the quality perspectives that help the organization achieve the needed quality levels while values are other tools that human resources depend on as they should have the values that are considered the tools that enable them apply quality change and ensure its sustainability. Systems are defined as the programmed plans set for satisfying customers and meeting their needs as this in general relies on the bank's resources both financial and human as they can with the effective tools achieve the perfect strategy quality change.  (Balding, 2011)     

• AC 3.3: Evaluate the wider implications of planned strategic quality change in an organization

In OAB; the planned strategic quality change has many wider implications and can be evaluated using the quality control, value manufacturing and operation management as the quality control can evaluate the strategic quality change as it can set a level of quality to measure the planned strategic quality change through checking the different activities of the bank such as the new services and how well they are presented to the clients and to measure the clients' satisfaction and at the same time the employees' satisfaction as it also sets measure for employees and makes different estimation tools to check the employees' and clients' satisfaction such as interviews, reports and questionnaires. The value manufacturing is another tool used by Oman Arab Bank for evaluating the implications of the planned strategic quality change as it checks the values employees have regarding quality and the bank's management makes regular checking on the ways employees use in asserting quality change through the plans set by the bank and this shows that the bank's employees are following the plan and its objectives. The plan set for OAB to achieve strategic quality change depends on operation management to integrate both quality control and values for the purpose of evaluate the implications of the plan by employing operation management activities to do this evaluation; in OAB the implications are all regarded through the activities of operation management. (Evans, 2016)                                

• AC 3.4: Design systems to monitor the implementation of a strategic quality change in an organization

In order to design systems for monitoring the strategic quality change implications in OAB, it is important to find a type for the design as well as the processing of developing the bank's services and strategic quality change implications as the four design systems for OAB can be the product design, the process design, the layout design and the network design, the product design system can be related to a certain product such as retailing banking service or Islamic banking service as the bank can focus on this specific service and monitor its implications in particular and check if they are done according to the required quality levels. The process design system can also be applied on services of Oman Arab Banks as it can be applied on the materials used to present the service such as the financial assets and on the methods of applying the service such as the way human resources deal with their customers and on the finishing of delivering the services such as profits that are presented to clients as all these processes should be checked and be done on a specific level of quality. The layout design is that design system that is related to where the service is delivered as it is related to demographic features such as those of Oman and the people living in Oman as for example, there should be specified for different social scales and categories as the quality of Islamic banking for example, can focus on including all the required activities to present high quality Islamic banking service that satisfy the clients and meet their needs. Layout can also refer to political conditions or geographic ones. The network design is another system that assimilates the previously mentioned four systems and it is based on making a network for connecting these three systems. (Hoyle, 2007)

 AC 4.1: Implement a strategic quality change in an organization.

For implementing a strategic quality change in Oman Arab Bank; it is important to make it effectively and have stated steps to follow as the first step can be having full awareness of the different business processes and then the next step comes that is analyzing those business processes and activities and making sure they are done effectively and on a high level of quality assurance and the third step is to make a comparison between the current processes and methods applied for the quality change and what was done in the past related to the processes and activities as the comparison will show that the progress rate the change is going on and how far the differences are between the current quality levels and the past ones in order to identify the performance gap and then to fill it which is the last step as this gap of performance must be filled through training employees on following the new levels of strategic quality change and to achieve their tasks on higher quality levels. (Braken, 2000)

• AC 4.2: Embed a quality culture in an organization to ensure continuous monitoring and development

In order to embed a quality culture in Oman Arab Bank for ensuring the continuous monitoring and development, it is important to include it into the bank's strategic plan for quality change and this culture should be applied on major parts which are the bank's vision, mission, values, strategy and goals. The bank's mission that represents the current position of the bank and its efforts done to improve the performance and reach higher quality as mission of the bank should reflect the level of quality that should be reached when the organizational goals are achieved and when the bank's objectives are fulfilled. The vision that should be realized and followed by all employees of the bank should also reflect the quality level as it can enable the bank's management to monitor if employees are applying the strategic quality change planned for and the vision can tell what employees need to do in future according to the quality change process and plan. The strategy of the organization should all reflect and represent the new quality levels required and all employees and managers should work according to this strategy in order to make development easy and outcomes represent the bank's goals as goals of the current stage the bank is encountering should also reflect quality that is needed in future to achieve the development and objectives of the bank. (Merrill, 2009)  

• AC 4.3: Monitor the implementation of a strategic quality change in an organization

In order to monitor the implementation of the strategic quality change in Oman Arab Bank; it is good to follow the four steps included in the implementation process and to monitor work in each step as at first all employees should be aware of presenting the business's process in the quality level needed for the change and they have to be asked about the new skills they have to master to implement the change and each of them should be evaluated and reports to be written about their performance. The business processes should be analyzed and then the work should be estimated by comparing it and monitoring it to write the main points that can describe the gaps in past work and current needs and after that all employees should be trained and divided into training groups based on the outcomes and the gaps found. (Merrill, 2009)

• AC 5.1: Evaluate the outcomes of a strategic quality change in an organization

The strategic quality change planned and applied in Oman Arab Bank can be evaluated according to the goals required to be reached and the levels of quality needed to be reached according to the improvement made in the bank's general and specific quality according to the different activities and missions done in the bank. Efficiency as well as effectiveness should be the basic and main measures that the evaluation focuses on as quality change is meant for developing them and filling the gaps in quality. OAB has developed its quality through the strategic quality change as resources should be investigated in order to check if they all have been used properly and effectively to improve the quality levels as the cost structure of the bank should be checked, profits should be measured and compared to last year profits as they have to be more and higher. The design and system of change can help the bank reach the best outcomes and satisfy customers as they have to be asked and their satisfaction can be measured through interviews and questionnaires in addition to calculating the number and scales of customers to check who joined the bank and made use of its services based on the new quality change. The system should help the bank reach competitive advantage and customer satisfaction as this can be measured through outcomes and profits in addition to the sustainability that should be applied on all activities and processes of quality. (Nickols, 2016).

• AC 5.2: Recommend areas for improvement to a strategic quality change that align with organizational objectives

Oman Arab Bank needs to improve its strategic quality change in order to meet the organizational objectives, raise productivity and profitability and reach both customers and employees' satisfaction in addition to reaching competitive advantage as the bank has to focus on sustainability of the strategic quality change on all areas of the business and to make sure that the new quality culture is well communicated among employees of all levels in order to make sure that they all work according to the new quality change mission and values as this will help in achieving the strategic goals and the organizational objectives. The bank is recommended to improve its internal and external environments that are related to the local and international financial markets. It is also asked to make more analysis for the Omani market such as the PESTLE analysis that can help in recognizing many areas related to the Omani market and to know the changing environment related to the banking industry as this analysis can show what changes occurred related to the social, political, economic, legal, environmental and economic areas in Oman which will help in updating the strategic quality change and make it coping with the new changes in the Omani market in the future. The bank is also recommended to evaluate all the levels of the strategic quality plan in relation to resources such as implementing it on the financial resources and checking how far it was useful to enhance the bank's capacity in relation to this resource as well as the human resources in order to check how far the human resources reacted to the strategic quality change and the implementations of it as this will help in developing the resources aligning with the change and in a way that makes it better when it is applied in the future and it can also fill the gaps of the current situation of the bank and its future situation. This can increase the bank's opportunities in being unique in Oman and perhaps open new markets or enter in new joint ventures with other international banks in order to gain better international opportunities and more success. (Balding, 2011)