Decision Analysis in Financial Services Corporation - Assignment Example

This was particularly true post-September 11, 2001, when the Patriot Act and its companion Banking Secrecy Act changed and further complicated the way financial institutions did business, by requiring them to detect and stop money laundering procedures. Like many others in the banking industry, in the decade prior to 2006 FSC had acquired and merged with many other like firms. By that year the corporation was in the process of its largest merger to date, which was still some months off. In order to make the merger smooth and efficient, it became evident that most of their divisions needed to be streamlined and HR was one those divisions that were singled out.

One of those options was the balanced scorecard; an idea that had been around since the early 1990’s and had been implemented several times during the decade by the Human Resources of FSC, albeit without much success. Issues Based upon “How to Analyze a Case” from Harvard Business School’s Case Study Handbook, there are four situations that occur in most cases. The first is the problem or in modern speak, the issues involved. FSC needed to develop a balanced scorecard (BSC) for is merger and had begun to identify problems with its Human Resources Division as early as 2002. . With regard to the HR Division, the study revealed several weaknesses.

Of the six flaws discovered, five of those dealt with measuring the division’s progress and using those indicators to predict the future of the department and deal with any changes that would come about. To quote the paper, “the HR Leadership Team, which consisted of the HR CFO and managers of the various HR departments, did not regularly review departmental metrics or indicators; rather, it relied on anecdotal information from colleagues and internal customers relating to how the HR Division was performing.

” Still, it took another two years before the first primitive version of the BSC was first implemented. The division had also been making an attempt to implement the BSC since 2004, with a lot of resistance from the employees, who for the most part considered the scorecards a waste of their valuable time and another “fad” brought about by the whims of the top leadership. As expected without enthusiastic cooperation in the HR Division, especially in senior leadership, that first BSC failed miserably as did several reincarnations thereafter.

Yet Corporate Headquarters was determined to see the BSC brought about in the HR Division and bring Leadership’s thinking in line with the concept. After all, such things as Human Resources had long been considered of having no value addition and mostly referred to as overhead. The people at the top looked at exactly that, money, and if they weren’t convinced HR was a viable asset, it could be even further trimmed and the BSC was the best tool to prevent that.