Rabobank International
- MAKING THE CHANGE
4
Rl organization
What's News Issue 8 August 1996
The new strategy announced in June and aimed at transforming Rabobank
International into a worldwide customer focused, knowledge driven top quality
wholesale bank is already on track. But no one expects this transformation to
happen overnight, or by itself. It requires proactivity, effort and commitment, not
only from those directly involved in defining what needs to be done. According to
Henk van der Stelt, who heads up the team working on the separation of head office
functions from the 'branch' to be created in Utrecht, no one in the organization
should be sitting around, waiting for someone else to fill in the framework.
One of the most radical changes to come
out of the focus strategy plan was the
news that the current 'head office' would
be redefined into two separate units. One
would be shaped into what has already
been dubbed 'Utrecht Branch', while the
other would take care of 'head office
functions'. Says Henk van der Stelt: 'You
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO
INTERNATIONAL?
For the global network that grew up with the
Foreign Offices Department, which played a
major liaison role in their contacts with head
office, its disappearance from the
organigrams could seem like losing an old
friend.Will contacts now be more difficult?
'Absolutely not,'says Henk van der Stelt.'The
FOD may have disappeared, but its tasks have
not.They have simply been reallocated to
other departments which can provide more
specialized support. If you look at the history
of the FOD, you see it underwent an almost
organic growth. It began very small when the
could also say that our brief was to look
at the 900 people working here in Utrecht
and to define who was actually
performing a head office function. The
remaining staff, in fact, belong within the
branch structure to be elaborated by the
Utrecht management team.'
LEAN AND MEAN
According to Van der Stelt, the results
weren't big on surprises. 'Our aim is not to
centralize, but rather to decentralize
activities within certain boundaries. We
want a head office that is as lean and mean
as possible. Wherever possible, most
activities should remain in the
international offices, rather than
centralizing here. Our thinking has been
continually: an area of activity should not
be seen as a head office function "unless".'
COMMON SENSE
The 'unless' involved a number of
touchstones, including value added,
effectiveness, necessity. 'That's why I say
the results are not really surprising,' Van
der Stelt confirms. 'They turn on basic
common sense. Our thorough
examination showed that activities that
network hardly merited the name. Over time,
tasks were added, such as financial control, IT
and even human resources. We now have
specialized global IT groups and HR, so it is
more logical to concentrate these tasks in the
groups where they belong.
'There is also another factor here,' he adds.'ln
the past, there was a fairly clear separation
between the Netherlands and the rest of the
world.That will change because we are
forging our organization into one
international network. A split between
'International'and other divisions is illogical
now we're all one network.'
required a centralized approach were:
strategy;
control and audit;
human resources;
communication; and
global risk management.
These constitute the future head office
functions for Utrecht. Other activities
belong with the branches - wherever that
is most useful.
OPEN COMMUNICATION
This definition represented phase one of
the working group's mandate. The group
is working on a fairly tight Schedule. It
only began two months ago, but had
already completed an initial fleshing out
of these functions by early July. 'The
initial results of this second phase were
sent out to the Group of 30 and to all
Henk van der Stelt - rememher the cliënt.
general managers on July 9 with a request
to communicate them to staff,' Van der
Stelt confirms. 'But we're not talking here
about a top-down imposition of
decisions.
'What we want - and this is why this
report has been circulated to the whole
network, including Utrecht - is real
cooperation from everyone in the
organization to get the best framework and
to make it work,' Van der Stelt emphasizes.
'The document we have prepared is not the
framework. What we have said is: this
could be the approach. If people have
better ideas, then we want to hear them. I
think the name of the game here is to
involve as many people as possible. Having
said that, we shouldn't forget the cliënt. So
I'm not saying that all 2,000-plus
international Rabobankers should devote
all their time to this and forget the reason
we're all here - the cliënt. But I'm also not
saying that discussion on this truly
important matter should be limited to a
very small people. No one should be
complacent, no one should be sitting back
waiting for someone else to determine the
framework for your bank or activities.'
WAT WORDT
HOOFDKANTOOR,
0Ê^,. EN WAT BRANCH?
De ontmanteling van de
hoofdkantoorfunctie van Utrecht is in volle
gang. Alleen die taken die niet in 'Utrecht
Branch'thuis horen zullen hierin worden
ondergebracht. Flenk van der Stelt licht een
tipje van de sluier op. Duidelijk wordt dat
niet alles'van hogerhand'wordt bepaald,
het management staat open voor elke
goede suggestie.
