Lessons from a merger

The two brands were successfully merged, the iconic National Bank and its beloved horse disappeared, yet essential services and the loyalty of customers were maintained.

Craig Sims, Chief Operating Officer for ANZ NZ, reveals 10 things that made the merger a success – and some mistakes.

1. Align the merger to the strategic direction of the company – it’s not just a brand merger but an opportunity to transform the business with a completely new set of brand values and performance culture. During execution, assess and reassess to ensure alignment.
2. Build a team of experts – our team had plenty of experience and ensured everyone knew their role. Not everyone can know everything but everyone needs to know how the jigsaw fits together.
3. Use tried-and-true approaches to limit risk – when we brought the banks together on to one IT system we chose a contractor with plenty of experience in similar conversions. We added people with large technology project experience.
4. Use strong project methodologies – without strong project governance, you don’t know when you’re in trouble.
5. Know what success looks like – in complex projects it’s essential each step is done well and provides a strong foundation for the next. We used key decision point process and success criteria - if we didn’t meet success criteria at each stage, we didn’t go on to the next one. (This also helped us understand what had to be done and what was merely nice to do. A tight rein on scope helped with focus, resources and, ultimately, executing the change.)
6. Keep stakeholders in the picture – any brand change creates uncertainty. In the weeks post-merger we made thousands of phone calls and sent out tens of thousands of individual letters to customers and stakeholders explaining our aims and any changes that might affect them. Many customers were sad at the loss of the National Bank brand but stayed with us.
7. Frontline people are the best ambassadors – banking is all about relationships - customers trust the person they deal with at the branch every day. We ensured our staff knew our vision for a single brand and we gave them freedom to share that with their customers.
8. Keep communications simple and consistent – whether with customers or staff, a compelling story is vital. Clear communications and simple, consistent and inspiring messaging help people look beyond uncertainty and get excited about what’s ahead. High visible leadership is crucial to demonstrate a commitment to the values and direction of the new entity.
9. Have a post-implementation plan - we didn’t want to be the guy that did a victory lap before the race had finished. When we began planning for the transition, we recognised that a formal post-transformation programme would be necessary to ensure the changed processes and systems worked properly and were familiar to staff and customers.
10. Bake in a culture of change – financial services is changing faster than ever, driven by globalisation, regulation and consumerism. The merger engendered a culture where change is seen a continuing process aimed at the goals of simplified product offerings, better customer service and achieving cost efficiencies. 

Mistakes, we made a few… 

1. We set a tight timeline in order to engage the company in change but it quickly became clear it was too aggressive, mostly due to the time needed for full downstream integration testing of the IT system. It took courage to admit it was going to take longer than planned and reset a course where getting it right was more important than getting it done yesterday.
2. National Bank customers loved their internet banking system, so we assumed ANZ customers would love it too. But when we moved ANZ customers across, many were unfamiliar with functionality that was second nature to legacy National Bank customers. Most calls to the Contact Centre post- system conversion were from ANZ customers wanting help with the new format. Their feedback identified a lot of ways we could make it easier and more intuitive for everyone – and we have.
3. Leading up to system conversion we sent individual letters to all customers explaining how the changes would affect them. It was only when the changes happened that we started receiving queries from customers in serious numbers. So it’s clear not everybody reads mail from a bank and post-change communications need to be robust for when people are ready to engage.

Craig Sims is ANZ New Zealand's Chief Operating Officer and is responsible for ANZ’s Technology and Project portfolio. He led the New Zealand Simplification program which launched the new ANZ in October 2012. Craig has more than 27 years’ experience in financial services with senior roles in Retail and Business Banking.