***Respond to  two or more of your colleagues’ posts in one or more of the following ways: (Respond to each Colleague 100 words)

· Ask a question about the organization your colleague described regarding the practices that reflected good or poor financial management or the culture that supported those practices.

· Relate your colleague’s experience of how the culture supported the financial practices to an experience that you may have had or that you have researched

1st Colleague to Respond to:

Top of Form

Hello Class,

The organization I used to work for is Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo has two founders, Henry Wells and William G. Fargo. The organization was always to help customers go further by providing innovative financial services to help customers to evolve. Wells Fargo, since their inception, was to provide the innovation of financial services helping customers to process forward.

As an employee with Wells Fargo, it was very intense, and we were trained to be aggressive and force and twist customers’ arms to take services they may not need or want. The culture at Wells Fargo made you feel like if you didn’t do as you were told, you would be reprimanded and fired.

Working there was stressful and challenging, and being promoted to management was worse. A couple of my employees had a heart attack because of the amount of stress they were under. The environment was rigid and unhealthy.

Due to the stressful sales environment and expectations to meet sales goals, employees began to add services and products to customer accounts. This culture of survival led to fraudulent activity and unethical behavior. This happened across the bank and became the culture no matter where you lived. The primary thing missed at Wells Fargo was the unethical marketing activities, technological knowledge, and internal processes (Seidenstricker, 2018)

The financial management of Wells Fargo quickly became fraudulent acts. However, unethical behavior quickly became exposed, such as the cross-selling scandal.  Although the bank experienced much fraud, the company is known for financial planning, credit, and private banking. These successes are still known as the bank's strength and are professionally viewed as good.

 

Reference:

Allegretti, S., Seidenstricker, S., & Kasseckert, A. (2018). Factors for Success in Business Model Innovation.  Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability, 13(5), 10-42. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/factors-success-business-model-innovation/docview/2209456899/se-2

Bottom of Form

2nd Colleague to Respond to:

Hello Class,

My topic of discussion is my former employer, a company that produces HVAC systems for businesses and industries. Since its inception, this company has provided its client's cutting-edge engineering services and high-quality tools. Providing customers with innovative engineering solutions was always one of our primary goals.

Every day was a pressure cooker at this company, and I felt it especially keenly as the director responsible for all sales. Our executive leadership demanded that we find ways to increase the company's profits and speedily complete projects with higher gross margins to increase the size of their quarterly bonuses.

There were occasions when executives singled out specific team members for scrutiny, making the workplace more uncomfortable. The executive leadership made it much harder for us to conduct our jobs and grow the company. Some team members felt so much pressure that they were considering leaving the company and requested that I speak with HR on their behalf.

The CFO finally crossed the line when he asked me and ten other areas to make critical business decisions. It was decided that the directors would either take a 10% pay cut for six months or lay off three to four employees. I took the pay cut to shield my colleagues, but then the company's president and owner informed me that the CFO had been accused of fraud and unethical behavior. Furthermore, the CFO pocketed every penny of the savings to ensure that he would earn a bonus of $12 million. 

Allegretti, S., Seidenstricker, S., & Kasseckert, A. (2018). Factors for Success in Business Model Innovation.  Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability, 13(5), 10-42. 

3rd Colleague to Respond to:

· Briefly describe the organization you selected.

I worked for a credit card company who is no longer in existence and was bought out by another company (WAMU) that also had some deceptive financial practices in place. However, the initial company definitely experienced hardship from the consumer prospective based off of the way the company handled business. I started out in workforce management, which entailed the monitoring of call volume and optimization when it came to the call center environment.

· Identify the practices within that organization that reflect good financial management (or a lack thereof).

This company was penalized for mis-leading come-ons for credit card business, hidden and unjustified charges, and unauthorized add-on services. The company did not disclose information pertaining to interest rates and credit terms. They were mandated to refund $300 million back to consumers due to their abusive credit card practices. There was also a class action lawsuit that the company was mandated to pay $150 million to settle the allegations that they engaged in unlawful business practices that impacted consumer credit accounts.

· Describe the aspects of the organization’s culture that support those financial practices (whether good or bad).

The organization’s culture was an environment that was all about team work and how the employees could up-sell on products for every call. The benefits were good because the company paid a significant portion of our medical benefits, in which it felt as though we were paying pennies. This felt really good to have the support of a company, but there was so much disconnect as well. According to Guliyeva, “management of business leads to an effective accounting system” (Guilyeva 2020). When the company was going through this particular upset the organization’s culture was in a definite uproar. They showered the employee’s with incentives, to basically keep us in a spot where we wouldn’t go anywhere due to them taking care of our needs monetarily.

· Examine how the organization’s financial management practices have impacted its overall success. Be sure to include at least one specific example of how the company was successful.

The financial management practice impacted the company that bought them which caused a downstream impact to the larger company that bought out the old credit card company called WAMU. WAMU ended up buying this company for $6.5billion. This gave the company the ability to merge with another company that would assist with complimenting the loan portfolios that were currently a part of their environment and consumer base. WAMU worked hard at integrating this company into their operations, which resulted in some instances of the stock increasing. All of WAMU in the end was absorbed and bought by JP Morgan Chase Bank.

References:

Guliyeva, L. (2020). The influence of financial accounting and reporting on the management of a busines