BrandMatters

CBA/Colonial First State

Colonial First State provides investment, superannuation and retirement products to individuals as well as to corporate and superannuation fund investors. Their wide range and investment management expertise spans Australian and global shares, property, fixed interest, credit, hedge funds, infrastructure and private equity. Since their establishment in 1988, they’ve become one of Australia’s leading wealth management groups, with more than $145 billion under management globally.

Task

The Wealth Management Division of CBA was a disparate group of businesses merged together to form a singular division called Wealth Management. Many employees had come from different banking divisions, whilst others were purest asset or wealth management specialists. There were competing channels, different agendas and opinions, approaches and perspectives within an unstructured and yet to be disciplined Brand Architecture. An overarching, unifying aspiration statement had been created, but there was little understanding of how to bring this to reality. The aspiration statement was designed to create the right environment and culture so the division could perform even better by aligning all participants in the division to the one goal. The challenge was how to bring it to life and have it understood and subsequently

Approach

We commenced by educating the diverse group around brand architecture and brand hierarchy to have them understand the limitations of their current rather siloed approach. We then reviewed existing desk research; uncovering insights and then depth interviewed key leaders and operational personnel. We interrogated all existing information and key personnel to uncover the real challenges and personal agendas. Our results and analysis were then reported, then workshopped to describe current attitudes and revealing what was required to drive actual behavioural change. A large part of this process was to engender trust and have the diverse group “buy in” to an entirely different way of working. Underpinning the structure were recommendations for an entirely new brand architecture, organisational structure and communications and implementation plan.

Result

We identified and selected nine cross divisional “implementation champions” and worked with them on specific deliverables which presented the aspiration and the benefits therein. This included real, tangible activities that moved beyond temporary changes in attitude to sustained changes in behaviour. Programs, timelines and specific deliverables were identified. This resulted in employees understanding the role within their own division or brand along with the broader strategic agenda and how brands and teams needed to work together to achieve it. This sometimes meant giving up personnel allegiances to a divisional brand for the benefit of customers or the broader business. Despite being implemented over five years ago, the program still continues to deliver against measured cross divisional initiatives and engagement scores.