EXPLORING COMPUTER SUPPORTED CO-OPERATIVE WORK IN A

RETAIL BANK


Bowling DP and Espejo R

Syncho Ltd, Aston Science Park, Birmingham, B7 4BJ.
dpbowling@syncho.demon.co.uk
University of Lincolnshire and Humberside
Lincoln, LN6, 7TS, UK


Abstract
At the end of the 20th century advances in information technology have brought about
revolutionary changes in Retail Banking. Banking has moved from branch-based
operations to national or regional centres of expertise such as security and lending
centres. A full service for a customer will usually involve more than one of these centres.
But customers require this service to appear seamless. This paper studies the issue of
overcoming structural fragmentation for the small business lending process of a high
street bank during the mid 90s. It illustrates the use of a problem solving methodology
(Viplan) in the effort of integrating fragmented functions into "virtual" teams. This effort
was supported by information technology
Keywords: Methodology, Method, Information Technology, Virtual Organisation.

Introduction
SYCOMT, THE BANK AND THE TIME
This paper is based on a project carried out in the mid-nineties in a UK high street bank.
It was part of a Department of Trade and Industry initiative for Computer Supported Co-
operative Work. The SYCOMT consortium involved in this work included The National
Westminster Bank, Lancaster University and Syncho Ltd. The internet revolution was
only beginning. Banks had not yet moved to internet banking. However, changes from
branch-based banking to service and call centres had begun. Here we use the Viplan
Methodology (Espejo, 1993) to study the bank's responses to the changes that were
brought about to its operations by the new information technology.
Within the bank one business process, Small Business Lending, was studied in detail.
Small Business Lending is the lending of relatively small sums to small businesses
through the bulk lending system. These were loans to businesses that did not carry out
their banking though the bank's Business Centres, with their own Account Manager, but
directly through the branches and Lending Centres.
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Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
Successfully carrying out a business process depends among other factors on
The knowledge, training and skill of those involved,
Adequate resources being available to the process,
The relationships between the people and organisations necessary to carry out
the process.

The Viplan methodology allowed us to study the interdependence of these three.
Previous work in a manufacturing setting had illustrated the importance of organisational
structure on achieving quality goods (Bowling 1994). Here we study the inter-
dependence of quality services and the structure of the organisation underpinning their
production.
Information technology had influenced the bank to move away from branch banking to
the use of centralised lending, service and security centres. This move had permitted the
bank to make a more efficient use of its specialised resources but had also been
responsible for a degree of process fragmentation. Employees needed to co-operate even
more than in the old days in providing the bank's services to its customers. Our purpose
in this paper is to show the application of the Viplan Methodology in the re-integration of
the fragmented functions while still maintaining the banks service delivery strategy of
centralising resources in regional centres.
The Viplan Methodology and Method
THE VIPLAN METHODOLOGY
The Viplan Methodology is a Problem Solving Methodology that recognises the interplay
between problem content and structural context (Espejo, 1993, Bowling & Espejo, 1993).
It is a contextualist methodology based on cybernetic thinking and structuration theory
(Beer, 1979, Giddens 1979, Pettigrew, 1987)
In this example, the content was the Small Business Lending process and the structural
context was an area of one of the regions of the bank. Regarding content the emphasis
was on improving customer service and lending performance (see outer, learning loop in
Figure 1). Regarding the structural context the emphasis was on integrating a number of
regional functions into one virtual organisation (see inner, cybernetic loop of Figure 1).
To improve the business process itself we used a good deal of descriptive modelling of
the business process and conversations with relevant managers and employees. In the end
management introduced job swaps, new performance incentives and information
technology to improve the process itself. To improve the structural context we used the
Viplan Method. We produced supported by information technology a virtual business
area, integrating lending, service and branch resources. The virtual area improved its
performance by more than 60% over a period of six months and outperformed all other
non-virtual areas in the same region. However, our purpose in this paper is reporting
about the methods and tools we used in this work rather than about the transformation
process itself.
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Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank








Find out about
the problem
situation
Producing models
relevant to
named systems
Possibilities and Action:
Managing
the process of
problem solving
Studying
the Cybernetics of
the situation
Structuring the
problem situation:
Naming: issue,processes
tasks &
organisations
Structure:
Creating
the conditions
for effective
problem solving
and processes

Figure 1 The Viplan Methodology.









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Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
THE VIPLAN METHOD
The Viplan Method to Study Organisations (Espejo, 1989, Espejo and Bowling, 1999)
uses the Viable System Model (VSM) as a key model (Beer, 1979, 1985). The work
underlying this paper used the Viplan Method in full, however not all of them are
illustrated here. The method's five stages are shown in figure 2.
1. Establishing the organisation's identity:
This first step implies producing an identity statement making clear what the
organisation is about from a particular viewpoint. It defines the organization's
primary transformations, that is, the processes producing its products and/or
services.
2. Structural modelling:
This step offers structural criteria to break the organization's primary
transformation into smaller tasks. Drivers we use for this break are technology,
customers/suppliers, geography and time. These structural criteria depend on
the organization's strategy.

3. Unfolding complexity or Modelling structural levels:
This third step is a recursive definition of the autonomous units within
autonomous units operating in an organisation. These autonomous units are
called primary activities. In a diagnostic mode this unfolding makes apparent
the actual autonomous units in an organisation. In a design mode it makes
apparent the desirable autonomous units based on the identity definition. This
unfolding also depends on the organization's strategy.

4. Modelling distribution of discretion:
Allocating resources and discretion to primary activities, that is, defining the
functional capacity of primary activities. These functions are called regulatory
functions.

5. Modelling the organisation structure:
Mapping the allocation of resources onto the VSM.

Figure 2 The Viplan Method


The Process: Small Business Lending
The bank lends to business in a number of ways. The business process, Small Business
Lending is the smallest of these and includes both loan accounts and overdraft facilities.
Before the introduction of Lending and Service Centres, Small Business Lending was
carried out entirely within the branches. When the New Delivery Strategy was
introduced it became structurally fragmented. A loan required interactions between the
various centres and branches.
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Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
A customer may contact the bank either by telephone or by walking into a branch. Each
Branch Manager (and later, Lending Centre staff) can grant secured and unsecured loans
on behalf of the bank. This is the officer's Discretionary Power (DP). The amount s/he
could give a loan for depends on whether the loan is secured or not; a higher figure is
possible for a secured loan than for an unsecured loan. Where the loan requested is
greater than the DP of the member of staff dealing with the request, the loan must be
sanctioned either at area or regional level. Granting a loan will depend on the financial
circumstances of the borrower, therefore application forms are required and often an
interview. Where security for the loan is needed, security expertise is necessary to ensure
that the security is correctly taken, so that it can be activated if the customer defaults.
Figure 3 shows these activities.
1
Generate and
manage sales
leads for lending.
Evaluate and initiate
borrowing facility or
reject proposal
Manage security for
lending
Generate sales
leads for other
bank products
Control
borrowing
Manage out
loans and deal
with bad debts
Administer
lending
account
4
2
3
7
5
6
Lending
Handle customer
complaints, queries
and education
8

Figure 3 Lending Activities


Situation Before Introduction of Lending and Service Centres
At the time of this work the bank had recently introduced its new Service Delivery
Strategy with centralised lending and service expert centres. Before the setting up of
these centres each branch operated as an autonomous unit providing retail banking for
customers in their local vicinity. Figure 4 shows a technological model for branch
lending. Its technological activities suggest the likely unfolding of complexity within a
branch (see figure 5).
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Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
Back Office
Services
Securities
Department
Lending
Department
Loan Request
Branch
Sanction
Rejected/accepted
loan proposal
Security
Information
Security
Information
Managed loan

Figure 4 Small Business Lending within an Autonomous Branch
NatWest Retail
Bank
Region R
Other
Regions
Region R
Area A
Other
Areas
Area A
Branch 1
Other
Branches
Branch 1
Counter Services
Lending
Backroom Services

Figure 5 Simplified unfolding for the retail banking of NatWest before Centres of
Expertise
Within a branch, the physical distances between people and departments is generally
small. Many members of staff have done most jobs within the branch, or have become
generally familiar with the processes carried out by others. Customers are often well
known to the staff, therefore the staff frequently had a view of their credit-worthiness.
Regulators at area and regional levels oversaw branch banking. From time to time teams
of inspectors from the bank's head office inspected the branches in depth.
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Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
Background Information: Why change a Structure that works?
The structure outlined above had been the general structure for banks from before the
twentieth century. It had continued until towards the end of the century and had seemed
to serve banks and their customers well. A number of changes in banks' environment led
to the need to change the way banks were structured.
CUSTOMER CHANGES
At the beginning of the twentieth century only a few people used banks. In the latter half
this changed until most people had a bank account. This made it progressively difficult
for the branches to know most of their customers well. In the eighties the banks were hit
by bad debts in the small business sector as businesses suffered in the recession.
IT
Banking is essentially an information business. Rapid improvements in information
technology changed the way the business worked. The keeping of accounts moved from
paper based to computer databases. Computers became cheaper, faster and were
networked. ATMs were developed to provide access to cash without the need to enter
banks. Telecommunications improved.
COMPETITORS
With the changes in information technology, new entrants without branches came into the
market. Initially these had telephone access only. At the time of this work internet
banking had still not arrived. These competitors did not have a branch banking network
nor their own ATMs, nor were they part of the clearing system. They set up deals with
the clearing banks to be able to provide chequing services for their customers. The
cheque service relies on the bank sort code for identification of the customer's branch.
The new banks could use one sort code for the whole bank, whereas the older banks had a
sort code for each branch. This meant the cheques were returned to each branch for entry
into the customers' accounts.
BENEFITS OF EXPERTISE CENTRES
The new centres included in addition to lending and service centres , securities, business
and call centres.
Securities Centres
The taking and holding of securities is only a small part of a branch's work. It is highly
skilled. If a security is not properly taken the bank may not be able to use it if a customer
defaults. Customers are only involved with securities officers (whether in a centre or a
branch) at the beginning and end of a loan. Centralising securities can save costs by
centralising the holding of securities and pooling expertise.
Lending Centres (LC)
The lending centres concentrated on two aspects of lending: the management of all
lending - including overdrafts and the granting of loans to personal customers. Granting
7
Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
small business loans that did not fall under one of the business centres also fell to them.
Centralising the management of lending provided a much more rule driven approach -
assuring a consistency of approach that does not occur when this is distributed through a
large number of sub-organisations. Computerised credit rating is also easier to
implement. The lending centres also provided a central resource to the branches in
lending issues.
Service Centres (SC)
Service centres took over all the back office functions of the branches. The voucher
processing services of the branches (cheques handling and similar) was centralised and
the operation streamlined and speeded up. This also made it easier to offer voucher-
processing services to third parties.
Business Centre (BC)
Business accounts were moved away from the branches into dedicated business centres
with account managers running a number of accounts for a relationship service.
Call Centres (CC)
With service centres and networked computerised accounts it was possible for any part of
the organisation to be given access to account information. Many customer enquiries
were for matters as simple as balances and entry queries. These could be answered
immediately without the need to know the customers individually. Enquiries about loans
could be forwarded directly to the correct desk in the lending centre.
Lending after the Introduction of Centres of Expertise
After the introduction of the centres, the branches became places for face-to-face
interactions with customers. They were renamed Customer Service Branches (CSBs).
Counter services continued, but customers were encouraged to use ATMs for cash, direct
debits (handled by the new Service Centres) for regular bill payments and the telephone
to the call centres for general enquiries about accounts. Nevertheless, many customers
preferred to use counter services. This provided the bank with opportunities to initiate
the sale of the bank's other products that had been introduced.
The removal of back office functions such as voucher, direct debit and standing order
processing, and lending control freed space for customer interviews. Mortgage and
financial advice interviews could now take place more readily within the branches.
LENDING WITHIN BRANCHES
Branch managers and their lending staff retained Discretionary Powers. They could
make autonomous lending decisions within those limits. However, the branch no longer
had the means to control lending accounts - including overdrafts on current accounts.
This had been removed to the lending centres. Information about accounts was available
from the computers. Any paperwork to do with the accounts was in the lending centres.
All decisions about the control of the account - bouncing cheques for example - were
taken in the lending centre. Thus, a branch lending officer would need to contact a
8
Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
lending centre officer for detailed information about an account. Also, branch staff who
may have set up a lending facility could not be contacted by phone. All phone calls were
routed to the call centre and enquiries that could not be answered by call centre staff were
forwarded only to the lending centre where the customer's account was controlled. CSBs
were related to only one lending centre.
LENDING IN LENDING CENTRES
Lending centres gained all lending paper files from branches. They took over all control
functions of lending management. This included the checks to ensure that account did
not breach the limits agreed, the sending of letters to customers who had breached their
limits and the implementation of any charges incurred through authorised or unauthorised
borrowing. The lending centres managed the accounts until the decision was taken that
the account became a bad debt, when it would be referred to the specialist debt recovery
unit.
Officers in the lending centres never met customers in person. This always occurred
within the branches, with a CSB lending officer. However, the lending centres took all
lending related telephone calls. Lending centres were responsible for the loans of a
number of CSBs.
As well as their work in lending and controlling lending, the lending centre staff was also
responsible for overseeing the lending of CSB lending staff. As they did not have direct,
personal contact with customers, they were viewed as much more impartial in their
lending decision and used computerised credit scoring systems more rigorously. They
could not take personal knowledge of the individual into account
Study of Small Business Lending using the Viplan Methodology
The process we are concerned with here is Small Business Lending of Area 'A' and
Region 'R' of NatWest Bank plc. The issue is improving lending performance with
computer support for co-operative work.
MODELLING THE PROCESS
Small Business Lending provides:
controlled, risk assessed, lending to small business for business customers
who do not have an account executive,
directly through the lending centre together with branches
by remote assessment through application forms and credit rating software,
backed up where necessary through interviews
to provide the bank with a good quality small business loan book with
customers who will provide the bank with opportunities to sell further
products throughout their relationship with the bank.

9
Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
Figure 3 is a descriptive model of this process produced as a result of interviews and
observations. Each of its process activities can be amplified. Figure 6 shows process 2,
'Evaluate and set up facility or reject proposal' and figure 7 'control borrowing' are such
amplifications. Units in which the processes are carried out are shown in brackets for
each process. These two figures show large interactions between individuals in different
units.
Credit score proposal and
check risk grade. Make
sanction decision if:
a) information is sufficient
b) within DP
LC or CSB
Arrange and
prepare for
interviews
LC And CSB
Refer sanctioning of
loans outside DP
CSB or LC
Interview customers.
Sanction as 2.1.
CSB
Arrange facility
LC
2.1
2.2
2.5
2.3
2.4
2.6
1
Generate and manage
sales leads for lending
LC or CSB
Manage security
for loan
Security Centre
3
Administer
lending account
Service Centre
5
Generate sales leads
for other bank
products
7
2 Evaluate and
set up facility or
reject proposal.
4
Control borrowing
LC
Reject loan
proposal
CSB or LC

Figure 6. Evaluate and set up facility or reject proposal

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Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
Communicate
lending policy
LC
Peruse quarterly
printout and daily
lists,
action out of order
Provide
customer information
updates
Hold customer
review meetings
4.1
4.3
4.5
4.4
4.2
1
Generate and
manage sales
leads for lending.
Evaluate and
initiate loan or
reject proposal
2
Generate sales
leads for other
bank products
7
manage out
loans and deal
with bad debts
6
Administer
lending
account
5
4 Control Borrowing
Return cheques
exceeding OD
limit
4.6
Prevent SOs and DDs
exceeding OD limit
LC
4.7
Handle customer
complaints,
queries and
education
8
Contact customer by
letter to discuss
account

Figure 7. Control Borrowing in Lending Centres with CSB and Service Centres

MODELLING THE HUMAN INTERACTION SYSTEMS.
People in co-operation carry out the business process. These people perform
organisational roles, which interact to form the system to carry out the business process.
With reference to the Viplan Method (Figure 2) an identity statement or name for this
system, which carries out small business lending, is :
A system to provide secured and unsecured loans,
for customers of sufficient financial status,
through centres of expertise with highly trained, specialised staff,
to ensure the quality of the loan book and efficiency of service.

A structural model relevant to this system is shown in figure 8.
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Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
Service
Centre
Securities
Centre
Lending
Centre
Loan Request
(post or
telephone)
Sanction
Rejected/accepted
loan proposal
Security
Information
Security
Information
Managed loan
CSB
Security
Information
Loan Request
(in person)
Sanction
Rejected/accepted
loan proposal
Customer
files
Interview
information

Figure 8 Small Business Lending with the new Service Delivery Strategy
From the identity statement and the structural model we can look at the relationships
between those who need to co-operate to provide the lending. The mnemonic TASCOI
(c.f. Espejo and Bowling 1999) provides insights into the interactions relevant to the
named system:
T: Transformation (what inputs into what outputs)
Information about customers' financial status and (where necessary) security is
transformed into a loan decision and loan (or not) from the bank.
A : Actors (who carries out the tasks to make the transformation happen)
Lending officers from the lending centre and relevant branch, security officer from
security centre, service centre staff. This includes any member of staff with a higher
sanctioning level where the deciding officer's is not sufficient.
S: Suppliers (who supplies the inputs to the transformation)
Those contributing to the customer's financial status (other lenders, those providing
information about the customer's assets), credit information agencies.
C Customers (who receives the output of the transformation)
The customer receiving (or not) the loan
Owners (who manages the transformation)
??? (ownership is discussed below)
Interveners (those who are not directly involved in the transformation, but
influence it)
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Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
Lending Centre Manager, CSB Manager, Service Centre Manager, Security Centre
Manager, Functional Managers (eg Personnel, Finance, Marketing and Sales), Area
Managers.
The system and its performance are an outcome of the interactions among these
participants in the action domain defined by the named transformation.
LENDING, CSBs AND CENTRES OF EXPERTISE
TASCOI shows small business lending to be a business process that has a spread of
activities carried out by people in a number of units within the bank. As well as the
lending centre, security centre and CSBs, the service centre staff ensures that all entries
are correctly made to the account and that the lending centre is alerted if the account is
likely to go above its limit. Small business lending can be successfully carried out only
by the co-operation of people from these units. Often these units were widely dispersed
geographically, so the chance of people incidentally understanding the contribution of
others to the overall business process is not as high as if they were working together in
the same place. They have to create a shared interaction space to make more likely the
emergence of the system producing the named transformation.
TASCOI helps us to understand the purpose of the interactions between the various roles
involved. The forms underpinning these interactions, if they achieve stability, are their
relationships. Relationship among actors is likely to be different to that among owners;
the actor-owner relationship is likely to be different from the actor-intervener relationship
and so on.

Figure 8 shows the institutional units involved in the Small Business Loan System. Each
of these units had their own manager. There was no management team with overall
responsibility for small business lending. The Owners for this transformation were
unclear, hence the question marks in the TASCOI. In practice the area manager, the
lending centre manager, and service centre manager each played a part in managing the
process. This led us to suggest the creation of a multifunctional area team or MAT, with
the participation of these managers. This team had an important contribution in the
production of a virtual organisation for small business lending.
MODELLING THE ENBEDDING ORGANISATION
The process takes place within the bank. Figure 9 shows an unfolding of complexity (c.f.
activity 3 in Figure 2) for one of the banks regions during the transition from old
branches to new Customer Service Branches. It already shows centres of expertise as
primary activities. Whilst figure 10 shows a Viable System Model (c.f. activities 4 and 5
in Figure 2) for one of its areas. The Relationship Management Teams are shown in dots,
as they do not take part in the process that we are interested in here.
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Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
Area A
BMA B
Service
Centre
Lending
Centre
CAEs & Support
Team
CAMs & Support
Team
PAEs & Support
Team
PAMs & Support
Team
Corporate
Relationships
Personal
Relationships
CSB 1
Account Handling
(Processing Units) (Processing Units)
Lending Centre X2
Service Centre X2
BMA B
BMAs
CSB 1
CSB n
Old Style Branch
Corporate Rel
Personal Rel
Voucher
Processing
Gold Card
Personal X4
Small Business
CSBn
Dependent CSB
Counter Branch

Figure 9 Unfolding of complexity for the Area.
The Unfolding of Complexity for the Region in figure 9 shows in addition to the business
management areas (BMAs) two other primary activities; a service centre and a lending
centre. The call and security centres provided support for the lending centre and CSBs.
Both the lending centre and the CSB provided loans. Thus the Lending Centre and the
CSB are shown as organisations or primary activities in the VSM. The service centre is
in the business of transaction processing and as such it is primary activity of the bank, but
also in some aspects it provides a common way of handling the servicing of accounts and
thus is shown as a co-ordinating service. The call centres provided a means for
customers to gain access to certain information about their accounts and to make minor
changes.
The Lending Centre and the branches have considerable overlap. This is because only
the simplest small business lending can take place without both the Lending Centre and
the CSB becoming involved.
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Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
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Figure 10 VSM
Functions shown under monitoring and co-ordination in the VSM in Figure 10 are part of
the regulatory functions for the bank. For small business lending, the Lending Centre and
the CSBs provide functions that regulate one another. Lending methods were developed
in the Lending Centre (in conjunction with regional and national units). Lending Centre
managers overviewed the lending of the CSBs. The CSBs and their staff provided the
only opportunities for meetings with the customer. The cultures of the two, (Lending
Centres and CSBs) were very different. One led by control systems and the other
influenced by personal interactions with customers.
The above illustrates how the structure of an organisation can lead to friction between
people going about their daily tasks. The physical and organisational distance between
people who must work closely together, plus each being Interveners in the other's
transformations make daily tasks more difficult to accomplish. From the perspective of
the Viplan Methodology creating a virtual lending system integrating functions from
branches and the lending centre was a structural improvement to make possible a more
effective lending process.
15
Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank


Use of the Viplan Modelling Tool
The Viplan Modelling Tool (VMT) was used in the recording and management of the
data used to carry out the above study. VMT is software that Syncho has been
developing over a number of years. It is a research tool and is not available currently for
general use. It was used in the SYCOMT project as one technique to look more closely
at the interplay between the organisations, roles, functions and activities relevant to the
lending business process. It also helped to do their mapping onto a recursion function
table and a VSM.
During the interviewing of the bank's staff, the passage of information and physical
products was tracked from role to role and organisation to organisation for small business
lending. These could then be viewed in the "Process Tracking" window, an example of
which is shown in figure 11.


Figure 11 Process Tracking in Viplan MT
Some of these activities were concerned directly with carrying out the process "small
business lending"; others regulated it. The Viplan Modelling Tool is able to distinguish
between these. Thus, the tool shows the regulating activities and those regulated,
16
Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
together with the roles and organisations where these are carried out. Figure 12 shows
these.

Figure 12 Regulating Primary Activities
17
Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank

Figure 13 Displaying the VSM
Details from the VSM can be displayed as in figure 13. Thus Viplan MT allows us to
look at a business process in depth. We can look at the activities of the process and those
regulating it. We can see which roles are closely involved with one another and which
organisations those roles belong to
.
Computer Support for Co-operative Work
This type of study, together with the work of the Ethnographers from Lancaster
University, highlighted a need to re-integrate the management and the work of small
business lending. The rise of information technology had led indirectly to their
fragmentation as the bank moved to compete with the lower cost structure of telephone
banking, whilst carrying the high capital cost of the branches. Now information
technology would be used to support re-integration.
To do this a prototype was set up in the bank. As mentioned before a virtual team to
carry out small business lending was developed. This team the 'Joint Local Lending
Team' consisted of people carrying out the roles necessary to lend. One CSB was chosen
for this work. Members of staff from the Lending, Service and Security Centre who work
with that CSB, together with lending officers of the CSB made up this virtual team. Also,
as said before, a Multifunctional Area Team (MAT) was set up to include the Area
Manager, the Service Centre Manager, and the Lending Centre Manager. These two
18
Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
teams between them formed the core of a virtual organisation for the management and
delivery of small business lending. Further information about this work, has been written
up on SYCOMT's deliverables for CSCW (c.f. Synchos web site: www.syncho.com).

General Implications of this Work
For some considerable time the bank provided lending services through its branches.
With the rise of information technology, it became possible to centralise the keeping of
accounts through databases. Gradually systems within banking changed and it became
possible for customers to access information about their accounts easily by telephone.
Telephone banking them appeared. Without a branch network and the need for local
presence, this method of banking was cheaper. Since the mid-nineties, when this work
was done, the pace of technology has accelerated. Now telephone banking and the use of
call centres is widespread. These range from the selling and marketing arms of companies
of all types, through support centres for products and services to the offering of financial
and other services directly to the public. In the last couple of years internet has also
expanded rapidly. Direct remote connections are also used to pass data and information
directly from computer to computer between companies and within companies. Video
conferencing and web cameras provide remote means of sharing.
Growth in these media for doing business is set to expand rapidly. The Web, in particular
has given all organisations of any size the ability to communicate instantly with a large
number of potential and actual customers, simultaneously and relatively cheaply.
However, even for internet and telephone businesses these media provide only part of the
way they interact with customers. Similarly, within companies, they do not provide all
channels of communication.
We have all seen the positive and negative effects of this communication explosion.
Positively, there is access to information goods and prices that hitherto have been
unavailable. But most of us have also experienced the frustrations of services which have
become overloaded as the complexity of the rest of the organisation is not able to keep up
with the promises made in good faith through these vast amplifying systems. Many of us
have already been involved in loops of frustration as we have made a request through
internet or telephone services only to discover that the call centres are not linked to
provide the seamless services that we, as customers, desire. This can rapidly lead to a
string of unanswered letters, as the letters go to a different parts of the organisation which
do not understand the meaning of the communication. Meetings, where they can be
arranged, can often be with another set of individuals, not closely connected with the first
two.
This paper provides an example of the use of the Viplan Methodology and Method. They
offer a means to study the organisational structure necessary for people to work together
in virtual organisations using the potentials of current information technology. Further
exploring these potentials is the thrust of current and future work of the authors.
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Exploring CSCW in a Retail Bank
20


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