Capital city Finance and Mortgage Brokers
George and Mildred are very happy with the way you service your clients and are sure that you are a good fit for the team. They now want you to turn your focus to your primary task which is to assist in expanding the business by building relationships with selected real estate agents, accountants and legal firms through strategic alliances. They also want you to consider how CCF & MB can consolidate its relationships with its existing strategic partners.
Let's recap on what you already know about Capital City Finance and Mortgage Brokers (CCF & MB).
It's a family owned business providing a range of mortgage and finance broking services to the business and private sectors, with experience in all facets of finance and insurance providing expert advice covering a multitude of products and options existing within the market.
CCF & MB specialises in home loans, commercial lending, business lending, personal and motor vehicle finance and insurance (life and general), and focuses on helping clients find the finance service suited to their individual circumstances.
It provides its services through its association with the following partners:
• Australian Aggregators, a rising business in the aggregation business with an extensive panel of residential and commercial lenders, and asset finance.
• ABC General Insurance, a boutique insurance company specialising in a full range of general insurances.
• XYZ Life a small family-owned insurance brokerage specialising in the full range of life insurance products.
Based in the city, CCF & MB has the capacity to service clients from their office or anywhere at their clients' convenience through its team of mobile brokers.
CCF & MB does not hold a credit license but operates as a credit representative of Australian Aggregators.
Since its inception 13 years ago CCF & MB has built a loan book of almost $1.2 billion and averages over $120 million in new loans annually.
CCF & MB's vision is to be the mortgage and finance broker of choice in the greater metropolitan area
CCF & MB's mission statement is to operate professionally in accordance with legislation, our licence and professional standards
CCF & MB's values are as follows:
• to act with honesty and integrity at all times
• to provide unbiased advice and conduct business, free from any conflict of interest
• to maintain confidentiality in all dealings
• to meet all NCCP regulatory requirements
• to comply with all mortgage industry laws and regulations
• ensure quality and efficiency in its loan processes.
Task 1 - Identifying risk and applying risk management processes
George and Mildred have become very concerned about the potential risks that could jeopardise CCF & MB's business operations. They were very impressed with your growth and marketing plans for CCF & MB so they have now moved you into more of a general manager's role with expanded responsibilities, including managing CCF & MB's risk. As part of your new responsibilities you are required to develop a risk management plan.
In producing this plan you are required to:
1. Establish the context for CCF & MB's risk management plan
2. List and explain the tools you will use in assessing the risks you identify
3. Identify the stakeholders you would consult in establishing context and the tools you would use in identifying CCF & MB's risks
4. Identify at least two risks that CCF & MB could face for each of the six categories of business risk including strategic risks, compliance risks, financial risk, operational risks, market and environmental risks and reputational risks with an appropriate risk statement for each identified risk
5. Conduct a risk analysis and risk evaluation for the risks you have identified
6. Identify treatments for them
7. How you will monitor and review them in your risk management plan.
When you are defining the risk criteria you intend to use you are required to create your own risk matrix to address likelihood and consequence.
Document your risk treatment plan using a risk register.
You may make any assumptions in producing your plan but these should be documented either in the body of your plan or separately before you produce it.
Task 2- Improving the business
Over the last few months business for CCF & MB has been very good with a number of new clients coming on board as a result of implementing your business growth and marketing plans. However neither you or the business owners are satisfied with maintaining the status quo; as you and they are committed to a program of continuous improvement.
You all feel that CCF & MB's competitive advantage needs to be strengthened and a SWOT should be undertaken to establish CCF & MB's strengths and weaknesses including benchmarking the business against the industry. You now decide that you will carry out a diagnosis of the business including a SWOT analysis and a benchmarking exercise to improve CCF &MB's competitive advantage and its business. You are to produce a document covering your diagnosis which will be distributed amongst CCF & MB's key personnel.
As a minimum your document should cover the following:
1. The data you have used as part of your diagnosis to identify CCF & MB's competitive advantage
2. A SWOT analysis to identify CCF & MB's strengths and weaknesses, its threats and opportunities
3. How you identified and sourced relevant benchmarking data
4. How you selected the key indicators (and who you consulted with) for your benchmarking exercise
5. A consolidated list of the areas for improvement you have identified with a cost-benefit ratio established for each of them
6. Recommendations on the changes that may be required that will affect existing workflows or CCF & MB's organisational structure
7. A high-level action plan that will implement and monitor the recommended changes to be made.
Task 3 -Managing people performance
One of your key responsibilities as general manager is to develop and implement ways to improve the performance of CCF & MB's consultants and other staff members.
Answer the following questions:
1. Why is it important to consult with stakeholders when allocating work? What are the possible consequences of allocating work without consultation?
2. Describe the process you might follow when developing quantitative and qualitative performance criteria. You should explain how you ensure that the criteria relate to CCF & MB's objectives and how to motivate staff members to achieve these objectives.
3. Describe the different ways you might gather information about a staff member's workplace performance.
4. What are the benefits of evaluating and monitoring staff members on a continuous basis?
5. Describe how you might do this in CCF & MB.
6. Why is it important to document the performance management process? Explain the possible consequences of not retaining appropriate records of this process.
7. How can reward and recognition influence the work output of employees? Describe non-financial ways of motivating employees. Your answers should be no more than 250 words for each numbered question above.
8. Design a high-level performance management process for CCF & MB to be rolled out to all staff members.
9. Who should you consult when designing the performance management process? List who you would consult and the reasons why.
10. Develop a checklist for delivering regular performance appraisals, including a section for team leaders and supervisors to complete a section for team members participating in the performance appraisal process.
Your answer should be no more than 800 words.
Martin and Luis are working together on project involving the preparation for a loan application for one of CCF & MB's most influential clients, a property developer. Martin missed a deadline and the whole project is now behind schedule by a week. This is the third time in a month that he has missed a deadline.
Martin has had problems with meeting deadlines in the past and has already had a written warning.
As the general manager you have been monitoring Martin's performance over the past month, providing informal feedback about his role in the project. Although he has made several improvements
regarding his performance, his inability to meet deadlines has forced the delay of the client's development a further month. CCF & MB made a commitment to the client that the loan application would be with prospective lender two weeks ago.
The client is not happy that his he does not yet have an approval and is considering cancelling the agreement he has with CCF & MB and going elsewhere.
11. You have arranged to meet with Martin to talk about the project and his input. How would you go about providing constructive feedback to Martin?
Your answer should be no more than 500 words.
Task 9 - Showing leadership in the workplace
Leadership is defined as the ability to influence others. This assessment task requires you to reflect on your own ability to positively influence others in the workplace and the negative aspects of poor leadership.
1. Reflect on a situation where you have had a positive impact in the workplace. Please include in the reflective writing the skills, decisions and or behaviours you demonstrated that contributed to this positive change and what the impact was for the team, clients and the organisation.
2. Reflect on a situation which was or could have been damaging to the organisation. Please include the behaviours, standards or values that were demonstrated and explain why they were detrimental. (400 words)
3. In your role as the general manager of CCF & MB create your own personal performance plan. You may use your own personal performance plan or alternatively you can use the example below. In developing your personal performance plan you should ensure that your personal KPIs reflect CCF & MB's goals and objectives and how you can help in building CCF & MB's integrity and credibility.
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What are my
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Priority
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What activities do I need to
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What support/resources
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achieving my
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Actual date of
achieving my
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4. Feedback from colleagues, staff and management may be gathered informally and formally including performance review feedback. Why is it important to analyse and interpret all feedback?