how ASA works?

Also keeping ASA a dynamic institution is the close relationships that the field level and upper management staff develop as a result of measures adopted to ensure efficient operations. The Branch Manager (BM) is actively involved with groups, visiting regularly to check passbooks of individual group members with the books in the Branch Office. The District Officer (DO) visits two or three branches daily to make sure the accounts are up-to-date and accurate, but just as importantly to make sure relationships within the branches are conducive to a friendly work atmosphere. In fact, the DO makes it a point to regularly spend the evening in the units to better get to know branch staff, and get a better feel for what after-work hours are like.

DO visits to the field are of considerable significance and implication. You won't find the DO's desk swamped with paperwork. DOs get three documents from a branch office per month. That's certainly not enough paperwork and filing to keep an additional secretary or office assistant busy. There is no need for cabinets full of duplicate documents, or constant flows of papers back and forth. Instead, the DO visits a branch office, talks with staff, discusses any problems and their solutions, and before leaving makes sure books are in order. All books are maintained and decisions made in the branch office itself. The branch office generates its own profits and is assumed to be able to manage itself. The cost savings of decentralized management to the service delivery level are obvious.

This strategy of getting upper management to be more in touch with the field level is the central theme of ASA management, and crucial for keeping institution-level decisions responsive to field-level experiences. For this reason, decentralization continues at an unprecedented rate. Recently, District Managers (DMs) moved from the Central Office and now occupy a desk near the center of a district, about 50 branch covered by about 7 DOs. DMs supervise the DOs in his district areas visiting branches in the field regularly. One internal auditor previously in the central office also sits with the DM to regularly visit branches and audit branch office and group accounts. Because the DO handles all reporting to the Central Office from the field office, the DMs are free to spend there time keeping problems from developing and solving crises in the field promptly.

DM also handles all staff promotions and transfers easing the burden on the Central Office considerably. Other duties involve planning expansion of ASA into new regions, monitoring the revolving credit fund between branches for start-ups and overall smooth operations, and conducting training classes. Nearly all authority and responsibility of general managers in the central office has been shifted to these DMs now operating in the field.