A Case Study Of Barclays Bank Ghana Marketing Essay

A eccentric person Study Of Barclays banking concern gold coast Marketing Essay guest affinity precaution (CRM) is a broadly utilise and accepted st respectgy for nurturing a firms affinity with clients and c atomic number 18 prospects. It involves the use of globally accepted technological tools to technically organise and synchronize take in procedures, especially in the argona of gross revenue and market and technical support. The principal aim of CRM is to pursuit, attract, and keep nodes, grow and break got already existing angiotensin-converting enzymes and try to win back lost nodes as hearty as cut down on costs of pedigree usefulness. For any firm to start, grow and remain in championship the guest is vital and as such CRM is of key splendor. Business success kernel that firms must substantiate CRM as an ara to invest in it is an investment and not be counted as a cost. However, if CRM is not cargo arad properly it screw be costly and detrimen tal to any firm. On the different hand, if well(p) applied it military issue go a long way to enable any firm retain its clients base and subsequently grow its business.CRM to a very large extent affects the movements govern of nodes in any industry, for the purposes of this query the banking industry testament be judged. Attrition rate is hugely dependent on CRM guests in the banking industry vex grown in impairment of choice and stop. A high society therefore contains to strategise critically in its bid to retain guests. Of key importance in CRM is not just now smiling faces but value in gain delivery or superior product, leading to customer satisf bodily function and therefore customer inscription and retention, which is the pivot of financial performance (Reichheld et al 2000 Hesket et al 1997, Reichheld, 1994).1.1 GHANAS BANKING INDUSTRY digestThe Banking industry is soaringly competitive industry with 26 Banks currently competing for unified and Retail Clients. The industry is vastly seat of g everyplacenmentized with a total sh ar holders inventory of everywhere One billion, Eight hundred thousand (GH1,854,648,000), culminating to an average of over seventy one million of share holders fund per bank (GH71,332,620.00). This whitethorn seem adequate per bank, regarding the upward adjustment of the Stated Capital by Bank of gold coast by 2012. The average share holders fund is tho misleading as a number for banks are still struggle to even meet the 20 tail fin million minimum capital requirement by 2010. In heartyity, it is only just ab divulge 8 Banks whose capital is meets the Sixty million required by 2010. The Regulation to addition the minimum capital requirement of the banks comes on the back of the discovery of crude in Commercial Quantities. This is required to position the banks strongly to take be able to take up larger legal proceeding. While only quaternity (SCB, BBG, GCB and EBG) banks control almost 50% of the total assets held by the banking industry, the other twenty two banks are competing to increase their asset base to enable them contend with the larger banks. Profitability in the industry is quiet competitive as only four banks (BBG, FAMB, UTB and BSIC) made losses. The rest of the Banks made dough. With the developing spic-and-span oil economy and the resulting expansion in the gold coastian Economy, Banks are confront with a damp opportunity to increase their profitability and consequently, their asset base. They are however faced with loan recovery difficulties resulting in an average of 18% of loans disbursed going bad. The Continual reduction of Inflation to 9.44% and the Policy lending rate of Bank of Ghana, has forced the base lending rate of the Bank disport rates downwards. This however has ignited a price competition in the industry culminating into a debate on whether interest rates should skip any further than it has, especially when loans default rate remain s high (www.gold coastweb.com,www.bft.com)1.2 BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON BARCLAYS GHANABarclays Bank Ghana is one of the biggest and first opposed banks to enter the Ghanaian economy at a time in which the three major banks namely Barclays, Standard chartered and Ghana Commercial Bank and enjoyed oligopolistic positions before other banks entered the industry. Barclays has operated in Ghana for ni clamsy four age. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Barclays Bank PLC. Its vision is to become the best bank for every customer, in every branch, for every product and every time. Barclays Bank of Ghana Limited has an heroic sell and commercial banking network in the country with 92 branches and over 130 ATMs in all regional capitals and major towns. Its products and services are tar countenanceed extraly at the business and corporate, as well as retail customers. Barclays offers a wide lay of commercial, Retail and Treasury products and services. It in any case offers topical anaes thetic business banking product and services for Small Medium trys and indigenous businesses (http//www.barclays.com/africa/gold coast/barclays_in.htm). The Bank of Ghana in February, 2010 named Barclays Bank of Ghana Limited the biggest foreign bank and also the largest bank in terms of capacity to handle transactions in Ghana. In June 2009, Barclays launched its Bancassurance proposition in partnership with Enterprise Life Assurance Company Limited (ELAC) to enhance our product range with insurance product such as Term, Family Funeral class and Education Plan for the convenience of its customers.The Banks Premier Banking offers tailor made final results and one-on-one banking to its high net worth. The Premier proposition amongst others offers dedicated banking suites, financial planning, lifestyle alliances, global admission fee to Premier lounges (airport) etc. In addition Premier Life, a modern service proposition to replace Prestige Banking has been introduced. It is tar geted at customers who require genial banking, quick and efficient service as well as a level of privacy and recognition. The Barclays Offshore Banking Unit, the first of its kind in Ghana and indeed Africa South of the Sahara, continues to offer world class banking service to non-resident belowground clients and corporate. Industries financed by Barclays include cocoa, the backbone of the countrys economy timber gold and other minerals as well as business in the manufacturing sector and commerce. The banks sustainability programme concentratees on three pillars. Banking for brighter futures Looking after local communities and Charity begins at work. Barclays uses these key pillars to support developmental projects across Ghana. More than 80% of ply are involved in voluntary community programmes annually. Dubbed Make a Difference Day, it is the biggest corporate voluntary activity in Ghana. Barclays Bank of Ghana Limited is part of the Barclays Africa Group comprising ten (10) Afri advise markets under Barclays PLC(http//www.barclays.com/africa/ghana/barclays_in.htm)1.3 RATIONALE OF THE STUDYIn recent years, there has been a mental image shift from transaction focused policies to customer consanguinity focused policies. This is because the organic task of business is to create and keep a customer in a sustainable way and at an acceptable return to a shareholder. Levitt, Marketing Myopia. Majority of industries all over the business world father made varying efforts to go along with this shift in parade to be able to retain the largest customer base possible. Some dedicate managed it successfully whiles others are still woefully behind, and as such ineffective to break even. This dissertation is therefore aimed at examining the impact of CRM on customer attrition and also uncovers most appropriate methods of performance. As a cipher of fact it has become necessary to pursue this firmament as query to boost efforts of industries in their bid to uphold CRM in their business operations in order to retain and grow their customer base. An in erudition know conductge of CRM and its appropriate use reveals that it reduces attrition. Thus the aim of this explore work is to critically investigate the strategies of CRM and how it john be used to boost customer retention. The outcome of this enquiry will establish CRM as the lifeline to any industry and hopefully get firms to adopt to it and grow their business.1.4 STATEMENT OF THE jobBased on previous study, it has been established that bad CRM practise fire be very damaging for any business. A recently released Harris synergistic study confirms that a bad customer service experience with your bon ton is enough to make a majority of consumers run for the hills. The study account that 80% of 2,049 US adults surveyed decided never to go back to a business/ formation after a bad customer service experience. The study clearly indicates that an organizations customer service lev el is a be factor that will make or break a company (www.crm2day.com/library/50483.php). Thus it is no doubt CRM is one of the main factors change to the rise or fall of an industry.CHAPTER TWO2.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDYThe purpose of this look for work is toUnderstand clearly the concept of CRMProvide reasons why industries need to invest in CRMExplore the extent to which industries focus on CRM consecrate the merits and de-merits of CRMSuggest the methods of application of CRM2.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONAs a go along up to the aims and objectives of this question, certain questions will be examined using the findings and suggestions of some experts in this field as background. Jankowicz (2000) advocates strongly that knowledge does not exist in a vacuum, thus the present interrogation only has value in relation to the work already done by other people. With the in a higher place as a basis, this search work will aim at finding answers to the questions belowA definite des cription of Customer human relationship Management( CRM)How does CRM boost business success?What are the various ways of CRM application?Is CRM a field to invest in at all?How heavy are customers to any industry?Why do banks need CRM?2.2 implication OF THE STUDYWith recent developments in the concept of CRM and its impact on business industries Huber et al.(2001) state that many trade strategists and industrial-organization (IO) economists emphasize that creation of superior customer value is a key element for ensuring companies success it has become authoritative to re-examine by seek work the whole area of CRM establishing its importance and high resting reasons why industries need to seduce more focus to this area. The results of the look for will significantly achieve the followingContribute to the knowledge providing wide collar of the key factors in CRMEstablish CRM as a field to be invested inAssist industries that want to adapt CRM strategically pretend a useful a ddition to work already done in the fieldProvide a basis for further research2.3 mount AND LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDYThis research will be limited to the banking industry with special(prenominal) focus on Barclays Bank. It would befuddle been profitable to include other service industries but this will not be possible considering the broad constitution of CRM and the costs and time constraints which relates to the time frame within which this results needs to be submitted.CHAPTER THREE3.0 LITERATURE REVIEW3.1 INTRODUCTIONCustomer relationship concern (CRM) is bringing together of people, processes, and engineering wanting to provide soul of customer needs, to support a business strategy, and to wee long-term relationships with customers. Successful physical exertion of the integrated applied science requires appropriate business processes and organizational culture to adequately address human demeanoral elements. Because it is not simply a technology solution, success in CR M business is largely dependent on people. Customer relationship worry (CRM) is a combination of people, processes, and technology (Chen and Popovich, 2003) that tests to provide understanding of customer needs (Stringfellow et al., 2004), to support a business strategy (Ling and Yen, 2001 Bull,2003), and to build long-term relationships with customers (Wayland and Cole, 1997). Although enabled by information systems, CRM is not a technology solution (Rigby et al., 2002 Chen and Popovich, 2003). The core processes are handled by people and requires clear understanding of the goals of key decisions and system-people interactions. To appreciate the concept of CRM an evolution of it needs to be highlighted.3.2 growing OF CRMFrom the 1980s to the 2000s the research of CRM have progressed tremendously (Ling and Yen, 2001 Goldenberg, 2006). The evolution of CRM started from target marketing (Prabhaker, 2001) and sales force automation (West, 2001) to relationship marketing (Gronroos, 1 994) and has increased the need for customer information management. However, as the scope of CRM grew, comprehensive emphasis on technology has become the focus. At the akin time, the increased interest in CRM technology management has downplayed the importance of people issues, which are intimately obligated for successful CRM implementations (Goldenberg, 2006). New forms of competition and structural modifications of counterchange processes have led to the emergence of the relationship paradigm for creating long-term relationships among customers and suppliers. This is partly collectible to the globalisation of business, internationalisation, deregulation, information technology advances, shorter product life cycles, and the evolving recognition of the relationship amidst customer retention and profitability (Morgan and Hunt, 1994 Zineldin and Jonsson, 2000 Chandra and Kumar, 2000 Sahay, 2003 Stefanou et al., 2003). Relationship paradigm refers to all activities tell towa rds establishing, developing and maintaining successful relational exchanges (Gronroos, 1990, 1995, 1996, 1997 Gummesson, 1994 Morgan and Hunt, 1994, cited in Donaldson and OToole, 2002 Sahay, 2003). Through out the 1990s, in many organisations strategies, there was a shift from the need to manage transactions toward relationship management (Light, 2003). While enterprise re first planning (ERP) packages rule the transaction management era, customer relationship management (CRM) packages lead with respect to relationships. The relationship between marketing strategies and performance has been studied from numerous divinatory perspectives, for causa, transaction cost economics (Williamson, 1985, 1993 Park and Kim, 2003), market orientation (Jaworski and Kohli, 1993 Harris and Piercy, 1999 Martin and Bush, 2003 Nielsen et al., 2003 Stefanou et al., 2003 Shapiro et al., 2003 Bigne et al., 2004), and profit impact of marketing strategy (Kumar et al., 2000). The focus on the content o f marketing strategies has been valuable in identifying performance-enhancing strategies (Goodhue et al., 2002 Plakoyiannaki and Tzokas, 2002 Chen and Popovich, 2003). While the concepts presented and discussed in the above perspectives are clearly valuable and have clear meaning, they also resound a lack of accurate operating elements. Efforts made in this mode have failed to provide the concepts with sufficiently accurate and indicative operating elements (Grisi and Ribeiro, 2004). It is our view that past(a) attempts of extant literature on implementation of customer relationship strategies have been insufficient and not gone far enough in the alteration from the old to the rude(a). According to Narayandas and Rangan (2004), empirical research in relationship management has tended to take a snapshot of a relationship at a given time and then attempted to project its trajectory (Croteau and Li, 2003). This crevice has prompted tecs such as Anderson (1995), Jap and Ganesan (2 000) and Lambe et al. (2001) to call for more field- found research based on case studies that d dim on genuine from the multiple exchange episodes that constitute relationships and that offer insights into the processes of relationship initiation and maintenance (Narayandas and Rangan, 2004). Work on implementation of CRM strategy has focused on selective informationbase management, direct marketing techniques, e-commerce and customer relationship mechanisms (Ling and Yen, 2001 Winer, 2001 Shoemaker, 2001 Gefen and Ridings, 2002 Fjermestad and Romano, 2003 Apostolou and Mentas, 2003 Croteau and Li, 2003 Bull, 2003 Park and Kim, 2003 Chen and Popovich, 2003 Kotorov, 2003 Scullin et al., 2004). This has been most noticeable in business to consumer markets, and in services and financial services in particular. Donaldson and OToole (2002), indicated that though not all, many schemes are subatomic more than sophisticated selling. According to cycle and Vilgon (2002), many CRM impleme ntation projects are fraught with difficulties in terms of technically not delivering the anticipated business benefits. Hertz and Vilgon (2002) indicate that up to 60 per cent of CRM implementation projects fail to live up to expectations. The study describe in this paper aims to contribute to the existing literature on the relationship marketing paradigm and the implementation of customer relationship strategy by examining both of these issues. This is accomplished by providing a better understanding of the components of CRM on the one hand, and the implementation of CRM strategy on the other. CRM systems have been used for a long time to automate processes (Ngai, 2005). However, the system process cannot manage customer relations (Rigby et al., 2002 Chen and Popovich, 2003) because customer knowledge needs to be grasp by business managers (Bueren et al., 2005), the face-to-face communication needs to be performed by front-line operators (Stringfellow et al., 2004), and a custom er-centric culture needs to be formed by organization architects (Oldroyd, 2005). Although critical to the firm and dynamic in nature, the human side of CRM processes has gained little attention in CRM studies. Indeed, superior value of products/services delivered to customers leads to customer loyalty, the real driver of financial performance (see Reichheld et al., 2000 Heskett et al., 1997 Reichheld, 1994). Reichheld and Sasser (1990) show that, on average, a five per centumage points increase in customer retention leads to between 40-50 percent increases in net present value profits. A few years later, Reichheld (1994) reports that a decrease in defection rate (or an increase in retention rate) of five percentage points can increase profits by 25-100 percent and that this result is consistent across a wide straddle of industries. Satisfaction is a state of mind and it is only principal(prenominal) as an indication of the intention of the most important behavior of repeat purch ase, good word-of-mouth, and referrals. Reichheld (1994) states that customers who describe themselves as satisfied are not necessarily loyal. A cost benefit analysis reveals that huge resource allocation to CRM by businesses world-wide (estimated at $100 billion to date at the time of writing, see www.CRM-forum.com) has been primarily IT driven, not marketing driven. While CRM is meant to be about enable a customer orientation, often it is not marketers pulling the strings The just question for the marketing profession is whether to respond to the challenges raised by new technology. The authors are not suggesting that one size fits all. The assertion by OMalley and Mitussis (2002), that where the ethos of relationship marketing does not exist in an organisation, it may be prudential for marketers to limit their CRM ambitions to advanced entropybase marketing, is very sensible. But the disruption of new technology gives marketers, at the very least, opportunities to improve the ir internal influence. Many respondents in this research doubted whether CRM can control attrition rate in the business industry. My possibleness suggests that CRM powered by technology and human involvement can control attrition rate in the business industry specifically banking where crimson competition is fuelling shifting from bank to bank by customer. Are switching costs too low to dissuade clients from staying loyal to a particular bank?CHAPTER FOUR4.0 method actingOLOGYThe research seeks to explore the topic by the use of qualitative entropy. The choice of methodology will give the research worker an in-depth view, Easterby-Smith et al (2002), (Deshpande, 1983) on the extent to which CRM could go to control the attrition rate in the banking industry. This section extensively considers the research methods, tools and techniques available to achieve the aims and objectives and also to justify the use of the research method that will be active in this study. Jankowicz ( 1995) describes methodology as the analysis of and justification for the part method(s) used in undertaking research. Furthermore, methodology seeks to explain the research procedure pick out by a researcher and should consist of the following research institution, selective information collection methods, sampling, field work, analysis and interpretation of data (Boyd, 1981). As maintain by Oppenhein (1992) for every social research there is the need to examine appropriate methodologies necessary for conducting a particular study. As further declared by Oppenhein (1992) it is often seen that as research takes shape the aims of the research undergoes a number of subtle changes as a consequence of great pellucidness in thinking, such changes may require a new or better design, which in turn will lead to a better specification for the instruments of measurement. Sources of data are the carriers of information and basically there are two sources of data- primary and supplemental (Ghauri et al., 1995). Saunders et al, (2003) identified a third source as tertiary. However, it must be emphasised that while tertiary and secondary sources of data form the basis of the literature review, primary data sources are linked to the empirical research. As suggested by Kinnear and Taylor (1996), when research objectives include identifying problems or spotting potential opportunities, the use of preliminary research is the most worthy method. Easterby-Smith et al. (2002) argue that the knowledge of different research traditions enables one to adapt a research design to cater for constraints. A qualitative research begin is used because it is a valuable means of finding out what happened to seek new insights to ask questions and assess phenomena in a new light (Robson, 2002). It great advantage is that it is flexible and adaptable to change, as in conducting exploratory research the researcher must be willing to change direction as a result of new data that bes and n ew insights that die to the researcher (Saunders et al., 2003). As further reinforced by Adam and Schvaneveldt (1991) tractability is inherent in exploratory research which does not mean there is no sense of direction to the enquiry but rather that the focus is initially broad and becomes progressively narrower as the research progresses. However, qualitative biases can also occur and result in inaccurate measurement and findings.4.1 METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION/ SOURCEBoth primary and secondary data will be used in this research. The primary data will be obtained from the semi- social systemd telephone interviews with some Barclays customers in Ghana. A semi-structured interview is suggested so as to obtain relevant information through the use of unrestricted questions thus encouraging the interviewee to emphasize his/her point of interest (Easterby-Smith et al., 2002 Healey, 1991 Jankowicz, 2000). Individual in-depth interviews are deployed to provide the anonymity essential in al lowing sensitive internal material to be revealed. It is also the most unimaginative way of getting meshing from busy Barclays customers. The interviews were semi-structured with a topic guide to provide some structure and consistency to the interviews, as advocated by a number of researchers (Miles and Huberman, 1989). The secondary data will be obtained from the companys website, published materials such as, academic journals, newspaper articles, search engines and books. Ghauri et al, (1995) says it all that the purpose of secondary data is to frame the problem under scrutiny, identify relevant concepts, methods and techniques and facts to position the research.4.2 SAMPLE FRAME AND STRATEGY at that place will be sample size determination on the data collected. A total of 100 Barclays Bank customers will be interviewed. Also, due to time and budget constraints involved with the research, the sample would be a at ease size. Indeed. The interviews will be transcribed and analyzed with the use of a dim-witted median. Thus the software Microsoft Excel will be used to depend the percentage and numbers to clarify the data. It is worth emphasizing that due to the venial size of the study, a deviance may appear in the result.CHAPTER tailfin5.0 DATA ANALYSIS AND SAMPLING PROBLEMSAs said above, there are limitations associated with the data collection through the means of semi-structured interviews. It is necessary to consider data quality issues such as reliability, bias, validity and generalizability which are seen as important to any qualitative research. According to Easterby-Smith et al. (2002) reliability in qualitative research is concerned with the probability of whether another researcher who has the same research will come up with similar information and findings. According to the authors (pp 53) reliable research tries to find answers to three questions. The first is will the measure yield the same results on other occasions? Secondly will similar ob servations be reached by other observers? Thirdly is there transparency in how the raw data will be analyzed? Thus for this study the researcher believes that reliability will be dealt with as previous research has been carried out on the small business sector which the researcher will be making use of including some materials through secondary data. Also, with the use of qualitative, non-standardised research, the result of the study implies that findings are not intended to be repeatable, as they reflect the reality at the time of collecting the data, which might be yield to change (Marshall and Rossman, 1999).In addition, bias on the side of the interviewee or interviewer can also affect the quality of the research hence it should be historied that being aware of this, the researcher will ensure in the design of the interview questionnaire and also in terms of asking the right questions to get the required answers in line with the aims and objectives of the research. The researc her at all quantify Endeavour not to use any verbal or non-verbal behaviour that could affect the quality of the interview. Also a lot of readings will be undertaken in terms of text books, as well as obtaining guidelines from a professional interviewer and through practice. According to Saunders et al. (2003) validity is concerned with whether the results are what they appear to be. Oppenheim (1992) also notes that sample accuracy is more important than its size, in that there is a compromise between the theoretical sampling size and practical limitations such as time and costs. In terms of validity the researcher deems this to be high as the method used, that is, the in-depth interview will give the researcher a hands-on experience and the ability to see the reactions of the respondents through their interactions. The last issue will be the generalizability which according to Saunders et al., (2003) is the situation whereby findings of a research are applicable to other research settings.5.1 ETHICAL ISSUES / contextEthical issues occur when undertaking any kind of research and these have to be taken into consideration. Research morality refer to the acceptability of a researchers behaviour towards the rights of subjects of research. To ensure this, researchers behaviour is guided by the code of morals appropriate to academics and the profession or association of the researcher (Saunders et. at, 2003). The goal of ethics in research is to ensure that no one is harmed or suffers unfavourable consequences from research activities (Cooper and Schindler, 2003). According to Easterby-Smith et al. (2002) the ability to explore data or to seek explanation through qualitative methods will require a greater scope for ethical issues. This is particularly important when the data collected during interviews for example concerns sensible subjects or hidden stories, etc (Denzin and Lincoln, 1998). This issue is relevant in this research, as Barclays Bank customers wi ll be asked about their finances and other private issues regarding possible attrition. The researcher however, is aware that when it comes to issues about finance, people are averse(p) to give information. Hence the researcher will take the necessary action to annul any such issues. Thus this research will consider the anonymity and privacy of respondents and accordingly would be based on the admit of respondents who will be provided with a cover letter, informing them of the purpose of the research and also providing assurance of the confidentiality of information given. Also, the name of the researcher as well as the University will be given in order to avoid any ambiguity. As a result, the researcher will be informed with ethical considerations and both the researcher and respondents will be protected.5.2 RESEARCH metre TABLE2010-2011SEPTOCTNOVDECJANFEBMARAPRMAYIdentification of research area1ST 4th formula of research questions6thFormulation of research strategy,9thresearch design and selection15thmethods musical composition of the research proposal20rdNegotiation of access26thLiterature reviewtwenty-ninth5th27th entropy collection8th24thData analysis28th19thWriting the first draftsecond15thWriting the second draft20th2ndWriting the final draft15thDissertation due datethirtiethBIBLIOGRAPHYRafaeli, A. and Sutton, R., (1987) Expression of Emotion as Part of the Work Role, Academy of Management Review, pp. 23-37