Case Study Description of Citibank: Global Customer Management
Describes Citibank's worldwide operations, which include activities in developing and developed markets. The bank's structure also varies across markets and regions, varying from autonomous national affiliates to an industry/product-based structure in its domestic U.S. market. While the bank has an existing organization for handling large multinational customers with significant operations (and thus business) in multiple regions, the bank is considering how also to serve local customers who are in the process of expanding to more than one region.
Swot Analysis of "Citibank: Global Customer Management" written by Michael Y. Yoshino, Thomas W. Malnight includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Regions Citibank's facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Citibank: Global Customer Management case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Competitive strategy, Corporate governance, Cross-cultural management, Customers, Emerging markets, Organizational structure and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Citibank: Global Customer Management casestudy better are - – competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, increasing transportation and logistics costs, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, increasing commodity prices, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
geopolitical disruptions, there is backlash against globalization, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Citibank: Global Customer Management
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Citibank: Global Customer Management case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Regions Citibank's, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Regions Citibank's operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Citibank: Global Customer Management can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Citibank: Global Customer Management case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Regions Citibank's
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Regions Citibank's
Strengths Citibank: Global Customer Management | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Regions Citibank's in Citibank: Global Customer Management Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Regions Citibank's are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Regions Citibank's has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Regions Citibank's has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Training and development
– Regions Citibank's has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Citibank: Global Customer Management Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Regions Citibank's
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing that Regions Citibank's does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Regions Citibank's has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Low bargaining power of suppliers
– Suppliers of Regions Citibank's in the sector have low bargaining power. Citibank: Global Customer Management has further diversified its suppliers portfolio by building a robust supply chain across various countries. This helps Regions Citibank's to manage not only supply disruptions but also source products at highly competitive prices.
Ability to recruit top talent
– Regions Citibank's is one of the leading recruiters in the industry. Managers in the Citibank: Global Customer Management are in a position to attract the best talent available. The firm has a robust talent identification program that helps in identifying the brightest.
Learning organization
- Regions Citibank's is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Regions Citibank's is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Citibank: Global Customer Management Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Digital Transformation in Strategy & Execution segment
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Regions Citibank's digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Regions Citibank's has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Citibank: Global Customer Management firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Regions Citibank's to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Regions Citibank's to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Analytics focus
– Regions Citibank's is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Michael Y. Yoshino, Thomas W. Malnight can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
High brand equity
– Regions Citibank's has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Regions Citibank's to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Weaknesses Citibank: Global Customer Management | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Citibank: Global Customer Management are -
Lack of clear differentiation of Regions Citibank's products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Regions Citibank's needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Citibank: Global Customer Management that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Citibank: Global Customer Management can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Regions Citibank's is planning to shift buying processes online.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Regions Citibank's is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication mentioned in marketing section of case study Citibank: Global Customer Management can help to provide better information regarding products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Citibank: Global Customer Management, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Slow decision making process
– As mentioned earlier in the report, Regions Citibank's has a very deliberative decision making approach. This approach has resulted in prudent decisions, but it has also resulted in missing opportunities in the industry over the last five years. Regions Citibank's even though has strong showing on digital transformation primary two stages, it has struggled to capitalize the power of digital transformation in marketing efforts and new venture efforts.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Michael Y. Yoshino, Thomas W. Malnight suggests that, Regions Citibank's is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Regions Citibank's, firm in the HBR case study Citibank: Global Customer Management needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Citibank: Global Customer Management HBR case study mentions - Regions Citibank's takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the industry in last five years.
High operating costs
– Compare to the competitors, firm in the HBR case study Citibank: Global Customer Management has high operating costs in the. This can be harder to sustain given the new emerging competition from nimble players who are using technology to attract Regions Citibank's 's lucrative customers.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Citibank: Global Customer Management HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Regions Citibank's has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Regions Citibank's has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Opportunities Citibank: Global Customer Management | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Citibank: Global Customer Management are -
Loyalty marketing
– Regions Citibank's has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Regions Citibank's can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Regions Citibank's can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Better consumer reach
– The expansion of the 5G network will help Regions Citibank's to increase its market reach. Regions Citibank's will be able to reach out to new customers. Secondly 5G will also provide technology framework to build new tools and products that can help more immersive consumer experience and faster consumer journey.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Regions Citibank's to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Regions Citibank's in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Changes in consumer behavior post Covid-19
– Consumer behavior has changed in the Strategy & Execution industry because of Covid-19 restrictions. Some of this behavior will stay once things get back to normal. Regions Citibank's can take advantage of these changes in consumer behavior to build a far more efficient business model. For example consumer regular ordering of products can reduce both last mile delivery costs and market penetration costs. Regions Citibank's can further use this consumer data to build better customer loyalty, provide better products and service collection, and improve the value proposition in inflationary times.
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Regions Citibank's has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in the sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled, as illustrated in the Harvard case study Citibank: Global Customer Management - to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Regions Citibank's to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Regions Citibank's has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in the industry. This can help Regions Citibank's to build a more holistic ecosystem as suggested in the Citibank: Global Customer Management case study. Regions Citibank's can build new products and services such as - data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Regions Citibank's can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Regions Citibank's operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Regions Citibank's to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Regions Citibank's to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Regions Citibank's is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Citibank: Global Customer Management case study suggests that firm can utilize new technology to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Regions Citibank's to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Threats Citibank: Global Customer Management External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Citibank: Global Customer Management are -
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Regions Citibank's is facing in Strategy & Execution sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Citibank: Global Customer Management, Regions Citibank's may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
Capital market disruption
– During the Covid-19, Dow Jones has touched record high. The valuations of a number of companies are way beyond their existing business model potential. This can lead to capital market correction which can put a number of suppliers, collaborators, value chain partners in great financial difficulty. It will directly impact the business of Regions Citibank's.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Regions Citibank's in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Regulatory challenges
– Regions Citibank's needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
Technology acceleration in Forth Industrial Revolution
– Regions Citibank's has witnessed rapid integration of technology during Covid-19 in the Strategy & Execution industry. As one of the leading players in the industry, Regions Citibank's needs to keep up with the evolution of technology in the Strategy & Execution sector. According to Mckinsey study top managers believe that the adoption of technology in operations, communications is 20-25 times faster than what they planned in the beginning of 2019.
Environmental challenges
– Regions Citibank's needs to have a robust strategy against the disruptions arising from climate change and energy requirements. EU has identified it as key priority area and spending 30% of its 880 billion Euros European post Covid-19 recovery funds on green technology. Regions Citibank's can take advantage of this fund but it will also bring new competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry.
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Regions Citibank's business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Regions Citibank's high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Regions Citibank's will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Strategy & Execution field will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Regions Citibank's can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Regions Citibank's in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Citibank: Global Customer Management Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Citibank: Global Customer Management needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Citibank: Global Customer Management is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Citibank: Global Customer Management is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Citibank: Global Customer Management is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Regions Citibank's needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
