This case study is for Assignment A, the group consultancy project. Please read carefully through the assignment brief and all the guidance provided on the Blackboard module page before you begin work on this assignment.
BING BANK
Bing bank is a British led multinational bank with headquarters in London. The bank has many divisions including Retail, Commercial, Investment and Private, and two arms: UK and International. Though the latter is now managed as a separate entity. Bing is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is consistently in the FTSE 100 index. It is also listed on the New York Stock Exchange, reflecting its international standing. Last year their total revenue was around £30 billion with a net income of £6 billion. Although revenue was up, net income was down on the year before. Early predictions indicate a downturn in profits for this coming financial quarter. This is concerning the board and shareholders.
Bing Bank is one of the country’s historic banking institutions and can trace its origins back to the 17th century. Over time it has expanded both organically and through acquisitions of UK and International competitors, the last of which was in 2008. To continue to grow, Bing is conscious that it must look carefully at any negative financial trends. Acquisition opportunities are not on the horizon, as a result Bing wants to look at ways to increase profitability from within. As with most service sector organisations, employees are one of the company’s biggest expenses. Employing over 80,000 people across the whole company, the bank is mindful that any change will attract attention from not only their shareholders but many stakeholders. They do not want to attract any negative press and maintaining an ethical image is very important to them. As with many banks, Bing has experienced PR disasters in the past. It has recovered but does not want to reignite any negative narrative.
Bing Bank wants to start by looking at their Retail division. This division is the biggest in terms of employment, cost and exposure regarding the public, but it is currently the worst performing regarding profit. The Retail division covers all services offered to the general public. This includes savings, current accounts, mortgages, personal loans and credit. There are currently 1,650 branches of Bing across the UK. Each branch can employ up to 25 full time employees, though there are often more due to part-time positions.
The branches are receiving less foot fall. This decline has been happening year on year for the last 10 years. Bing believes this is driven by a change in customer habits and a shift in customer demographics. Many customers are now using online banking rather than face to face. Bing has a very successful online banking platform and app which has seen an increase in use over the last 5 years. Bing has made efforts to attract younger customers, offering competitive young person and student accounts has led to a shift to a younger customer demographic.
Previously, Bing has chosen to close retail branches, especially those in rural locations where customer demand is particularly low. This certainly saved the company a lot of money and helped profits but it created substantial negative press. This press centred on the lack of banking now available in those locations and the redundancies of long serving employees. Although closing more branches remain a lucrative option, if this is recommended, there will need to a plan regarding staff and providing an alternative banking service in the affected communities.
There is a further issue, as stated Bing has a very successful online platform and app. It is very popular with customers and has allowed automation of many tasks that previously needed employees to manage. However, the support service that accompanies the online platforms consistently gets very negative customer reviews. Bing are concerned that negative experiences may lead to existing customers looking to competitors and new customers may be deterred from signing up.
The customer support service takes the form of a call centre. It is needed whenever a customer experiences an issue that cannot be addressed online, further checks are needed that require Bing to speak to the customer or the customer has a question that the online automated chat cannot answer. Bing currently outsources this function. To provide 24-hour support, there are multiple locations of call centres from the UK) to India and Indonesia. There is little control over the quality of service and a problem with the system generally because of legality around sharing sensitive customer information with third parties. As a result, customers are often dissatisfied with the quality of the service and its ability to adequately address and solve any issues they may have.
Bing have put out a bid to tender to consultants. They want to know what it the most important managing people issue they should address and how best they can do this. As stated above, they have both shareholders and stakeholders to consider. Profit is a main driver for change but so is customer satisfaction. As a result, cost and quality of service should be a key consideration of any proposal.
