Several concepts are essential concerning the
perspective of strategic marketing, and these concepts are important, for they
determine the business marketing strategies of AffinBank Berhad (Affin Bank
Berhad, 2011). These concepts include determining the customer needs, focus on
product development, and the exchange between the producers and consumers in
the market scene. These basic concepts became the basis for AffinBank Berhad to
develop their strategies in their aim to maintain their global competitiveness
and reputation.
In relation to customer needs, AffinBank Berhad has
several strategies for growth (Affin Bank Berhad, 2011). Their first strategy
is by making customers at the heart of their strategy. The second is to
maintain their position as the Malaysia’s local bank, which enables them to
approach each country uniquely, blending local knowledge with a nationwide
operation platform. This is a good approach for each of these regions are
distinct from each other, having different cultures and beliefs, making it
difficult to implement a single project for all clients around Malaysia. The
difference in approach is addressing the different needs of their customers,
which is a good basis form the improvement of customer service of the business
organisation, and at their aim to find good solutions and techniques in the
development and improvement of their rendered products and services. Lastly,
AffinBank Berhad will concentrate activities on geographies where growth and
critical mass are located. The bank was able to establish itself in call
centers to provide their services in relation to sales and checking of
accounts. Outsourcing contributes to the aim of AffinBank Berhad to focus on
the needs of their customers, for these call centers are responsible for
providing their customers with information regarding their accounts (Affin Bank
Berhad, 2011). Call centers agents are also responsible for answering the
queries of customers regarding AffinBank Berhad (Affin Bank Berhad, 2011).
Financial Standing[1]
The Balance Sheet and Earning reports (Elsas,
Flannery, & Garfinkel, 2006) in Appendix shows the AffinBank
Berhad's 2010 revenues grew by 5.1%.
From the record of AffinBank Berhad’s
balance sheet (see Appendix), the company actually suffers from profit decline
due to the effect of global recession but still the bank manage to perform
expressively through excellent merging efforts and consideration towards market
structure theory.
Figure 1. AffinBank Berhad’s Annual Earnings and
Revenues
Source:
http://investing.businessweek.com
As seen in Figure 1, the 2009 and 2010 performance is
expressive and still predicted to perform expressively in 2011 and 2012. From these results, we can deviate that Affin
was performing well in 2009 and even in 2010 after the recession experienced in
2008. Despite of some downturns in 2008 due to the global business crisis, the
year 2009 and 2010 shows interesting trend.
From the gathered information, it is expected that in 2011 and 2012 both
the revenue and net income of Affin will be constantly moving upward (See
Appendix for complete details).
SWOT
As part of the strategic marketing practices of AffinBank
Berhad, SWOT analysis illustrates their status in accordance to strengths,
weakness, opportunities and treats.
Strengths. AffinBank
Berhad has branches in most parts of the Malaysia (Affin Bank Berhad, 2011).
This helps them have advantage against their local competitors. It also gives
them the opportunity to serve more consumers thus they can acquire more
profit. The employees of the company are
well trained. The employees were well chosen and well trained to do their
respective jobs. These employees are well managed to keep them in line with the
objectives and standards of the bank. This is strength of a bank because it
brings out the best employees thus the best service can be given to the
clients. If clients enjoy the service of the company they tend to return to
avail again the services and products offered by the company this results to
satisfaction of the goals of the company. The company has an internet banking
capability wherein consumers can transact their business online (Affin Bank
Berhad, 2011). This promotes ease and convenience to consumers. It also gives
them advantage over their competitors since not all competitors have such
technology. AffinBank Berhad due to its availability in the world has acquired
a strong brand name (Affin Bank Berhad, 2011). This is strength for the company
due to people will search for the company when they need such kind of services.
Having a strong brand name means that the company has competitive advantage
against their rivals (Affin Bank Berhad, 2011). Summarily, the company’s
strengths include its worldwide reach, well trained and managed employees,
internet banking capability, and strong brand name.
Weaknesses. The
company although has a strong brand name is lacking of promotional programs.
The company maybe popular to those who have seen it in the internet, have
availed of their services, or have come to know of the company through AffinBank
Berhad’s clients but to some people the company is not that known. The company
needs an effective promotional advertisement that can give the company more
clients. AffinBank Berhad although performing well against most of their
competitors still has to overcome its best competitor which is Maybank. To sum
up, the company’s weaknesses include the lack of promotional advertisements,
and inability to overcome the best competitor it has.
Opportunities. The main opportunity for AffinBank Berhad is still to
increase the number of its strategic acquisitions and merging in order to
further strengthen their current market leadership position and encourage
efficiency of market structure theory. Through such acquisitions, AffinBank
Berhad would be able to widen the scope of their market share, improve the
quality of services that they offer to their clientele, and develop their core
competencies further (Affin Bank Berhad, 2011).. A secondary opportunity for
the company is its internet banking. They should improve its features so that
it can cater to the needs of the consumers. The company should also promote the
said technology more to attract more clients. Another opportunity the company
has is the website it has. The company can make the website more user-friendly,
helpful and informative so that people will be encouraged to use it. The web
can also be used as a promotional material that the company can use for more
people to know the company. Succinctly,
the major opportunities for AffinBank Berhad are its potential strategic
acquisitions and its utilisation of the Internet technology.
Threats. The main
threat to the company is Maybank and other existing local banks in Malaysia. If
the AffinBank Berhad don’t do anything to improve their current status they
might not catch up with Mayabank and more success may come to that company.
Additional threats to AffinBank Berhad may include the ever-changing legal
landscape for international business operations, unforeseen strong industry
entrants which could decrease the potentialities of AffinBank Berhad’s market
presence in the areas of Malaysia which they have yet to explore.
PESTLE
The banking sector in which AffinBank Berhad belongs
is a critically important and complex one (Affin Bank Berhad, 2011).. In many
ways, the banking industry offers an almost endless stream of political,
economic, social, technological, legal and environmental inter-connections
which affect people in one way or another. The industry faces a need for
accelerated investment, in order to deploy the new technologies, for pressing
geo-political, economic, environmental and societal reasons.
Political. This
aspect of the external environment affects the company in the same way that the
legal aspect affects it. Laws effected within the banking industry are
dependent on the political environment which formulates such laws (Affin Bank
Berhad, 2011). Governmental laws affect where and how AffinBank Berhad may
choose to compete, and deregulation and local government changes, affect not
only the general competitive environment, but also the strategic decisions made
by firms competing globally.
Economic.
The growth of banking industry was brought about mainly by the globalisation of
businesses (Affin Bank Berhad, 2011). As businesses expanded beyond national
boundaries and extended their global reach to take advantage of new markets and
cheaper resources, so the transactions of goods created new demands for the
bank industry. Rising inflation and global competition gave rise to greater
pressures on businesses to minimise the costs of operation, including
implementation of just-in-time inventory management systems, etc., and also
created demands for speed and accuracy in all aspects of business.
Social.
The ever-changing market demand for value-added services affects AffinBank
Berhad’s corporate level strategies tremendously in that most of the business
tactics that the firm employs centre on bringing about value-added services to
their customers. After all, AffinBank Berhad relies largely on their customers’
loyalty to sustain their leadership in the industry that they are in (Affin
Bank Berhad, 2011). As part of their corporate social responsibilities, AffinBank
Berhad is practising corporate philanthropy and employee volunteerism and is
constantly developing relationships with charitable institutions that share the
same values as AffinBank Berhad.
Technological.
The advances in IT to generate process efficiencies also served as impetus for
the growth of bank industry (Affin Bank Berhad, 2011). The ability to share
information between operations/departments within AffinBank Berhad and between
organisations to generate operational efficiencies, reduce cost and improve
customer service was a major breakthrough for the express banking industry.
With the advent of IT, express banking became an aggregation of two main
function: the online banking, and the management and utilisation of the flow of
information pertaining to bank transactions.
Legal.
Throughout the decades of existence of AffinBank Berhad, their growth was
attributable to a number of external factors that the organisation was quick to
capitalise on, which included trade deregulation in Malaysia and other parts of
the globe opened new markets for AffinBank Berhad and expanding became a AffinBank
Berhad priority (Affin Bank Berhad, 2011).
Basically, AffinBank Berhad made sure that they followed the laws and
regulations set by the government of their host country in which their bank was
operating.
Environmental.
The AffinBank Berhad recognises that one of its most important corporate
priorities is effective environmental management. In efforts to fulfil their
responsibilities to the environment, the company is engaged in several projects
which aim at protecting the environment at large (Affin Bank Berhad, 2011).
Conclusion
With this economic thought
there are many of theories emerge for the reason that in economic theories are
constantly changing. These theories play an important role in order to make the
economy become progressive because it provides concepts and ideas in analysing
the complicated situation and problems that deals with economic problems. The
concepts and ideas being provided by the theories, it will serve as the
guidance for the government on how to manage the economy with fewer
expenses.
From the discussion of the marketing structure theory,
AffinBank Berhad is obsessed with customer value and strives to be an
"all-weather umbrella" to its customers, by adopting different
strategies for different situations. It had to diversify in order to balance
revenue and expenditure, minimise risk and stay profitable, with an equal
importance in its ability to anticipate change. The merging efforts and
investment banking business of AffinBank Berhad has begun a strategy of
significant expansion and development with one clear objective, which is to
establish themselves as one of the world’s top three investment banks, and
these strategies are based around a philosophy of organic growth and a
transition towards becoming a client-oriented investment bank.
With this information, the AffinBank Berhad must
continue to find innovative software programs and relate effectively to other
companies that produce these software programs to become updated with the latest
improvement in the World Wide Web. The company must efficiently and effectively
create a good relationship with their customers and shareholders, to
continually operate. AffinBank Berhad must continually conceptualise and
implement good projects to be able to set trends in the banking industry. Aside
from developing marketing strategies, the company must focus on building
employee and customer relationships, in accordance to strategic marketing
concepts, for it is essential to determine and focus on the needs of the
customers, as customers are the reason for being alive in the business and
marketing industry.
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[Online] www.questia.com. [Accessed 08 April, 2011].
Brigham, E., &
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Dimson, E., &
Mussavian, M., (2000). Market Efficiency. The Current State of Business
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[Accessed 08 April, 2011].
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[1] Information from http://investing.businessweek.com/businessweek/research/stocks/earnings/earnings.asp?ticker=AHB:MK
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