Citibank Case Review

MDC – Autumn Final 2014 – Citibank Adaptation

Q1) Describe, with reference to the organisational context, what performance means for Citibank both in terms of the company as a whole and at the branch level

• Provides a valid conception of performance relevant to a store-level, which is described in relation to elements Citibank’s organisational context (e.g. stakeholders, objectives, strategy, or external environment)
• provides a valid conception of performance relevant to a corporate-level (1 mark) which is described in relation to elements of Citibank’s organizational context (e.g. stakeholders, objectives, strategy or external environment)

Citibank on the branch level has performance defined by the measures given by the 6 segments of the performance scorecard. It is defined mainly defined by Financial measures which involve Revenues, expenses and profit margin for the manager of the branch, Strategy implementation which shows ratios of different sources of revenues, Customer satisfaction based from surveys and phone interviews, Control measures, and People and Standards. The competitive strategy of the California Division with smaller number of branches in comparison to other competitors such as Wells Fargo and Bank of America is to be a niche player focusing on relationship banking providing high quality customer service. Therefore, the non-financial measures such as customer satisfaction has been introduced as an important measure of performance as it is the main leading indicator to eventual financial performance as Frits Seegers believes. The stakeholders involve the customers of various segments from retail customers, businesses to high net worth individuals. The branch being located at a finance district of Los Angeles attracts various demanding customers with high competition therefore excelling in the financial measures such as contribution margin itself is highly regarded. With the introduction of the non-financial measures, customer satisfaction, and following the standards are deemed to be also crucial.

Performance on a corporate-level would be measured mainly on financial aspects such as ROI, ROCE, and the growth in revenue and market share on a global scale. The stakeholders would be various major clients and customers such as large companies to hedge funds. Regulation and standards would be a crucial non-financial measure that must be followed on an above-average scale to avoid fines or loss of reputation by being fined by the governments of where the divisions operate. The customer perspective would become more the based on the company reputation, reliability, credibility which would require a measure beyond the 25 customer phone-survey but rather a global index of customer service or service quality index kept by large research consulting firms.

Performance can be defined for Citibank by its profitability in the industry, market-share relative to other major competitors, brand reputation within the industry, presence as a market niche competitor and finally a reputation for exceptional customer service.

Q2) Evaluate the design of existing performance measures used at Citibank with reference to two (2) criteria of good performance measures.

The performance measures are a combination of financial and non-financial performance measures for the new performance scorecard. It consists of 6 segments measuring various aspects of performance for the branch which the manager is held accountable. There is the main financial perspective which is measured using revenue, expense and profit margin. There is direct clarity in these financial measures as the measure is not vague to interpret and is easy to understand for the reviewer. The other segments include strategy Implementation using revenues from various segments of customers, customer satisfaction using the measures based on customer phone surveys from an outsourced research firm, control measures, and people and standards which are subjective evaluation by the area manager. The design is a mix of perspectives in the form of a standard balance scorecard with the inclusion of the standards and control which measure the ethical side of the business operations. Seegers believing that customer service is crucial to the competitive strategy, prioritises this measure as the main leading measure to the final lagging measure of financial returns.

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