Case Study Jyske Bank Essay

Jyske Bank was established in 1967 after merging four Danish banks operating in Jutland. Jyske Bank had been considered as a typical Danish bank, which is prudent, conservative, well managed and undifferentiated till the late 1990s. However, with the new strategy, the bank developed to guide differentiation from the mid of 1990s among great amount of Danish banking customer satisfaction. Q1. What is Jyske Bank’s new positioning or competitive differentiation strategy? Base on the case, Jyske Bank’s new positioning strategy is strongly believed to be developed from its core values and Jyske Differences by the managers. In order to achieve Jyske Differences, which comes from Jyske Bank’s core values, the bank’s managers just became overt about values they had long held. The core values allow managers to reevaluate how the bank operate and service its consumers. Therefore, managers decided to have some specific practices that deliver service differently from both how it had in the past, and how other banks delivered service. In other words, they would have to change their conservative position of the past and become a service driven and customer innovative bank within the competitive banking sector. With the assistant of Dutch consultant that the research findings showed the target market consisting mainly of Dutch families (60% retail) and small Danish businesses (40% commercial), were favorable towards the idea of bank that had a persona and believed in what it stood for. Additional research was also conducted in more difficult areas concerning the banks 4P’s- Product, Place, Price and Promotion from a customer orientated standpoint. In contrast, soft factors such as customer relationships with the bank, served as the bank’s differentiation. From Exhibit 1, which indicates that Danish Banks were in intensive competition, Jyske Bank’s managers should reestablish its competitive position, it went through a major transformation and positioned itself as a highly customer-focused bank, eager to foster relationships with customers, understand their needs and sell solutions accordingly. Jyske Bank’s new positioning is only targeted less risky customers who could afford its premium pricing and were comfortable with the banks candid personality and portrayed image. Although after that the bank  is only about 6% of the market, but that is what call personality, some people should dislike them. Jyske Bank’s competitive differentiation strategy was born out of its ‘values and differences’ discussed in the case Exhibit 4, which emphasized equality, transparency, honesty, respect and efficiency. The aim was to have these values embedded in each of the external customer-facing and internal aspects of its business and operations and distinguish itself from competition. Jyske Bank differentiated itself on the service delivery aspect and invested in tools that would improve its employee’s ability to deliver solutions and increase the time spent with its customers. Thus, the competitive differentiation strategies mainly contain a shift from traditional product focused selling to a customer- solution approach and the way the bank’s core financial product to deliver so as to give customers a different banking experience. Q2. What changes did the bank make to gat to its new position? What effect did these changes have? In order to successfully implement its new customer- focused strategy, Jyske bank had to make both tangible and intangible changes in their business operations, as well as how they delivered service to its customers, where necessary not only to influence the outcome of the business but also to provide guaranteed customer satisfaction. These changes were made to reflect Jyske Differences in every possible way. The tangible changes they made were changes to the account teams, branch design, and details. To be more specifically, account teams were created to work together and provide personalized service to each customer to foster customer intimacy and increase understanding of customer needs. The branch interiors were remodeled to make the customers feel welcomed and cared for. The round table design, similarity in chairs and customers sitting near the employees’ workstations was deliberate as it helped in the effective use of IT programs designed to structure interactions between account team members and consumers, that facilities the employee’s ability to deliver solutions and save time. Settle a cafà © inside the branch that provides homely environment to consumers. Those visible screens also reinforced the portray openness of information with the customer. The intangible changes were training involved  teambuilding and consumer service, empowering the branches as well as throughout the bank, management style, and human resources. The effect of these strategic changes as lead to an increase in customer satisfaction based on data collected by independent third parties and has the highest customer satisfaction level among its major competitors. Q3. Analysis Jyske Bank’s success using the Service Quality gaps Model. (e.g. what are Jyske Bank’s strategies for closing each of the 5 gaps in the model?) Service Quality gaps ModelJyske Banks’s success The customer gapThe bank was able to close this gap because providing customer with their superior services. They had only targeted the premium customer’s to whom the price did not matter. As a result of which they were able to provide the customers high quality services and were able to achieve minimum customer gap and highly satisfied customers. The listening gap (Not knowing what customer expect)Refer to competitive positioning of the bank; the â€Å"soft factors† relating to individual customer relationship are relatively important. Jyske Bank changed the way they deliver services and had come out with IT tool to first figure out the customer’s problem and expectations. They had dedicated a team of 4 employees per customer to get a better understanding of customer’s problems. A good marketing research orientation also benefits to decline the listening gap. They conducted surveys to detect customers’ expectations. Thus they highlighted that customers’ expectations had changed: factors like price, product or location had become â€Å"basics† for customers, who focused more on differentiating factors like bankers’ behavior and interest toward customers. Finally, the firm developed an effective relationship focus on what consumers need. They first decided to specialize only on t wo customer segments, Danish Families and Small-to-medium-sized companies, and to focus only on people sharing the Jyske Bank values. This strategy made it easier to understand customers’ expectations and to build long- term relationship with them. The service design and standards gap (Not selecting the right service quality designs and standards)To close the poor service design, absence of customer- driven standards and inappropriate physical evidence, the bank assigned a small team of branch bankers to serve each customer, which provided its customer with the best in class service in terms of the customer solutions and also provided customers with the best infrastructure facilities to make them feel at home, e.g. cafà ©, fruit juice, openness of banker’s screen. The service performance gap (Not delivering to service designs and standards)In human resource policies, the bank has an effective recruitment that looking for social abilities instead of banking skills. Jyske Bank was successfully able to retain its employees and provide them with adequate trainings. Jyske was not only the leader in customer satisfaction but was also a leader in employee satisfaction as well. The employees were provided with good incentives and were kept happy so that they could work. The communication gap (Not matching performance to promise)The bank provided interactive marketing communication plan to the customers that all the possible information that the customer required all the solutions are delivered to consumers. Jyske Bank also implemented a good upward communication to employees. According to their re-organization of the structure (dissolution of headquarters), which leaded to less layers between top management and front-line employees, and thanks to a good intern communication between managers and contact employees, customers’ expectations were transmitted easily and quickly trough the firm. Most employees like working for Jyske and appreciate to Jyske Difference. Q4. In your opinion can Jyske Bank’s sustain its growth and success? Would you invest in Jyske Bank? I think Jyske Bank can continue its growth and success and I am willing to invest in Jyske Bank. Because the bank already has its own competitive positioning that they made a lot of changes on service delivery in both tangible and intangible sides. Secondly, the leadership that Jyske Bank  established is also an important reason, Jyske was the largest and most richly- priced bank in Demark in 2003, and they achieved the leadership in customer and employee satisfaction, which enable Jyske to step further. According to the net income increased considerably, shareholders could receive growing annual return in coming years. Besides, Jyske Bank’s core value is to gain the balance among their three stakeholders: employees, customers and shareholders. â€Å"They were more interested in determining how the bank could remain in a position of leadership while still keeping the interests of its key stakeholders in balance.† Reference: http://thefinancialbrand.com/2893/jyske-bank-branch/