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Citibank is one of the leading banks worldwide. It is now planning to expand its credit card business to Asia Pacific area. There are surely threats in that market, but there are also excellent opportunities. In this article I will analyze the Citibank as a brand and will discuss possible solutions to the problems that might occur in the new market.Brand of Citibank: Citibank has already been in banking operation in Asia Pacific and mainly has good relationships with large business houses. Also, for private customers, Citibank offers the Citi-one accounts with minimum deposit $10,000. In addition, in Hong Kong there are 7,600 Citigold customers who are required to deposit more than $100,000 in their accounts. Consequently, Citibank has been regarded as a prestigious, consumer-oriented international bank.Clear Positioning: As mentioned above, clear positioning as a high-end bank for upper class and large business firms, Citibank could successfully create brand image in Asia Pacific.Core Competencies: Citibank has managed properly these intangible resources with tangible resources such as banking by phone, overdraft protection and a designated customer service officer to manage their accounts. These resources have combined to create capabilities and become core competencies.Competitive Advantages: As a result, Citibank has competitive advantages in the banking industry. By adding new financial products, continuing to improve technologies for providing better services and products, Citibank will strengthen its competitive advantages; they will become sustainable competitive advantages.RecommendationI would like to recommend launching credit card business by leveraging Citibank's competitive advantages. In order to successfully launch credit card business, I would recommend to implement the following strategies for Citibank.Organizational Change: The root cause of country managers' resistance to issue credit cards is in organizational structure. Because they don't want to take risks which may cause future losses of their business. Therefore, Citibank has to change the organization: first credit card team of Asia Pacific should be in place and it should be responsible for building strategies for entire markets. And this team should work closely with regional offices. So-called matrix organization should be implemented. Specifically, the team will use current customer base of each country and establish most suitable marketing mix for each country under the cooperation with regional offices.Marketing: In order to keep brand equity of Citibank, Citibank cannot conduct mass-marketing but more pinpointed marketing for target customers. Therefore, Citibank should not use Bind-Ins method. Also, to achieve effective marketing, Citibank should not use Direct Mail in this case. Consequently, Take-Ones and Direct Sales should be used to acquire new customers. However, location of Take-Ones is very important to access upper and upper-middle class people and high quality of Direct Sales are also mandatory for its success, because Citibank targets not only customers outside its branch business but also cross-selling other Citibank products and services to these customers.Strategic shift from developed countries to emerging countries: Citibank should start from strengthen its business in Hong Kong then launch credit card business in Australia and Singapore. Because Citibank can use stable infrastructure for the operation of credit card business in these countries and access large number of upper and upper-middle class people.New team can attract more current upper class customers for the credit cards then expand new customers from upper-middle class by offering Gold Card and middle class by offering Classic Card without deterioration of brand equity through right marketing mix mentioned above. In addition, Citibank should introduce Platinum Card for super upper class people, which may add more brand image for Citibank and also prevent from the cannibalization of current Dinner Card holders.Expansion for Emerging Markets: Considering the long-term growth prospects, Citibank should start credit card business in emerging markets like India. Poor infrastructure for the operation might be some troubles in the process of the operation, but future profit as the first mover in these countries will overcome these problems. In order to capture increasing number of upper-middle class people in emerging markets, similar strategy should be applied in these countries. They are hungry for a better quality of life and are ready to spend. Another important factor to be successful in these countries, Citibank should rethink the cost structure and redesign the products to fit their requirements.Product Differentiation: In addition to offer Platinum Card for super rich people, Citibank has offer more advanced services and products. First, Citibank can consider to issue Cathey-Pacific Citibank Card in Hong Kong and Philippine, SingaporeAirline Citibank Card in Singapore, etc. in order to obtain business executives who currently use Amex for their business trips. Second, Citibank can offer the credit card with card holder's face picture for the identification. Third, Citibank can issue cooperate cards through strategic alliances with prestigious companies such as Hutchson in Hong Kong, Singapore Telecom in Singapore and Tata-group even in India. As a result, Citibank can obtain more business executives as their new customers.Through these marketing mix and strategies, Citibank can successfully launch credit card business in Asia Pacific, keeping the brand image prestigious and bringing incremental earning.
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