- What value does Partenón provide to Banco Santanr?
The evolution of technology, particularly in the global banking industry, has considerably revolutionized the manner in which banks carry on their financial operations. From the analysis of the case, it is obvious that Banco Santanr has not been locked out been locked out of the technology world. Here, evidence reveals the bank have recently acquired Partenón in an attempt to boost its banking operations (Busquets et al., 2011).
Although acquired (built) at substantial costs of approximately €70 million, there are positive prospects that the new core banking system (Partenón) is likely to add a significant value to Banco Santanr. As cited in Busquets et al. (2011), Partenón is arguably said to provide ‘single customer view’ system by primarily joining together all information in a unique database. In fact, through it, the organization’s staff-in any part of the firm’s division-can easily view customer data. These include databases on brokerage services, deposits, mortgages, and cards. Besides, the new core banking system has automatically linked the customer’s relationship with the bank. This implies that employees can evaluate credit risks efficiently by providing opportunities for up-selling and cross-selling, and thus resulting to more secure loan management, efficient operations and advanced commercial capacity. According to Busquets et al. (2011), the use of Partenón has helped to improve the bank’s non-performing loans ratios. Moreover, it is clearly evidenced that Partenón offered a fine detail concerning client needs, spurred customer segmentation, and paved way for the provision of services via multiple channels.
2. How can the bank leverage core capabilities?
The terms ‘core competence’ and ‘core capability’ are commonly intertwined in the context of a business environment. Schilling (2008) defines a core competency as a harmonized combination of manifold skills and resources that differentiate a firm from its rivals in the market. A core capability is, therefore, an ability or talent in which a firm has a competence (Schilling, 2008). Leveraging the firm’s core capabilities can be considered as one of the essential elements of achieving success in the ever competitive business environment. In addition, understanding the fine details the meaning of the bank’s capabilities and being rational of the core capabilities leveraged by other companies.
In order to effectively leverage its core capabilities, the bank needs to focus on improving its ability to harmonize and combine multiple primary capabilities in which the bank excels into a few main components of specialized expertise. These capabilities include abilities in managing the market interface such as customer care service, distribution and advertising; technological capabilities such as e-banking; and building and maintaining an effective infrastructure such as the bank’s information systems (Schilling, 2008). As such, the bank will make it difficult for other banks to imitate its core competences.
3. How do you relate these capabilities with the efficiency ratio?
References
Busquets, J., Rodo´n, J., & Vera, L. (2011). Santander acquires Abbey: The Jack Project. Journal of Information Technology Teaching Cases, 1, 3–11.
Schilling, M. (2008). Strategic Management of Technological Innovation. New York: McGraw-Hill.
