BNK603 Assignment No. 1 solution

Question 1:
Strategic Economies don’t drive from Operational Excellence, but from the business concept itself.
Strategic Economies
Unlike operational efficiencies, Strategic Economies don’t drive from Operational Excellence, but from the business concept itself. Strategic Economic come in three varieties:

1. Scale
2. Focus
3. Scope

1. Scale
Scale can derive efficiencies in many ways through:

a) Better Plant Utilization.

b) Greater Purchasing Power.

c) The Muscle to enforce industry wide price discipline Industries revolutionaries often consolidate fragmented industries. Any that gets caught behind the consolidation curve and misses the chance.

d) To build Scale Advantage will be left with a notable disadvantage

2. Focus
A company with a high degree of Focus & Specialization may reap economies compared with competitors with a more diffused Business Mission and a less coherent mix of products & services.
Focus is not about efficiency in a cost sense; it’s about in a don’t-get-distracted, get-all-the-wood-behind one- arrow sense.

3. Scope
The idea here is almost opposite of focus. A company that can leverage resources and management talents across a broad array of opportunities may have an efficiency advantage over firms that cannot. Scope Economies come from sharing things across business units & countries; Brands, Facilities, Best Practices, Scare Talent, IT Infrastructure, and so on. Scope Economies come in a variety of flavors; Channel Power & access to distribution channels, Economies in buying ad space & running high-tech distribution centers.

Question 2:
What kinds of challenges are being faced by the retail banking in Pakistan?
Answer 2:
Challenges to Retail Banking in Pakistan:
The issue of money laundering is very important in retail banking. This compels all the banks to scrutinize diligently all the documents which they accept while entering into a relationship. Outsourcing has become significant in recent past because various core activities such as hardware and software maintenance, entire ATM set up and operation (including cash, refilling) etc., are being handled by outside vendors. Banks are expected to take utmost care to retain the ongoing trust of the public. Customer service should be at the end all in retail banking. Someone has rightly said, “It takes months to find a good customer but only seconds to lose one.” Thus, strategy of Knowing Your Customer (KYC) is important. The dependency on technology has brought IT departments’ additional responsibilities and challenges in managing, maintaining and optimizing the performance of retail banking networks.
It is equally important that banks should maintain security to the advance level to keep the faith of the customer. The efficiency of operations would provide the competitive edge for the success in retail banking in coming years. The customer retention is of paramount important for the profitability of retail banking business & increase in the market share. One of the crucial impediments for the growth of this sector is the shortage of manpower talent of this specific nature, a modern banking professional, for a modern banking sector.