A Shotgun Wedding: Creating a Leading Czech Bank

A Shotgun wedding: Creating a Leading Czech Bank

Business Architecture:

My suggestion is to use centralized and product division - oriented business architecture due to its advantages in better control and efficient learning and knowledge sharing. As far as both companies used different strategy it is necessary to provide the new cooperation with the structure that enables knowledge sharing between both companies in order to become familiar with each other's strategy and to avoid any discrepancies. This architecture enables coordination of similar activities which is important for both member companies in order to support the common strategy. The biggest advantage of division - oriented business architecture in comparison with regional structure is that it enables economy of scale.

Selecting a Brand:

In selection of a brand I would recommend a selection of a new brand that would be a combination of the features that both banks are possessing. The reason for my decision is that CSOB was seen as a provider of services for corporate clients and was also perceived as serving the elite of Czech business and society. This could have been considered as not suitable for many retail customers. The view of the bank was too corporate oriented. On the other hand IPB appealed to retail as well as to corporate customers but it was not enough for large clients. To remain both brands would be very challenging because of the increasing competitiveness on the market between the banks and it could become expensive for the market players. Keeping CSOB and disappearing IPB could negatively affect retail customers who could not identify with CSOB. Creating a new brand could bring a fresh start and create a new identity.

IT Integration:

IT is very important part of banking nowadays. For the future progress it is needed to develop reliable, effective and easy-to-use system. CSOB used the IBIS platform which was ideal for corporate business but allowed only limited number of accounts per database and this could cause a problem for increasing number of migrating IPB customers. The IPB's PROFILE platform was ideal for retail products, it allowed an unlimited number of accounts, but migrating customers would require an upgrade of the system. The main problem was that the system had no internal IT capability and there were questions about the feasibility of upgrading to higher version which was a necessity for migrating CSOB customers. Choosing the IT platform would have an impact on the clients of both banks. Therefore I would recommend a migration of data to the newly established IT system which would suite to all clients. Using the new established platform would solve the problem of migrating clients. If the new IT platform would be some kind of combination of one type of these system with the new