Introduction
Today’s banking is not a mere mix of financial operations, accounting, and proper business management. The fast development of technology has made it vital for any modern institution, and banks are among them, to adjust to the requirements of the modern business world (Martin, 2009, p. 32; Schwalbe, 2007, pp. 178 – 179). Accordingly, developing an IT strategy is an essential step for every modern bank, and understanding it the State Bank of India (SBI) is also trying to introduce powerful IT ideas into its operations and strategic development (State Bank of India, 2010; Online SBI, 2010).
IT Strategy
Stakeholder Analysis
Needless to say, such an innovative idea as the introduction of the IT strategic development concerns the interests of all the key stakeholders of the SBI (State Bank of India, 2010). The groups that can be included in the list of those stakeholders are:
- SBI board of directors;
- SBI employees;
- SBI investors;
- SBI customers;
- SBI business partners.
The major challenge that the new IT strategy poses for all these stakeholder groups concerns the lack of knowledge of the innovation and the time that will be possibly needed for the stakeholders to adjust to the innovations at SBI (Schwalbe, 2007, pp. 192 – 193).
Goals and Means of Their Achievement
At the same time, it is obvious that SBI’s IT strategy has its own goals and expected means of their achievement. First of all, using the new IT strategy SBI aims at expanding its customer base as far as IT solutions allow customers from the most remote locations in India and other countries to use the services of SBI (State Bank of India, 2010). Second, SBI tries to improve its public image in the context of the currently observed overall modernization of businesses, and the innovative IT strategy is a perfect chance to achieve this goal (Online SBI, 2010; Schwalbe, 2007, pp. 195 – 196).
CEO Perspective
However, according to the CEO of the SBI, Mr. O. P. Bhatt, if for other banks an IT strategy might be something new and unknown, SBI has already had a “strong IT platform” before the current IT strategy initiative came into the spotlight (State Bank of India, 2010). Among the currently available services and operations that users of SBI can choose to carry out online are:
- Fund transfers between two parties or between the two parties and the third one;
- PPF accounts launching;
- Secure card transactions;
- SBI express remit services;
- Online shopping services;
- Mobile banking services.
Thus, the CEO of the State Bank of India sees little danger in introducing the new IT strategy as far as the customers and partners of SBI are already adjusted to the bank’s IT developments and currently offered services.
Conclusions
So, the above-presented discussion allows concluding that the newly initiated IT strategy for the State Bank of India (SBI) has numerous advantages and few controversial points. The latter concern mainly the readiness of customers and partners to the IT innovations planned, while the pros of the SBI’s IT strategy include the already developed IT department and a set of IT banking services listed above. The CEO of SBI also considers the new IT strategy to be the perfect chance to modernize the bank’s performance and achieve sustainable development in the future.
Reference List
Martin, J. (2009) Call that an IT strategy? Computer Weekly, 17(23), 32.
Online SBI. (2010). With You All The Way. SBI. Service Offerings. Web.
Schwalbe, K. (2007) Information Technology Project Management. Cengage Learning.
State Bank of India. (2010) Internet Banking. SBI. Web.