Abstract
SAMBA stands for Saudi American bank. It founded in 1980 by Citibank, which owned 40% of its shares. The managing director was from Pakistan who had been a former prime minister. United Saudi and kingdom holding company later joined the bank. Due to political factors, the name of the bank changed from SAMBA to samba financial group in 2003, where Citibank withdrew their shares and sold them to an insurance company. A research on the progress of the organization is on the strategy and segmentation of customer relationship.
Background Information
The bank suits in Saudi Arabia where there are very strict Islamic traditions. The bank therefore has to ensure that all their products and services follow the traditions to be successful. The bank has 66 branches in the country and global establishments in Dubai, Pakistan and London. Its success has been gradual with its penetration to the target markets with banking products and services. They have attracted a substantial number of customers out of their desire to provide solutions to their customers’ financial and investment needs and wants (Oxford Business Group 99; Shoult 19).
Saudi Arabia is a country with oil, making it a potential market for SAMBA. The bank has adopted international practices, infrastructure, technology and developed financial resources to attract and maintain its customers with its quality services. Success in marketing is about building relationship with customers rather than creating exchange processes. Customer relationship segments so that the institution can focus on means of tailoring the relationship with the specific needs of different groups (Ramady 124). A research conducted on 1 June 2011 to 9 July 2011 shows the efforts of building customer relationship by SAMBA. The report releases on 11 July 2011.
Objectives
- Explain the success of the bank survival in the market.
- Evaluate and analyze the marketing strategy of the bank in terms of customer relationship.
- Find out the challenges they face.
- Advise the institution on other alternative marketing strategies.
Findings
Analysis of Customer Relationship
Market Share
The table below shows the stock exchange of the bank market.
This table shows the stiff competition of customers in the sector creating the need for quality customer relationship.
Efforts of the Bank in Creating Customer Relationships
Segmentation
Demographic Segmentation
Involving Women
The bank has established centers for women to help them develop financially. It gives them advice on how to invest their money and the importance of saving. This helps to attract the attention of women willing to achieve success in their lives. The women act as referral markets to other people especially in their family, to seek services in that bank (Ramady 127).
Behavioral Segmentation
Use of Traditional Banking Activities
Muslims habit the country and strictly follow their culture and beliefs. Adopting this strategy attracts all the customers due to the satisfaction they derive from its services. This segmentation divides customers according to their beliefs and attitudes towards the Quran, a holy book used by the Muslims (Oxford Business Group 99).
Psychographic Segmentation
Innovation of Reliable and Portable Financial Products
It provides ATMs, samba phone, samba.com, and samba mobile to enable its customers to withdrawal, check balance and deposit their money anytime they want. It offers credit cards to allow their customers to do shopping anywhere at anytime with ease and efficiency. It offers ATMs for free to encourage many customers to adopt its use (Oxford Business Group 99).These factors prevent its customers from the strain of handling cash money and long cues at the bank. It has both personal and commercial banking services to suit the different needs and preferences of user lifestyle. Customer relationship and experience is the goal of its success (Ramady 120; Keegan 48).
Challenges Faced by the Organization
The political system of the country prevents the foreign investors from fully owning the investment. This discourages most of them from investing to their full potential reducing competition for the services in the market. This further means less development of infrastructure and technology. The customers prefer banks owned by the government in fear of loosing their finances when the bank disintegrates (Ramady 123).The company responds by allowing the Shariah supervisory committee to check on their progress on behalf of its customers to give them the confidence and pride of being part of the organization. Nevertheless, the bank has developed despite the withdrawal of Citibank shares (Oxford Business Group 99).
Opportunities
It has advanced technology making it easy to attract a substantial number of customers for long-term survival of the institution. Influential shareholders who attract potential customers to its services manage it. The customers pride increases their loyalty. The bank has the capabilities of surviving in the market due to the enhanced customer experience created by the institution management and employees (Ramady 129).
Discussion
Quality is the key to customer retention and attraction through satisfaction. Consumers have responded to these changes and have become more sophisticated in their demands and expectations. They seek products and services that are environmental friendly for example when the Citibank withdraws its shares from the bank because it is politically and environmentally unsound, customers avoid or limit investments in the bank due to fear of collapse (Ramady 132).
The key focus of marketing is always satisfying customer needs and wants. However, there are other instances where marketing activities conduct Situational analysis. Organizations should not only focus on customer relationship but also other elements affecting within the organization and the society, which can influence the organizations long-term success (Ramady 135).
Conclusion
Marketing is continuously evolving in response to the changing environment whereby new strategies, techniques and tools for marketing managers are constantly developing. Marketing has moved from the original idea of bringing about mutually satisfying benefits or exceeds and has resulted into an exchange process, which benefits both the organization and its customers.
Works Cited
Gulf Base. Your gateway to GCC stock market. Panama: Gulf base.com. 2011. Web.
Keegan, Warren. Principle of global marketing. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall,1997.
Oxford Business Group. The report: Saudi Arabia 2010. Salt Lake City: Oxford Business Group. 2010.
Ramady, Mohamed. The Saudi Arabian economy: Policies, achievements, and challenges. Springer: Springer. 2010.
Shoult, Antony. Doing business with Saudi Arabia. London: GMB Publishing Limited. 2006.