Introduction
This report will review my internship at the Saudi Hollandi Bank. The report will examine the performance of the bank in terms of strengths, weakness, opportunities, and threats. The report concentrates on individual observation and how this experience has impacted on my future direction.
Company background
Founded in 1926, the Saudi Hollandi Bank has grown from the initial retail financial to the current project financing product. The establishment of the branches such as the Al Khobah and Damman was implemented by the bank in 1954 to expand the scope of operation. The bank is currently renowned for offering customized financial services such as personal banking, business banking, and corporate banking. In the recent past, the company introduced ATM services, internet banking, insurance, and property financing (Saudi Hollandi Bank 2014).
The vision of the bank is to enhance service delivery through a proactive, friendly, and sustainable service delivery. The vision has internalized the aspects of quality services, affordable financial products, and long culture of reliability. The mission of the bank is to attract and maintain customers through provision of convenient and competitive financial services that surpass the anticipation of the clients (Saudi Hollandi Bank 2014).
The management team consists of the general manager, operations director, marketing director, and administration director. Under the directors, there are departmental heads leading the information technology, accounting, audit, human resource, and administration department. Under the departmental heads are the workers who are professional in the fields such as accounting, banking, labor management, and auditing. Basically, the bank has adopted the inverted triangle management model, whereby the employees have to take most of the responsibilities with the directors limited to leadership and goal setting (Saudi Hollandi Bank 2014).
SWOT analysis
Strengths
The stable and management team comprising of five directors and several managers are instrumental towards providing necessary support and guidance in provision of financial services to customers and reviewing current operational strategies, in line with the demands of their clients. For instance, the management team introduced the electronic banking service in response to the demands of the clients. The bank also enjoys consistency in profits and high asset quality as well as strong capitalization. In the last financial year, the bank’s profitability increased by 23% as compared to the previous year. This has enabled the bank to fund different business project initiatives at affordable loan repayment interest rates (Saudi Hollandi Bank 2014).
Weaknesses
The bank has more presence in the Al Khobah area than other parts of Saudi Arabia. Thus, the bank does not enjoy the substantive demand in the wider market, as its customer catchments area is restricted to the boundaries of the Al Khobah region. Besides, the focus of the bank is more on corporate and investment banking. This is counterproductive in terms of revenue generation since majority of its customers are small businesses and private individuals, who cannot operate in the corporate and investment platform. As a result of these weaknesses, the bank has not been able to efficiently penetrate the small business segment in the Saudi Arabia (Saudi Hollandi Bank 2014).
Opportunities
The bank has an opportunity to expand its opportunity to cater for leasing of finances since its asset base is strong enough to sustain this market. This opportunity will help in boosting the bank’s revenues and leadership position in the Saudi Arabian banking industry. Moreover, financing SSI sector could also be used as a very important venture avenue since the industry is still growing. As a result, the bank will be in a position to double its current revenues and increase the customer base (Saudi Hollandi Bank 2014).
Threats
The main threat to survival of the Saudi Hollandi Bank in Al Khobah region is the competition from other local banks as the Al Rajhi Bank and the NCB Bank. These banks have very strong customer base. Thus, the expansion and market penetration strategies that the Saudi Hollandi Bank proposes are likely to face opposition from these banks. The other threat for the bank comes as a result unrest in many parts of the Khobar region. These unrests may destabilize the free market and interfere with the financial products’ interest rates. However, this threat is minimal since the government has managed to maintain political stability in this region (Saudi Hollandi Bank 2014).
Organizational marketing strategy
The Saudi Hollandi Bank, located in Khobah region, uses business to customer strategy to design its marketing promotional service. The bank relies heavily on the local television channels, local business magazines, and social media to advertise the financial services. Besides, the bank relies on word of mouth from satisfied customers who have improved the bank’s referral network (Takahara & Liu 2007).
Organizational competitive strategy
The company has several products that are tailored to meet the demands of each client. The bank has a brighter and sustainable future based on statistical growth of market, market expansion, efficiency, and very competitive prices for its financial services, which cannot be offered by competitors. The company’s market price offer on its high quality products will continue to lure the middle class consumers, who make up almost 40% of market (Bidgoli 2011).
Conceptual framework
The internship opportunity at the bank was significant understanding the operational framework in the banking industry. The operational framework comprises of policy and litigation to satisfy the demands of customers through creative and high quality services (McQuilten 2011).
Projects undertaken
I was given an opportunity to design and develop the bank’s customer service information system. Through collaboration with the bank’s information systems director, I was in a position to develop the system that could track the customer feedback. However, the system was limited customer connectivity. Since the system is yet to be implemented, it is difficult to establish challenges that may require solutions (Bidgoli 2011).
Evaluation of the internship experience
The internship experience was life changing since I had the opportunity to apply the class concepts in the bank. Besides, I had the opportunity to participate in the development of a communication system.
Summary of findings and recommendations
It is apparent that the Saudi Hollandi Bank, located in Al Khobah region, is well positioned to survive competition due to its interesting community management systems. Besides, the bank has a very dynamic team who are always in the forefront of designing creative products. However, the bank should expand on its customer feedback system to guarantee client loyalty.
References
Bidgoli, H. (2011). MIS2. New York, NY: Cengage Learning. Web.
McQuilten, G. (2011). Art in Consumer Culture: MIS-design. New York, NY: Ashgate Publishing. Web.
Saudi Hollandi Bank. (2014). About SHB. Web.
Takahara, Y., & Liu, Y. (2007). Foundations and Applications of MIS: A Model Theory Approach. Alabama, Al: Springer. Web.