Executive Summary
Today, Emirates NBD is one of the biggest banking institutions in the United Arab Emirates with its capabilities to provide world-class services whilst maintaining its reputation as a top financial services provider in the banking industry (Emirates NBD, 2013). Its leadership in this market is remarkable, and so are the ways the bank’s governing body has been able to manage the complexities, challenges and changes that come with the industry. This achievement is made due to the excellent managing and IT solutions.
Understanding that Emirates NBD has recently faced a serious operational problem, this report provides an outlook of the approaches Emirates NBD may take to manage those changes (Emirates NBD. Annual Report, 2012). This report also includes the assessment of the success that Emirates NBD may experience with the implementation of those changes. The implication of this approach and the needed changes on the part of Emirates NBD are also provided along with comparative analysis with the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). In addition, the report features group analysis and appraisal on the solution, and ways of its further improvement.
Introduction
Emirates NBD is the foremost banking group in its region, which appeared on October 16, 2007. Since that date, Emirates NBD is officially registered by the Dubai Financial Market. According to Emirates NBD (2013).
The Emirates NBD 2007 merger between Emirates Bank International (EBI) and the National Bank of Dubai (NBD), became a regional consolidation blueprint for the banking and finance sector as it combined the second and fourth largest banks in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to form a banking champion with the largest asset base in the GCC region summing up to AED 281.6 billion as of 31st December 2009, capable of delivering enhanced value across corporate, retail, Islamic and investment banking throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.
The business vision of Emirates NBD is focused around the idea of being the center in the Middle East, and even globally recognized company that provides varied financial services both to the population and to legal persons.
Today, Emirates NBD is the leading company in a row of the most important areas in the UAE financial market including retail banking franchise, cash deposits, and corporate banking. The company has over 141 branches and more than 740 Cash Deposit Machines or ATMs, located all over the country (Emirates NBD para. 5). It is important to note that the company’s achievements in the sector of corporate banking are especially significant. The following information from the official site of the company supports the above-mentioned fact, “with a fast-growing Islamic banking affiliated entities, strong investment and private banking services and a leadership in the field of asset management products and Brokerage services, Emirates NBD is well-positioned to deliver outstanding value to its shareholders” (Emirates NBD para. 7).
The Operational Problem in Emirates NBD
As part of its ability to take the lead in its industry, there were various essential moves Emirates NBD attempted to initiate to promote a high level of achievement for its set goals and to achieve the required change for it to be able to be on top in its industry (Emirates NBD. Annual Report, 2012). Recently Emirates NBD has experienced a serious operational problem with regards to its expanding objectives. Because the company aims to occupy the leading positions in a variety of banking spheres not only in the country but in the world as well, it needs an efficient and highly automatic data system. However, as the company growth continues to gather pace, it appears that the central data system of Emirates NBD branch office, which is used in every other company branch, has a number of serious problems including a row of clumsy constituents that require unnecessary labor; causes high error rate; results into inefficient manual procedures; is responsible for high cost of data organization; and insufficient inventory (Emirates NBD. Annual Report, 2012).
Also, currently, the bank is facing a test of falling victim to hackers and computer viruses, which paralyze trading and in some instances, wipe out the whole computer memory. The risk element is likely to grow in future when banks will over-rely on computers.
The IT Solution for the Problem
To make the necessary corrections, aiming to minimize the operational problem in Emirates NBD, and make its business strategies more efficient, it is important to implement a complex approach in developing and practicing IT solutions (Watkins, 2005). Facilitating such an IT solution requires having a row of monitoring operations at the initial stage to identify the exact points in the operating system that need corrections and optimization. Besides, the stage of monitoring the existing problem necessitates assessing the employees’ performance to see, where the company efficiency is subjected to losses.
The next stage of the solution implementation is focused on allocating support to company employees in practicing their daily operations, and doing so in a more effective way by means of utilizing the necessary software, provided by the company in a centralized way. According to Kesharwani (2010, p. 31), “a majority of workers today are knowledge workers who create, distribute, and or use information. This includes bankers, coordinators, caseworkers, counselors, community organizers, programmers, insurance advisors, consultants, and so on”. All of these workers need effective tools aiming to create fast ways of exchanging information between them. The company has a great need to create such effective ways to elaborate effective exchange information between its workers. In addition, the IT solution, targeting information exchange, should go hand in hand with the company liability and the company’s ambitious goals at the local financial market, and the world one as well.
As the situation with employees’ objectives, set by the company management, is changed on a regular basis, there should exist daily inventory facilitation programs that would provide a basis for introducing the necessary changes into the company’s IT systems on a daily basis. Daily inventory facilitation should be introduced routinely and repetitively (Kesharwani, 2010). Another step towards the implementation of the plan to improve services is the new, IT-based relationships that are established with corporate customers. The company is keen on ensuring that customers who need scheduled arrangements over a long period are given first priority. This is an effort by the company to identify with high-quality and premium services. Finally, Emirates NBD should establish a routine-based mechanism, assessing the safety issues in its IS. The mechanism should be operated by a team of professionals, who will constantly elaborate the most sophisticated protective strategies for the Emirates NBD IS.
Improving Business Objectives using Implementing the Offered Solution
The implementation of the offered IT solution will significantly improve business objectives of the company using improving decision-making and increasing revenue (Watkins, 2005). The rationale of the proposed recommendation for Emirates NBD can be seen in numerous factors. First, implementing them, the owners of the company will be able to acquire significant levels of profit, and this is, without a doubt, the most important objective in their business. Without having their own economical and financial viability, the owners of the company will not be able to proceed any further in the development of their business, and offer benefits to the other participants of the business process such as employees, customers, etc.
Second, by means of implementing these recommendations, the company will be able to stick to the global IT standards. The good thing about this strategy is making sure of maximizing opportunity for Emirates NBD by providing to various needs of its target customers to end up with sustainable operation. As a result, Emirates NBD will succeed in providing personal, private, business and corporate banking experience for diverse customer segments particularly in the United Arab Emirates and globally (Kesharwani, 2010). Finally, the quality of services to customers will also be improved with an increased variety of options in order to keep the business growing.
Comparative Analysis with the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)
Emirates NBD and RBS are both ambitious banking players in the world business market. The companies have similar objectives of becoming leaders in banking operations not only in their regions, but in the other parts of the world as well (Emirates NBD, 2013; The Royal Bank of Scotland, 2012). Recently, RBS has occupied the central positions in the world, which became possible due to successful managerial decisions along with the effective use of IS and IT solutions. Now it is clear RBS developed the above-discussed approach not only to ensure profitability but to guarantee a competitive advantage in its industry.
Its ability to create major innovations and substantial changes only promotes its potential to stay on top in the financial service industry, ensuring its sustainable operation while taking the opportunity to provide high value for customers and generate profit. Emirates NBD established the same course as RBS, and has already achieved a lot in this area. However, the company will surely perform even better in case of IT solutions implementation with the aim of making the exchange of information inside the company more effective, and in case of producing more user-friendly options for a row of banking operations not only for its clients in the United Arab Emirates, but in the other parts of the world as well.
Group Analysis and Appraisal on the Solution. Ways of Further Improving the Offered Solution
The offered solution presents an opportunity to considerably improve the performance of Emirates NBD at the local and global markets of baking operations. However, this solution is not an ultimate version of IT and IS improvements by the company, which is explained by the fact that the situation in the market, and especially customer demand is constantly changing. Thus, the company management should continue monitoring company performance to make the necessary changes in company objectives. Also, regular changes and updates should be introduced into the developed IT solution as the world of information technology is an ever-changing reality (Watkins, 2005).
References
Emirates NBD. (2013). Web.
Emirates NBD. Annual Report 2011. (2012). Web.
Kesharwani, S. (2010). Enterprise Information Systems. Siliconindia, 13(5), 30-31.
The Royal Bank of Scotland 2012, RBS: Here for you. (2012). Web.
Watkins, J. (2005). Information Technology, Organizations and People. London: Routledge.