Case Analysis
Executive Summary
The case shows series business activities the organization had performed following the development of ASB Bank within a term of time between 1986 and 1990 and focused on its sustained competitive advantage. It is a good example about how an information system fitted into an organisation, and even lead, competitive strategy formulation and deliver systems well within the timeframe that the corporate organisation itself can prepare for changes. There are three elements play main roles: BankĄ¯s IT potential capability, Deregulation and managing director.
The purpose of doing this case analysis is using appropriate principles and concepts what I have learnt in the class to link with the case exemplifies.
The Problem Definition
The crucial point for every business is how to be survival. Then, they are able to go further become success, even prosperity. As for the ASB Bank, it started out without any clear business competitive advantage in the marketplace. Hence, if the company want to stay a competitive advantage, it has to focus on how to improve its capability internally.
The direct costs of ASB Bank were identified associated with the information systems processing. Therefore, the problem of how to reduce this cost needed to be solved. It involved both hardware strategies and software strategies.
Other considerations are how company stay IT advantage, production advantage and human resource advantage. These are the fundamental elements for keeping competitive advantage.
Analysis
Figure 1 the Organization, Stakeholders and the Broad Environment
The broad environment forms the context in which the firm and its operating environment exist. The elements all have different influences on the organisation. Such as, government has political influence and customers have marketing influence. In the case, we can see the ASB Bank had been successful on monitoring, forecasting and adapting to broad environmental influences.
In 1986 the government deregulated the banking industry. The new Managing Director caught this opportunity and launched its new production: OMNI. This new customer account integrates different account functions and offer customer a great benefit. It is a customer-oriented account. The innovation only took two months to develop, which presents the ASB Bank had fully prepared for the changes. Its information system department use competitive aggression strategy and potential IT advantage to help company build this production barrier in order to stop its competitors following. Product differentiation is a good way to attract customers and beat competitors. Therefore, the company can keep a sustained competitive advantage for a long term of time.
The changes of Market share (%) of ASB Bank and its competitors in retail banking area
The changes of Market share (%) of ASB Bank and its competitors in Cheque account area
The blue line is ASB Bank. The development of ASB Bank in the banking market place was faster than its competitors. It still kept a strong increase trend.
The above example indicates the best business strategies are those which use the capabilities of the firm to address customer needs in a way which lead to sustainable competitive advantage.
The ASB Bank also tried [next page]