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Stefan Thomke

Better Essays

9-603-022
REV: OCTOBER 28, 2002

STEFAN THOMKE

Bank of America (A)
The banking industry is ripe for innovation. We need to grow through value creation and excellent service that is appreciated by customers as opposed to price alone. — Milton Jones, president, Georgia Banking Group “I wonder if we’re being ‘overrewarded’!” exclaimed Warren Butler to Amy Brady, the executive responsible for Bank of America’s Innovation & Development (I&D) Team in Atlanta, Georgia. As an executive in the consumer bank’s quality and productivity group, Butler led innovation and process change in Brady’s group, which was responsible for testing new product and service concepts for the th bank’s branches. In the company’s elegant 55 floor conference room …show more content…

In the United States, the bank served 27 million households and two million businesses and processed more checks per day than the Federal Reserve System. Globally, it boasted over 140,000 employees across 190 nations, over $8 billion in annual revenues, $360 billion in deposits, and some $600 billion in assets (see Exhibit 3 for key financial data). Yet, increasing competition ensured that Bank of America could not rest on its laurels. Like many of its successful peers, its growth had been driven by cost reduction and consolidation. From 1985 until 2000, the number of U.S. banks had dwindled from around 14,000 to about 7,000. These still large numbers—especially when compared with there being only six major banks in Canada— reflected the highly competitive nature of the U.S. banking industry as well as its regional focus. Driving consolidation had been a realization that while service was local, products were national. Despite this realization, however, banks continued viewing financial services as commodities, and this bottom-line orientation did not make for an industry rife with innovation. In the estimation of Butler, a senior vice president and industry veteran, “People’s expectations for banks are very low; in fact, they’re used to being

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