Detailed knowledge about customers is very important for any business organization
to find ways to capture business from the potential customers. Convergence between
Knowledge Management (KM) and the various emerging information technology applications leads to development of enterprise-wide KM systems, which can retain employees’ know-how, expertise and enable decision makers to react quickly to customers and competitors. Such systems have increased the focus on innovation in business and tacit knowledge of customers. In the paper, “Supporting Investment Advisors: A Knowledge Management Framework for Client and Prospect Intelligence”, the authors, Amitava Ghosh and Ambuj Mahanti, have proposed a KM framework to capture tacit knowledge about a prospect, a family member or a friend of a potential customer, who can be a future customer. The financial organizations and wealth management firms can make use of such KM systems to tap useful information about prospective customers from the existing clients. The proposed framework is intended to help the financial advisors capture knowledge from clients, identify key decision makers in prospect’s family and details of prospect’s relationships and friends and the investments made. The authors have focused on development of an enterprise KM tool based on the framework to attract potential future customers.
Knowledge sharing helps organizations to improve performance and be more successful by learning from successes and mistakes, creating new knowledge and improving collaboration capacity. Sandeep Vij and Rayees Farooq, in their paper, “Knowledge Sharing Orientation and Its Relationship with Business Performance: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach”, have stressed that Knowledge Sharing Orientation (KSO) is one of the important dimensions of knowledge management orientation. They have attempted to study the relationship between KSO and business performance and the effect of size of organization and nature of industry on that relationship. They have applied structural equation modeling on the survey data and reported that KSO will have an impact on business performance, which is invariant across firms differing by nature of industry.
The significance of knowledge and its proper management in development and growth is being valued and well perceived by some countries aggressively and by others slowly. In the paper, “The Development of Knowledge in Portugal: A Slow and Unsustainable Progress”, the author, Margarida M S Chagas Lopes, has reported that the multiple factors of economic, social and political nature are reasons behind the slow progress of the evolution of the foundations of knowledge in Portugal. The author starts the analysis with two vectors—educational results and qualifications of the active working population, and reports that in addition to economic factors, institutional factors also have a significant influence, behaving frequently under antagonistic and paradoxical forms.
According to Zhirong et al. (2003), Total Innovation Management (TIM) aims at winning the sustainable competitive advantage and focuses on accumulating and improving the core competency. The author, Arash Najmaei, in the paper, “Towards an Integrative Model for Management of Organization’s Total Innovation: Insights from the Strategic-Process View”, has developed a conceptual framework for Organizational Total Innovation Management (OTIM) from the perspective of strategic management. The framework provides a careful analysis of internal and external environments, development of value-creating strategic initiatives for stakeholders, and better exploitation and development of organizational capabilities and competencies, compared to competitors.
Automated Teller Machines (ATMs): The Changing Face of Banking in India
Bank Management
Information and communication technology has changed the way in which banks provide services to its customers. These days the customers are able to perform their routine banking transactions without even entering the bank premises. ATM is one such development in recent years, which provides remote banking services all over the world, including India. This paper analyzes the development of this self-service banking in India based on the secondary data.
The Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is playing a very important role in the progress and advancement in almost all walks of life. The deregulated environment has provided an opportunity to restructure the means and methods of delivery of services in many areas, including the banking sector. The ICT has been a focused issue in the past two decades in Indian banking. In fact, ICTs are enabling the banks to change the way in which they are functioning. Improved customer service has become very important for the very survival and growth of banking sector in the reforms era. The technological advancements, deregulations, and intense competition due to the entry of private sector and foreign banks have altered the face of banking from one of mere intermediation to one of provider of quick, efficient and customer-friendly services. With the introduction and adoption of ICT in the banking sector, the customers are fast moving away from the traditional branch banking system to the convenient and comfort of virtual banking. The most important virtual banking services are phone banking, mobile banking, Internet banking and ATM banking. These electronic channels have enhanced the delivery of banking services accurately and efficiently to the customers. The ATMs are an important part of a bank’s alternative channel to reach the customers, to showcase products and services and to create brand awareness. This is reflected in the increase in the number of ATMs all over the world. ATM is one of the most widely used remote banking services all over the world, including India. This paper analyzes the growth of ATMs of different bank groups in India.
International Scenario
If ATMs are largely available over geographically dispersed areas, the benefit from using an ATM will increase as customers will be able to access their bank accounts from any geographic location. This would imply that the value of an ATM network increases with the number of available ATM locations, and the value of a bank network to a customer will be determined in part by the final network size of the banking system. The statistical information on the growth of branches and ATM network in select countries.
Indian Scenario
The financial services industry in India has witnessed a phenomenal growth, diversification and specialization since the initiation of financial sector reforms in 1991. Greater customer orientation is the only way to retain customer loyalty and withstand competition in the liberalized world. In a market-driven strategy of development, customer preference is of paramount importance in any economy. Gone are the days when customers used to come to the doorsteps of banks. Now the banks are required to chase the customers; only those banks which are customercentric and extremely focused on the needs of their clients can succeed in their business today.
