The globalisation of corporate and business banking continues at an ever-increasing rate, to match both the demands of corporate clients and expand into emerging markets such as those in Eastern Europe. The result is growing competition, with the big players jostling for position against their well established rivals and a host of smaller players in their home markets, and making inroads into new markets, where the incumbent banks are fighting to retain their market share.
At the same time the market is changing with major corporate clients ever more likely to see banking as a commodity where the supplier can be changed with relative ease, or in some cases dispensed with altogether as they go direct to the market to raise their own funding.
This growing disintermediation not only means the loss of a valuable income stream, but may also herald the end of long-term relationships banks have striven so hard to develop. In future banks face the challenge of finding new ways of bringing value to their clients and differentiating themselves from the competition if they are to enjoy continued success.
The reliance on relationship building won't be enough in a situation that calls for bankers to have the higher-level skills needed to explore client's business issues and develop creative, customised solutions that will bring real value to the client. Most banks recognised the need for selling skills some years ago and invested in selling skills training but the questions to be asked are:
- Has this training translated into real behaviour change when bankers meet clients face-to-face?
- Are the skills of a high enough order to meet these new challenges?
- How well do these skills match the different cultural requirements of emerging markets?
- How well are these skill needs being developed in new locations where the training infrastructure may not match that of the home base?
Huthwaite has been at the forefront of helping clients in this sector to bring about real changes in behaviour that produce measurable results. We also have long experience in developing the higher level skills needed to explore high-level business needs. What's more we have been working on a global basis for over thirty years to deliver skills training in English or local languages to match local cultural requirements.
At Huthwaite we try not to rest on our laurels and continue to work with clients to develop solutions to their skill needs, this includes conducting research projects to identify the skills and strategies needed to meet changing market demands. The most recent of these has been in Major Account Development and Key Account Management.
