Question 1

As of the mid – 1990s, what was JYSKE Bank’s competitive positioning, that is,
what did it do for customers relative to its competitors?
The JYSKE BANK places great emphasis on its three groups of stakeholders, shareholders, to treat
clients and employees, with the same respect. If the balance in favor of one or two groups shifts, is
the long-term expense of all groups.
In mid 1990s JYSKE was dealing a group of customers with one employee. For that reason possibility
of serving each customer simultaneously was pretty difficult which was making fellow customers
very annoying and disappointed. In that case customers’ incompatible needs were negatively
affecting each other.

Employees were provided ID cards with dull images that were not indicating friendliness in
providing services. Moreover loan processing criteria was pretty critical both for employees and
customers. These were hampering service popularity and long term satisfaction among customers.
Beside that employees were no feeling themselves empowered enough to be one of the important
stakeholders of the organization.

The core values of the Bank are its fundamental basis. In relation to customers and staff, have the
following characteristics which JYSKE Bank makes it unique:

Common sense

Open and honest

Different and unpretentious

Genuine interest and same attention

Effective and sustainable

Academy of management led these same values to reevaluate how the Bank has with their
customers. The manager knew that if these values, they change their conservative attitude of the
past and a service, which should be distributed and innovative Bank wished to remain faithful to
the customers within a competitive banking sector.
 Question 2
As of 2003, what was JYSKE Bank’s competitive positioning?
Originally JYSKE Bank was following an old-fashioned banking system. Its competitive
differentiation strategy was originated from its core values and differences. Those are consisting
equality, transparency, honesty, respect and efficiency.
The goal was to embed firm’s values in each of the external customer of its business and
operations and stand out from the competition. In the mid-1990s, JYSKE bank transformed and
positioned itself as a very customer-focused bank. Then they began to promote relationships with
customers to understand their needs and solutions in accordance with their strategy. Its only target
was less risk bearing customers those are ready to afford a premium price and were comfortable
with the banks candid personality and portrayed image.

This strategy went beyond the traditional product-centric approach, as most of the banks have
taken it over. JYSKE Bank differentiates itself on the aspect of service provision and it invested in
tools, employee capability, solutions and increase spending time with their customers.

JYSKE introduced a new competitive positioning in its branches and all sorts of operations. New
positioning is shown below -     

       

Out of Box Services -

·         Developing a niche marketing and targeting the right set of customers.
·         A single customer is assigned to a small group of employees in each of the branches of JYSKE bank
to ensure better and quick service with compiled effort.
·         JYSKE bank is keeping friendly picture employees on the ID card.

Value addition -
·         To be nice to every customer to ensure satisfaction.
·         Making available time for customers.
·         Caring customers as much as possible
·         Focusing on niche marketing for extremely valuable customers.
·         Training for building team and provide adequate services.
·         Empowering employees with training and allotting enough power to make instant decision at least
at the branch level.
·         JYSKE bank is offering attractive incentives to their employees to increase satisfaction and
commitment to the organization.

Cutting Edge -
Here tools developed means – Customers’ needs are identified. And the combine effort of these
tools and employees are cutting edges.
·         JYSKE bank developed IT tools to help customers in identifying customers’ problems and providing
proper solutions.
·         Both employees and the tools are providing appropriate solutions to customers.

Service & culture that differentiates–

·         More employee centric approach to maintain customer satisfaction.
·         Empowering employees for decision making.
·         Employee training for fro better service orientation availability for customers.
·         Changing the style of delivering financial services to customers.

Question 3
What did JYSKE Bank change to enable it to deliver its new competitive
positioning?
Any product based or service organization can bring some differences in their corporation. JYSKE
bank is a service organization that is required to do some competitive positioning. It introduced
some tangible and intangible differences in its organization to do so. To maintain the satisfaction
among existing customers and gaining new customers Jyse brought these tangible and intangible
changes into its service system.

Some Tangible changes those were brought in JYSKE Bank’s operation:

Account Team:
This was started when each employee of the branch to serve as primary point of contact. There
were many problems. Gradually JYSKE bank identified that many valued customers are coming to
the bank simultaneously.  Employees are busy with customers who were arrived first. But JYSKE
bank were committed to provide individualized service to each customer. This situation was
hampering their commitment. Then the accounting tem of that bank introduced the team based
performance criteria. That means  each of the customer of JYSKE bank were assigned to a
particular tem. The team members were looking that problem by working together. The facility
from that tem based performance was that providing each customer with great ease, providing
individualized service to each customer and maintaining customer satisfaction in highest level by
keeping close physical proximity with each customer.          

Branch Design:
JYSKE bank spent huge amount of money to redesign their bank branches. The purpose was not
only to decorate it to look attractive. There were some other reasons to make their branches
customer friendly. So that customers can take their services with a great ease and comfort. Some
of the beneficial effects of the redesigning branches are -   
                                    Interactional attractiveness - JYSKE bank were creating interactional
attractiveness among valuable customers through architectural and design changes. They are
delighting their waiting customers with coffee, fresh juice and with a play center for children.
                                    Signifying Quality - Employees layouts in the branches signifies quality of
the service. Because, 3 or 4 employees were sitting at a single large round table to provide quick
services to customers.
                                    Reinforcing Openness – IT system of all branches were designed to structure
interaction between team members and customers. Because employees computer screen were
placed like that customers can see them and ensured openness to customers.        
If conversation goes long there were meeting rooms those were ready to give services with feeling
of home.

Details:
 JYSKE bank tried to show that their employees are working with genuine interest to serve
customers properly. For that they hired professional photographer who worked with employees and
captured the genuine interest in employees’ eyes.
That means JYSKE BANK ensures the physical facilities for customers. These physical conditions
ensured the proper tangible differences in branches of JYSKE BANK.

Some Intangible changes those were brought in JYSKE Bank’s operation:    
To enable the competitive positioning JYSKE Bank also did some intangible changes in its
operations.

Training:
JYSKE Bank provided adequate training to their employees. It helped the team based service
strategy of JYSKE Bank to provide service in the way out of traditional retail business.
Branches’ Empowerment: the decentralization of loan process
As employees are trained properly they are also given some additional power to provide the service
with a great ease.

Generally in traditional banking services when customers are arriving for the sake of arranging loan
there are some provisions of allowing getting loan. If a customer was to apply for a loan the entire
procedure used to take a long time as the branch manager used to write a formal application and
forward the application to the regional level for approval. This is a lengthy and time consuming
process.

To get rid of this hassle JYSKE BANK empower their employees with proper training to approve the
loan as soon as possible. JYSKE make the particular employee the owner of the loan. This system
was implemented to affect the service internally and positively. Managers became enabled to
contact to customers and collect information properly. And quality of data collected is increasing.
For that reason manages are approving small loans almost instantly. All the employees were told –
“When in doubt, ask. However, if there is no doubt, go ahead”. From this we can get ideas about
the benefit of empowering employees and improving efficiency of the service. 

Question 4 
How did JYSKE Bank implement those changes?
JYSKE bank brought some changes in its management style. JYSKE used many tools, trainings and
JYSKE values to link them together through the share of values of their employees. JYSKE bank
implemented these in changing especially, their human resources.
The Bank reached its new customer-oriented competitive method. It is known as STP and goes
through the positioning in 3 stages - segmentation, targeting and finally positioning. JYSKE bank
implemented it in following ways -

1)      Segmentation is done by following ways –

Private Banking
Corporate Banking
Consumer Banking
2)      Targeting is done by following ways –
Danish families
Small to Medium Danish companies
3)      JYSKE bank finally positioned their bank as – A bank which makes a difference for the customer.
           ## JYSKE Bank was selecting their employees not only depending on their banking skills;
they are also evaluating the social abilities of each and every employee which will go along with
service mindedness and some JYSKE values such as: openness to customers and genuine interest in
other people. JYSKE bank hires employees only if employees are consistent to JYSKE values to
ensure satisfaction of customers.

           ## JYSKE Bank made employees’ development as every employee’s responsibility. JYSKE

helped in development of employees by investing more on it. But they kept the development of
every employee within the JYSKE values.

           ## JYSKE bank offers a few monetary incentives to its valuable employees to keep them
motivated and perform better. IT is the part of reward facilities based on performances. JYSKE
provides three types of incentives - stock, one-time payments and annual raises. The portion of
incentives depends on the overall performance of the bank. If JYSKE bank’s performances are
growing, then the portion of incentives are increasing. Thus employees are getting more motivation
to perform with customer satisfaction.

           ## JYSKE bank is committed to both customers and their valuable employees. The promises
those they are making are being fulfilled for sure. Also JYSKE bank is investing more in employees,
system and infrastructure to be the top one in Scandinavian banking market.