The Impact of Information Communication Technologies in the Strategic Management of Financial Institutions

ICTs have contributed a lot in the strategic and operations management of financial institutions all over the world. Today, ICT is employed in all the departments of most financial institutions such as operations, customer services, marketing, administration, human resource, procurement, accounting, financial management, etc. The general consensus among various academicians is that ICTs have improved the processes of operations and management. It has also played significant roles in strategic and operational management and also determined the marketing mix, strategic decisions, ownerships, management and partnerships such as alliances and mergers. This study investigated the role of ICTs in the strategic and operational management of financial institutions using a qualitative research method involving the interview of top managements and operational staffs of four selected banks in the United Kingdom and Nigeria. Findings revealed that ICTs have indeed contributed a lot in improving the functioning of all departments of the selected banks such as marketing, operations, HR, finance, call centers, customer services, etc. The benefits gained by the various banks after the implementation of ICTs include better online and offline support for their customers, ROI justification, profitable sales volume, reduction of queues in the banking halls, and very interactive websites. There are however, many departments and other functional areas where ICTs have not been fully utilized. Moreover, many financial institutions have not fully adopted and applied ICT to all functional areas. The study recommends that these can be resolved through proper training, i.e. the provision of ICT related training to employees with respect to the strategic and operational management of the banks as well as exploration of the importance of the recruitment of external consultants who are specialized in their respective fields to render solid support

IMPEDIMENTS TO E-BANKING SERVICES MARKETING IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES – A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIAN BANKS

The extant body of literature are awash with various studies on e-banking services marketing both in the developed and developing economies. Within the developed economies, studies have been done in virtually all strands of electronic banking services; however same cannot be said of developing economies. This paper aims to critically investigate the impediments to e-banking services marketing within the Nigerian state. This study adopted a mixed method approach – comprising of both interview techniques and the use of questionnaires for data collection. Findings are multi-faceted and viewed from three angles viz: the user based, institutional based and the government related roles. Findings further revealed among others the poor educational imbalance especially between the North and South and the lack of adequate policy framework to safeguard customers’ money as some of the challenges. The strategic implications of all these are clearly discussed and clear cut recommendation derived for implementation by all concerned