Strategy & Leadership

Case Study: Commonwealth Bank of Australia

September 10, 2014

Global

September 10, 2014

Global
James Chambers

Former senior editor

James is Bureau Chief for Monocle, Hong Kong. Prior to this he worked as a Senior Editor with The EIU's Thought Leadership team for over three years researching business, technology and cities. He has also written about business and technology for The World In 2015 and economist.com. James has previous experience from IR magazine, a finance publication, where he was research editor in London and Shanghai. Additionally he contributed to Legal Week, a weekly legal magazine, and worked on the FT Innovative Lawyers Awards in the US and Europe. James is an English law-qualified solicitor (currently non-practising) and holds post-graduate legal qualifications from BPP Law School and an LLP in Law from the London School of Economics.

Company profile: Commonwealth Bank of Australia is Australia’s largest bank. By its own estimates, it is involved in 40% of all domestic transactions.

Executive: Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, chief executive officer, Institutional Banking and Markets

Big decision: Choosing which business lines to grow or shrink

Ms Bayer Rosmarin became division head at the end of 2013. Her first big decision – similar to that of many international competitors – was to take some “tough decisions” about which of her business lines to “emphasise or de-emphasise”. Her focus has been on areas where the bank is a market leader and can offer its corporate customers unique insights, such as project finance or trade finance.

The first step, prompted by flux in the global banking industry, involved the leadership team reaching a “decision to decide”. Once this intention was formed, the data gathering and analysis process began – drawing upon historical business performance and projections, competitive intelligence, as well as global trends. Next came the “human element” of talking to major customers and canvassing the opinions of potential customers who had chosen a competitor. Finally, all of this information was synthesised until the leadership team had honed in on a few key decisions that needed to be made.

 

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