Introduction/Facts of the Case
ANZ bank is over 170 years old providing a range of banking and financial products and services to more than 5.7 million retail customers on a global scale (case). . Offering 817 branches and 2600 automated teller machines (ATMs) all over Australia, ANZ is ranked in the top 4 banks in Australia along with Commonwealth Bank of Australia, National Australia Bank Ltd (NAB) and Westpac Banking Corporation.
This report will identify the current position of ANZ, and how they are attempting to reposition themselves in the financial services industry. The case highlights the strengths and weaknesses of ANZ and how effective their current marketing strategy is. The strengths of ANZ which have been identified in the case are their highly customised bankcards, their trustworthy image and reputation, knowledgeable staff and the size of the firm. ANZ’s weaknesses are that their products are quite easy to imitate due to such intangibility, they are at the bottom compared to their competitors, the communication gap occurring through the reposition of their new brand and the inflexibility due to the large structure of the bank. This paper will explore two of ANZ’s main strategic issues which are the communication gap of through the repositioning and rebranding as well as ANZ’s competition in the financial industry.
Key Strategic Marketing Issues
The banking industry is very well established and has a limited selection of different products. Due to few substitute products, firms in the industry will find it hard to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Chenet, Dagger, & O'Sullivan (2010) state that, differentiation is important because firms uniqueness is linked to target market focus, client-perceived value and competitive advantage. In result of ANZ’s lack of communicating their service quality, limited product diversity and lack of unadaptable strategies they are ranked number four of the top four