Outgoing Absa group CEO Daniel Mminele. Picture: Supplied
In his own words: The group has delivered respectable progress over the last two-and-ahalf years against the strategy journey adopted in 2018, seeing significant traction gains in parts of the business.
He explains: As agreed with the board when I joined, and given critical contextual matters, including the amount of time that had elapsed since we launched our strategy, the rapid evolution of our operating environment, and the impact of Covid-19, it was vital that we review our strategy to ensure that it remains relevant; and to make the necessary changes.
The strategy review process investigated changes in the market, our performance gaps, and what was needed to thrive post-crisis.
This group-wide and collaborative effort leveraged our internal resources and external thought leadership regarding seven specific focus areas. While our aspirations are unwavering and our strategic choices remain, the world in which we seek to achieve them has changed.
Covid-19 has accelerated some of the mega trends, such as digital innovation and payments.
Pivoting our business to respond to these trends at pace and with compelling propositions is a crucial requirement for differentiation and sustainable growth. As a result, we have adapted our strategy to refine our go-to-market approach.
Our strategy creates the ability for the business to seamlessly integrate banking services into our customers’ other daily activities.
We have become more precise in expressing how we want to be more customer-centric, how we will evolve our digital maturity, what it means to be purpose-led and how we will play a meaningful role in society. We will shift our focus in meeting our customers’ needs and expectations while adapting to changing behaviours to remain hyper-relevant in their lives. To that end, we have evolved our corporate strategy into four strategic imperatives and four strategic enablers.
Four strategic imperatives:
Lead with purpose and deliver shared value to a broad range of stakeholders.
Address customers’ intrinsic needs through hyper-personalised propositions in the right key moment.
Deliver propositions through effective digital-first distribution channels that complement our customers’ behavioural patterns.
Establish a diverse market footprint that best meets our customers’ expectations.
Four strategic enablers:
Continue to invest in strategic capabilities that drive market leadership.
Build a modernised technology architecture that powers digital transformation.
Evolve our execution model to one that drives fast lane innovation.
Develop and nurture the entrepreneurial mindset of our people.
The true value of a strategy starts with deliberate preparation and a clear execution plan. Our executive committee is undergoing several changes to ensure that we have a team that is diverse in skills and experience, and that can entrench an entrepreneurial culture in our organisation to effectively implement our strategy as a collective. We must get this right.
sechaba.nkosi@inl.co.za
BUSINESS REPORT ONLINE
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