Leveraging customer-centricity to attain sustainable competitive advantage: The case of Stanbic Bank Zimbabwe Limited

Abstract

This study is of an investigation into leveraging customer-centricity to attain sustainable competitive advantage. It looks at how Stanbic Bank Zimbabwe (SBZ) can organise its vision, strategy, technology and employees to retain and attract high valued clients. With the local banking sector approaching saturation new avenues to grow revenues and profitability are critical to ensure sustainable profits going forward. The world over, financial institutions have realised that focusing on the customer is best way to grow revenues through focusing on growing the existing client base through value creation. The research used a mixed approach with a bias towards quantitative research. Questionnaires were sent to SBZ staff members. For selected critical senior staff members interviews were used to collect the data. The response rate was high at 100%. The study findings pointed out that although SBZ has fragments of customer-centricity embedded in its current strategy there is need for it to adopt full customer-centric measures to leverage it to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. The study further points out that SBZ does not have the adequate customer-centric technology for it to generate accurate client insights which will drive strategic direction. It was concluded that SBZ needs to align its vision, its culture, people and technology with the customer for it to enjoy the immense advantages that comes with putting clients at the centre of strategy. Furthermore, with a dedicated customer-centric approach it can retain it valued clients, increase their satisfaction and increase its client profitability by up selling and cross selling to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.