Banks Must Learn To Operate Customer-Centric Business Model- Lolu Akinwunmi

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Lolu Akinwunmi
Lolu Akinwunmi, CEO, Prima Garnet; Femi Awoyemi, CEO, Proshare and Ikem Okuhu, Analyst-in-Chief, Brandish.

Former Chairman of Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) and CEO Prima Garnet Africa, Mr Lolu Akinwunmi, has called on banks to adopt a more customer-centric business model in their operations.

Akinwumi said this at the first edition of the BRANDish Meeting of Minds tagged “What Nigerian Banks Should Do Differently” held at the White House Hotel, GRA, Ikeja, last week.

While delivering a paper titled “Product Portfolio Management and Branding – The Future of the Retail Banking Ecosystem In Nigeria” Akinwunmi decried the fact that banks have a simplistic understanding of their customers; a trend that has led to bankers selling generic products to them all.

He said “They typically do not know their customers very well. Many still try to sell customers the same multiple product offers in the hope that something will stick. They struggle to join the dots internally and prepare bank-wide views of a customer relationship, let alone integrate external sources of data.”

“There will be a need to critically define and pinpoint the real customers and where they are, so that specific products and services can be targeted at them. Banks will also need to diversify their portfolio of activities. Everyone is doing promos. Everyone is sponsoring one thing or the other. Banks are speaking to customers in vernacular and using English language jingles. There will be need for more detailed research into what specific customers need so that the appropriate communication can be developed for them,” he observed.

Akinwunmi enjoins the banks to take advantage of exponential information that consumers generate to gain useful insights on consumers. He however expressed regret on the fact that only few banks are positioned to integrate, analyze and act on the insights from the massive data streams available today.

“In the future, leading players will exploit both structured and unstructured information — from traditional sources (such as credit scores and customer surveys) and from non-traditional sources (such as social media, and cross-channel bank customer interaction data). They will collect and purchase other behavioral data (such as mobile location and purchase data) — particularly as customers grow accustomed to surrendering privacy in a voluntary value exchange,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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