How marketing strategy can develop a competitive advantage for HSBC

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Chapter 1: Introduction

This is the very first chapter of the dissertation which contains the total introduction of the research topic. The aims and objectives of the research are stated as well as the background of the research is shown. The overview of the literature review is given in this chapter very briefly. Furthermore the company background which is focused in this dissertation will have an analysis carried in this chapter.

Aim of the research

The study is being conducted to describe and identify the strategies for the company in a particular industry. All the roles marketing strategies will be discussed and how all the strategies will help the company to achieve competitive advantage will be focused. The understanding of the importance of the strategies that are taken by the company and to what extant will the strategy help the companies will have to be analyzed. To identify the failures, success and the challenges that are faced by companies and HSBC are the objectives of the research. Through this research the potentiality of the strategies that will be discussed are the parts of the research objectives. By conducting this research HSBC will have the idea of how the bank can achieve the leading position in UK retail bank industry. The followings are the main objectives of the study:

To identify the behavior of UK customers towards HSBC

To identify the strategies that are implemented by HSBC

Identify the effect on HSBC’s stuffs from the existing marketing system.

To identify the best strategies for HSBC which will bring in changes of the company’s position in UK banking market.

To identify overall management and operational management strategy.

Research Background

The company HSBC is one of the know name to almost everyone in this world since it is globally recognized. The bank HSBC is known to be one of the most effective and efficient bank and that it have a successful operating system around the world. Most of the other banks who are the competitors of HSBC feels threaten by looking at the type of strategies that HSBC implements in the management or operational department. The strategies that HSBC tries to conduct or implement helps the company to cope up with cultural barriers and their strategy also helps company to achieve the better brand value compared to the rivals is same industry. The bank is existing and is being successful for a long time because HSBC tries their best to achieve the competitive advantage for which higher profit is raised and later on invested in the other areas of HSBC’s business. Recently because of the dangerous economic crisis all the banks had a huge impact in their management and the business. Most of the banks had to change their management and therefore had an impact on the performance of the company for which the trust and confidence of the customers is gone.

Overview of the literature review

The combination of the emerging market which was done through international connectivity helped HSBC to be a leader in international banking sector. The most appropriate strategies are taken by HSBC and it is more effective than the other companies in the industry which helps HSBC to comply with the recent economic disaster. It is recoded that even after the economic disaster the shareholders of the company did not have a lose, they still remained under profit and the surplus profit that HSBC had made use of the profit by investing into management and other side business like the investing in the insurance company. The strategies that HSBC adopts, helps the company to make long term decision which supports the brand value and improvement of better relationship with the customers.

One of the strategies that HSBC followed was a diverse strategy which revolutionized the strategy raging from 2003 to 2008 which helped HSBC growth across the global and achieve improvements which was intern an ultimate success. The other banks were taking money from other institution or the government whereas HSBC were always working with the strategies that helped improve in the operation department which led HSBC to have trusted investment who were confident in investing on HSBC. This strategy was implemented by HSBC in order to raise higher capital, but HSBC did not only focus on raising investments, they focused on the customer of the company and tried their best to satisfy the wants and demands of the customers which was a total success even after the recession crisis. There were new opportunities created for the customers for which the customer were impressed therefore later on the customers did not have to demand. By implementing all kinds of strategies which not only helped serving the customers but also raise investors in the time when there was a very bad situation of the economy and this is how HSBC survived in the period of uncertainty. After HSBC survived the impact of the recession the company had raised the number of customers of the premier account. The numbers of customer were around 2.9 million which was very high in the emerging market. In the time of economic recession there were lots of financial crisis and only few of the companies survived in this recession where one of the companies was HSBC.

In the literature review there will be discussion about the difficulties that can be faced by the banks or other companies. Therefore it is necessary for a company when deciding on a strategy to look to the external and the internal influences of the firms. The timing for entering the market is very important and is crucial because if the timing in wrong then the companies will have severe looses but if the timing is perfect then the company will have massive profit and may achieve a brand name. The market entry strategies are both for the companies who sells product and also for the companies or the banks who sells services to the customers. (Lieberman and Montgomery, 1991) Normally for any firm it is quiet difficult and challenging to enter the market with a new product at the perfect time.

At the times when the competition situation in an industry is very high then the firms should be careful when they try to introduce a new product and introduce it in the market. It is necessary for the companies to look at the competitor that what types of products or services the companies are introducing and that what are their offerings. If the new product which is introduced by a company to the market and if there are similarities with the products of the competitors then the company who just released the product into the market will not be able to sell the product because the customers will already know about the product and will depend on the product that they were already using. Therefore more of the academic research is needed to get more information on when is the perfect timing to enter in a market in competitive environment. (Brown and Lattin 1994)

In this era the business world with various organizations are becoming wilder and is getting more demanding in terms of profit and other benefits. The profit making companies only focuses on how to be a market leader and implement strategies which will help the companies to achieve competitive advantage and be a market leader. (Burke & Cooper 2004)

Company Background

HSBC is known as one of the largest banking and financial services organization which is located around the world. HSBC has all the international networks with 8,000 offices in more than88 countries including the parts of Europe, Asia-Pacific, America, Middle East and Africa. HSBC’s shares are sold on New York, London, Hong Kong, and Paris Stock Exchange whit 220,000 shareholder form 119 counties and territories. HSBC has got all types of comprehensive services such as personal banking, corporate banking, investment banking, private banking and many others.

Since HSBC has got employees from all over the world the workplace is more diverse than any other companies therefore HSBC can generate different types of ideas with which when put together can create a strategies therefore their recruitment is open for any individual from around the world.

HSBC also focus on the employees needs and demands since culturally it is divers, strong management strategies are formulated with which the companies focuses on the employees and make programs where the employees can work together and be comfortable with. HSBC company has certain business principles which are giving the best services to the customers. The strategies that they implement have to be effective and have efficiency which proves that HSBC has got strict discipline.

Limitation of research

There are many secondary data that are available but the problem is the relevancy on the data for this research. Primary data are needed to be collected from samples and the sampling sizes are limited for which the outcome of research may not have the full result and the solution of the main research aims and objectives. There are even restrictions in the limitation of the work for which all the details cannot be provided in the later chapters.

The study will be organized in accordance with the following order

Fig 01: Structure of the report