...Alpen Bank: Launching the Credit Card in Romania ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Problem Brief ------------------------------------------------- As Alpen Bank’s country manager for Romania, Gregory Carle was contemplating a credit card launch in Romania market, which he would pursue if he could be confident that it would add 5 million euro in annual profit to the Consumer Bank Segment within two years. ------------------------------------------------- Alpen Bank had developed a reputation for excellence in serving affluent clientele. In addition to basic deposit, checking and personal loan services, customers had access to a wealth management program composed of financial planning and investment products. ------------------------------------------------- Some of the key...
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...DATE: Oct, 18th, 2013 CASE: ALPEN BANK CLASS: MBA586 GROUP C: CHIAWEN ‘TRACY’ CHANG CHIENYU ‘SHAWN’ HSIAO DANIEL GUTIERREZ NING ‘NINA’ BAI WENSHAN ‘NESSA’ XU Intro: Having 15 branches in Romania, Alpen Bank, a premium banking service provider is trying to expand its business in Romania and launch its credit card system. Considering the low per-capita income level and low acceptance of credit cards in Romania, we evaluated the profitability of this plan carefully and suggest Alpen Bank to enter the Romanian credit card market and explore the middle class in long run. PEST Analysis: Political • Capital market in Romania is more stable through annex to the European Union and implementation of directives. • The European Legislation to protect investors, safeguard market integrity by establishing harmonized requirements governing the activities of authorized intermediaries and to promote fair, transparent, efficient and integrated financial markets. • Substantial ascending evolution of Romanian capital market since 2004 helped by the government opening it for competition. • No limit of foreign participation in commercial companies (up to 100% ownership in Romania), full repatriation of capital and profit, equal treatment of foreign and domestic investors. Economic • Macroeconomic indicators (GDP, inflation rate, unemployment rate, etc.) registered in the past have not reached a stable point comparing...
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...Carle, Alpen Bank's country manager of Romania, has one week to decide whether Alpen should launch a new credit card in the Romanian market. There are many factors to take into consideration and if it is decided to be launched, Carle also needs to decide how it should be positioned in the market. Situation Analysis Context: Alpen bank had balked at launching a credit card in Romania due to the low usage of credit cards. Transactions were based on cash, but after 2000, by the entry into European Union, the Romanian economy started to grow and disposable income increased dramatically. In 2006, total financial cards grew by 35% compare to prior year. Moreover, required infrastructure (ATMs, point-of-sale terminals) was developed significantly but still the market is underpenetrated. Customers: In Romania, there was a huge income inequality that the top 10% of households by income had almost 24% of the wealth. Credit cards are used mainly by affluent and middle class consumers. Affluent segment consists of career oriented professionals and they are not very price sensitive. On the other hand, there is a big middle class in Romania and it is growing economically. These people are a mix of young professionals and families and they are price sensitive. Also, this segment's card utilization is lower compared to affluent segment. Company: Alpen Bank has entered to Romania in 2000 and since then it is growing in the market and as of 2005 it had 15 branches in the country. The bank is known...
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...after the successful implementation of Alpen Bank in Romania in the years 2000, Gregory Carle the country manager is wondering whether Alpen Bank should consider launching a credit card in the market. In order for the launch to be profitable several points have to be clarified such as who would the company target, what would be the positioning of this new card and how should it be marketed. Situation Analysis Context: After a period of recession, the economy in Romania is on a rising trend. The total disposable income of the population has increased and the middle- and upper- middle class is developing as their income is increasing. Consumers: A consumer survey indicates a clear change in the Romanian’s behavior; they are getting more interested in luxury goods and in products coming from the EU. Also, a strong increase of total cards on the market of 35% indicated that consumers are getting more likely to use cards rather than cash. This trend is supported by the fast development of the infrastructure required for a payment system. Even though for now cards are mostly debit ones and used to withdraw cash, as the country economy is growing and the behavior of consumers changing it is very likely that credit cards have their place on the Romanian market. Another important data to consider is the income distribution in Romania which is very unequal as only 10% of the population holds 24% of the wealth. Competitors: The competitors of Alpen bank have already launched the service...
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...ALPEN BANK CASE By 11/06/2014 TO: Gregory Carlyle FROM: XYZ RE: Alpen Bank: Recommendations for new Credit card Business in Romania DATE: 11/06/2014 Mr. Gregory Purpose: The purpose of this memo is to report my observations after careful analysis of economic opportunity of credit card business for Alpen Bank in Romania Recommendation: After thoughtful research, I would recommend you that starting a credit card business for affluent and most affluent will be more profitable. The break-even point, return of investment and profits after breaking even are all favorable for Affluent classes alone. Analysis: I have started with my analysis of customer acquisition. Keeping in mind the importance of publicity for a successful launch of credit cards from our bank, I went ahead using all the modes of publicity. After careful calculations (Seen in Exhibit 1 and 2) of customer acquisition, I came up with the cost per customer value. To begin with, the cost per customer for affluent population alone is less compared to all customers. Having decided to check the feasibility of starting the credit card business for both middle class and affluent or just for the affluent class, I calculated the weighted revenue of these classes. (Exhibits 3 and 4). It is clear that the revenue from affluent class alone is about 40 Euros higher. Then I proceeded in calculating the Net profit for a customer size of 50000, 100000 and 150000 individually for two cases.(Exhibits 5 and 6) After...
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...Date: February 13, 2013 To: Alpen Bank Subject: Alpen Bank Case To whom it may concern: This is to address whether or not the Romanian market holds any opportunity for Alpen Bank and our credit card services. Based on our analysis, Romania holds opportunity for us to launch our credit card services with potential for growth year after year because of a growing middle class that looks for a better standard of living. Romania’s acceptance in the e European Union should strengthen its economy. Compared to other central and eastern European countries, Romania has the least financial cards per household at 1.2 cards. With the growth that we are expecting, Romania will follow in the footsteps of its neighbors and double the amount of financial cards per household. Alpen Bank should position itself by targeting all customers. Alpen bank has previously only targeted affluent customers as far as its banking sector. Alpen bank card services should be available to all customers with the right credentials in order to grow with the growing middle class. We predict that by targeting all customers, we provide ourselves with a larger target market. Though targeting affluent only customers seems like a better opportunity for the first two years, we are looking long term. Targeting all customers will allow us to hit our $5 million profit target with 142, 248 customers in year one and 146,788 customers in year two. These numbers can be achieved by combining direct mail, take...
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...CRM- Case analysis Alpen bank Submitted by Team Pandavas (PGPME Group 2) Bhawna Gupta (P131011) Deepak C (P131015) Esha Pandey (P131016) Magdalene (P131021) Shashank (P131032) Overview: Alpen bank is one of the prominent banks headquartered in Zurich. The bank was known in the banking circles with serving mostly affluent clientele. Shopping with cash was a trend that was getting altered soon with the changing conditions of advancement in the European countries and most of them were becoming synonymous with high end customers going for shopping with credit and debit cards, A fact being quoted in the case that in 2006, the bank expected the credit and debit category growing by 35%. Alpen bank was looking at this lucrative proposition of expansion by trying to capture this segment by launching its credit card business in Romania. Romania being a small and low income country offered less possibilities for the growth of credit card business but as the country became the member of European Union it started becoming a lucrative market for the development of such products. The major players operating in credit card business in Romania were Romanian bank for Development having the largest number of customer base (606000 credit cards) while Raifessen bank was the second largest bank in this segment with the credit card utilization standing at 70%. As a result the Alpen Bank was looking for possibilities where they can tap a significant share of credit card business in Romania...
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...Case Analysis: Alpen Bank The main issue that Alpen bank is facing is whether or not they should launch the credit card business in the Romania market and which group of target audience they should select while applying the launching strategy. Moreover, specifically to Carle, he needs to come up with a program from which, Alpen bank can generate at least €5 million in profit within 2 years. Moreover, clarified positioning strategy and customer segmentation is also needed to secure the success of the program. In the case, it seemed that Alpen had the opportunity to act since economic environment in Romania had changed from 2006 after its entering into the EU: the economy there was developing; a growing trends of luxury purchasing emerged; there was also an increasing likeliness of using card instead of cash; other competitors had already taken similar strategies in the market; Alpen’s traditional banking business had a great penetration throughout the country, etc. However, such a growth was not enough compared with other countries of the region. Besides, to launch the credit card business in Romania might be risky and do harm to the customer base. Then what should Alpen do? According to the charts 4 & 5 in the appendix, regardless the target audience, launching credit card business in Romania is profitable with the premise that if the customer base is big enough. (All the calculations in the charts were based on revenue potential and acquisition costs.) Comparing between the 2...
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...Alpen Bank In Romania Question 1 By taking a look at table A that is provided in the case study you can see that they created a Net revenue impact table. On it, it shows that the lowest income they are looking for in a household is €3,000, and that from €3,000-4,500 is listed as middle class. If we then look further down we see Exibit 5 witch lists the Annual income in Romania and we see that 18.2% of Romania’s population would fall into this middle class range. Now if we do the same for the group table A has listed as Affluent, €4,500-6,000, we find that 15% of the population falls into this category. And finally if we add up all the households that make over €6,000 a year, listed as most affluent, we find that 12.9% of the total population goes in this category. So it looks like only 46.1% of Romania’s total population has enough income to afford a credit card at Alpen Bank. Out of the 46.1% of the total population that can qualify for a credit card 39.5% is made up of the middle class (18.2/46.1=39.5%). Table A also lists the annual revenue that would be made from card holder in each class, and it shows that an individual in the middle class would make €60.63. So 39.5% of their credit card income would be €60.63. Using the same process we can find that the Affluent, (15/46.1=32.4%), would make up 32.4% of their income and produce €123.38 per card holder. And the most affluent would compose 28% (12.9/46.1=28%) and each card holder in this bracket would produce €209.75 per...
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...Charlotte Beers (Ogilvy & Mather) Case analysis At the point of planning to the launch of the business, the owner of the business is very passionate and usually experienced in the line-of-business; as David Ogilvy was at the age of 38 when he started his own advertising agency in 1948. Ogilvy & Mather, an advertising agency was started in New York and expanded worldwide. By 1991, O&M was ranked the largest marketing company in the world.[1] But there comes a time when a company must look to adapt a change. With competition growing, clients of O&M changed their demands. O&M was a high-cost agency that was failing in controlling their budget and lowering their cost; they failed to see the reason for a change. Due to that fact, O&M had lost few of their multi-million dollar accounts. Many companies may have either filed bankruptcy or have shutdown in the process of losing their clients but O&M was not the type of company that would give up that easily. In 1992, Charlotte Beers was appointed CEO of O&M and a massive change was underway. She was not the type of person who would dwell on the past, but instead look to better the future. Charlotte Beers clearly made an impression on the O&M employees as she had the ability to inspire. But more importantly, she came up with three strategies which turned the company around 360 degrees; Client Security, Better Work/More Often, and Financial Discipline. Yes these strategies were formed for an advertising agency...
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...GCC Pharmaceutical Industry March 31, 2013 Alpen Capital was awarded the “Best Research House” at the Banker Middle East Industry Awards 2011 GCC Pharmaceutical Sector | March 31, 2013 Page | 2 Table of Contents 1. 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY............................................................................ 6 Scope of the Report .................................................................................. 6 Key Growth Drivers .................................................................................. 6 Key Challenges ........................................................................................ 6 Trends .................................................................................................... 7 2. 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 GCC PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY OVERVIEW ...................................... 8 GCC Pharmaceutical Market Overview ............................................................. 8 The UAE Pharmaceutical Market .................................................................... 11 The Saudi Arabian Pharmaceutical Market ...................................................... 13 The Kuwaiti Pharmaceutical Market ............................................................... 15 The Qatari Pharmaceutical Market ................................................................. 16 The Bahraini Pharmaceutical Market .............................................................. 17 The...
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...MARKETING COURSE Articles Books & Chapters Cases Course Modules Online Courses Simulations 2012 MATERIALS Harvard Business Publishing serves the finest learning institutions worldwide with a comprehensive catalog of case studies, journal articles, books, and eLearning programs, including online courses and simulations. In addition to material from Harvard Business School and Harvard Business Review, we also offer course material from these renowned institutions and publications: Babson College Business Enterprise Trust Business Expert Press Business Horizons Magazine California Management Review Darden School of Business Design Management Institute HEC Montréal Centre for Case Studies Ivey School of Business International Institute for Management Development (IMD) IESE Business School INSEAD John F. Kennedy School of Government Kellogg School of Management Perseus Books Princeton University Press Rotman Magazine Stanford Graduate School of Business Sloan Management Review Social Enterprise Knowledge Network Thunderbird School of Global Management Tsinghua University University of Hong Kong Customer service is available 8 am to 6 pm ET, Monday through Friday. Phone: 1-800-545-7685 (1-617-783-7600 outside the U.S. and Canada) Tech support is available 8 am to 8 pm ET, Monday through Thursday, 8 am to 7 pm ET Friday. Phone: 1-800-810-8858 (1-617-783-7700 outside the U.S...
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...Introduction Walmart's history is one of the best examples of innovation, leadership and success. Walmart was founded by Sam Walton in 1962; it was incorporated on October 31, 1969, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. It started with a single store in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962 and has grown to what is now the world’s largest and the most emulated retailer. Some researchers refer to Walmart as the industry trendsetter. Today, this retailing pioneer has annual revenues of over $100 billion, 3,000 stores and more than 750,000 employees worldwide. Walmart operates in each store, from the products it stocks in the warehouse, to the front-end that helps speed checkout. Walmart’s philosophy: provide everyday low prices and superior customer service worked the best. Lower prices also eliminated the expense of frequent sales promotions and sales are more predictable. Walmart has invested heavily in its cross-docking inventory system. Cross docking has enabled Walmart to achieve economies of scale which reduce its costs of sales. With this system, goods are continuously delivered to stores within 48 hours and often without having to stock them. This allows Walmart to refill the shelves 4 times faster than its competitors. Walmart controls its buying power through purchasing in bulks and distributing the goods on time. Walmart guarantees everyday low prices and considers them the one stop shop. Walmart operates in Mexico as Walmex, in the UK as ASDA abbreviation of Asquith...
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...UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME DECOUPLING NATURAL RESOURCE USE AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS FROM ECONOMIC GROWTH Acknowledgements Editor: International Resource Panel Working Group on Decoupling Lead authors: Marina Fischer-Kowalski, Institute of Social Ecology Vienna, Alpen-Adria University, Austria, with the support of the Lebensministerium, Austria and Mark Swilling, Sustainability Institute, School of Public Leadership, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa Contributing authors: Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker (Chairperson of the Decoupling Working Group), Yong Ren, Yuichi Moriguchi, Wendy Crane, Fridolin Krausmann, Nina Eisenmenger, Stefan Giljum, Peter Hennicke, Rene Kemp, Paty Romero Lankao, Anna Bella Siriban Manalang, Sebastian Sewerin Jeff McNeely provided editorial support for the full report and summary brochure. The report went through several rounds of peer-review coordinated in an efficient and constructive way by Jeff McNeely together with the International Resource Panel Secretariat. Valuable comments were received from several anonymous reviewers in this process. The preparation of this report also benefited from discussions with many colleagues at various meetings. Special thanks go to Ernst Ulrich von Weizsäcker and Ashok Khosla as Co-Chairs of the International Resource Panel, the members of the International Resource Panel and its Steering Committee for their dedication and commitment. Janet...
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...CONTENTS OUR BUSINESS PAGE 1 OUR SUPPLY CHAIN PAGE 14 OUR ENVIRONMENT PAGE 27 OUR PRODUCTS PAGE 37 OUR COLLEAGUES PAGE 44 OUR COMMUNITY INVESTMENTS PAGE 51 OUR BUSINESS H&M’s business concept is to offer our customers fashion and quality at the best price. At H&M, quality is more than making sure that products meet or exceed our customers’ expectations – it also means that these products should be manufactured under good working conditions and with limited impact on the environment. Taking responsibility for how our operations affect people and the environment is key for H&M’s continued profitability and growth. We are committed to integrating social and environmental concerns into all our business operations and investing in the communities where we work. Our 2008 sustainability report covers our activities in relation to our business operations, our supply chain, our products and how they are produced, our employees and the communities around us. This section provides an overview of our business and its impact, and how we go about integrating Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) into it. GLOBAL BRAND GLOBAL IMPACT AND REACH H&M was established in Sweden in 1947 and today sells clothes, accessories, footwear and cosmetics in more than 1,700 stores in 33 countries and via internet and catalogue sales in Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria. Here, we will also sell home textiles through online and catalogue sales from 2009. H&M also stands behind the brand...
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