AN ASSESSMENT OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARKETING, INFORMATION AND STRATEGY FORMULATION IN THE UK RETAIL BANKING SECTOR

In the expanding retail banking sector of the 1990s, companies have to become increasingly customer-focused. Due to intense competition and the rapidity of change in the external environment, strategic planning in the industry has had to focus more directly on the customer, resul ting in a 'bottom-up' approach to strategy formulation,Thus, marketing concepts are being depended upon increasingly for the provision of st rategic insights. However, formalised, structured approaches to strate gic planning are now largely moribund, Information to guide strategic development is crucial, and the development of scanning and analysis t ools to track key market conditions is explored. The relevance of tool s such as the balanced scorecard and the Business Excellence Model are evaluated for their role in bringing together information, and in rec ognising what underpins commercial success. The value of gathering int ernal customer-based, as well as external customer-based, information is assessed, concluding that this gives banks the opportunity to becom e truly customer focused in their strategy formulation. (C) 1998 Elsev ier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.