Introduction

Marian Jones was confronted with an enormous global challenge in the banking industry as she took over the CEO position of ICICI, a leading financial services company in Ojakrom from Steve Wonder. It was at a time when global mergers and acquisitions had become the major way of corporate restructuring and the financial services industry has also experienced merger waves leading to the emergence of very large banks and financial institutions. The key driving force for the merger activity is the severe competition among firms of the same industry which puts focus on economies of scales, cost efficiency, and profitability. In certain countries, weak banks were forcefully merged to avoid the problem of financial distress arising out of bad loans and eroding of capital fund. An example is UT Bank absorbing BPI Bank in Ghana These and many other factors made the stakeholders to bring in a dynamic leader like Marian Jones who could confront the emerging global changes in the banking industry

With the liberalization and privatization processes in Ojakrom, the banking industry took a different turn with a fast changing several banking deregulations underway and increasing competition in the market, Marian Jones perceive that to fit into the current changes, there has to be a massive organizational change and to move ICICI from a development bank mode to that of a market-driven financial conglomerate.

One of the first thing to do to ensure success in the new found direction of ICICI was to confront the high incident rate of employee turnover to the extend that it could destabilize the operations of the bank. Marian Jones wondered how to manage the manpower. She also wondered if technology was a solution to handle some of these problems and would it also help in the company’s growth plans.

1 Which competitive strategies are most appropriate for ICICI to