Fidelity Bank Plc, one of the current leading banks in the country, has upped its ante by launching a Strategic Seven-point Agenda of Growth.
This is the strategic template being brought to the table by the new Managing Director of the bank, Mrs. Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe.
Onyeali-Ikpe will be leading the financial institution through a significant revolution of business culture with the primary objective of improving operational efficiency and expanding market share.
Onyeali-Ikpe, looking far into the future, even beyond her tenure, has her eyes fixed on repositioning the bank to becoming one of the top-five leagues of intrepid banks in Nigeria. Onyeali-Ikpe has in mind, and with booths on ground, repositioning the bank as one of Nigeria’s leading financial institutions, which leverages automation and robotics and steering away from manual and repetitive processes.
Since assuming office on January 1 2021, the bank’s first female CEO and MD, has been adjusting “the sails” to ensure that her colleagues at the Bank have the wind at their backs as they work toward common goals and individual successes in the quest to becoming a Tier-1 bank that is well-positioned to outlive the competition and serve well into the future.
The global lockdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic serves a catalyst in this strategic agenda with the dawning of the recognition that Nigeria’s traditional and over-the-counter banking systems are no longer viable.
Part of the strategic initiatives geared towards strengthening and deepening this growth process include accelerated play in the SME segment, renewal of institutional banking, and drive for transaction-based propositions in corporate banking.
The seven-point agenda focuses on brand architecture, brand building and refresh, talent development and transformation, product and service delivery, agility and performance discipline, digital transformation, and regulatory compliance.
The Bank intends to embark on an innovation drivethrough the implementation of new processes, techniques. The bank is also executing fresh ideas to ensure continuous process improvement, reduce cost to serve, increase competitiveness, improve brand recognition and value, build new partnerships and relationships, drive turnover, and increase profitability.
The Bank seeks brand refresh with the aim to increase top-of-mind awareness of the Fidelity brand by external and internal stakeholders.
The workforce would be transformedto create a future readily supported by a high performing and empowered workforce. This will be predicated and achieved by deepening the skills and competencies of staff across the bank, entrenching a culture of high performance, and embedding new ways of working in the bank. So far, the commencement of capacity building training for staff and senior management training are some of the initiatives implemented.
Excellence service delivery is considered imperative which is intended to build brand loyalty through personalized and seamless customer experience delivery. This is already underway with the award-winning virtual assistant IVY. This revolutionary chatbot handles simple tasks like account opening to complex tasks such as complaint resolution, bill payment, and transferring users to a live agent, loans, fixed deposit applications, and answering random questions.
There would also be digital transformation which in turn would involve an end-to-end digitization across all facets of the business. In line with this, the Bank has launched a novel digital service —Pay Yourself —which revolutionized payday for salary earners and SMEs.
Performance Discipline is another key feature to ensure focus on strong fundamentals, asset quality, and strategic cost management. Initiatives already carried out in this regard include the Policy Familiarization Program —a capacity-building project geared towards building a knowledgeable and versatile staff network/raising subject matter experts in all business areas that kicked off in March; the One Culture Project- which was initiated to reinforce enabling behaviours and value systems towards fulfilling the bank’s goals; and Project Alpha aimed at helping the bank develop a robust and holistic learning and development framework for all staff.
Accelerated growth will drive aggressive market penetration and business diversification. This will be achieved through deeper penetration in key retail markets.
With this seven pronged agenda, Fidelity Bank is confidently matching forward in its quest to leading the sector while revolutionizing Nigeria’s financial landscape.
As John C. Maxwell, an American author and speaker, asserts in one of his most famous quotes: “The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails”. This is what encapsulates the new leadership style and drive at the Fidelity Bank under Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe.