Strong Corporate Image of Citigroup Company - Essay Example

Citigroup has been financing projects for the exploration of natural resources and a civil group, Rainforest Action Network (RAN), has moved to protest against the bank’s lending. While Citigroup has succeeded in building a strong corporate image and commanding a wide market base in the global scope, RAN’s campaigns for boycotts against the bank have been positive and are gaining momentum with emerging support from university students and the media. Below is a review of the bank’s options for responding to the campaigns against it.

RAN may therefore succeed in convincing the public that Citigroup is destroying the environment, and therefore the people’s lives. This would harm the bank’s corporate image and reduce its marketability, especially for consumer services. The result will be a reduced revenue level. Ignoring the campaigns with the assumption that they do not succeed will however allow the bank to benefit from project financing besides retaining its consumer market control. It is however a risky assumption (Stanford Graduate School of Business 1- 11).

Delaying RAN’s objective by negotiating over a few minor changes to the group’s project financing initiatives is another option. It offers the benefits of reducing the group’s proactive campaigns and its effects on the bank’s corporate image and demand for the bank’s consumer services besides sustaining project financing in the short run. The option’s disadvantage is however the already impaired corporate image and its associated effect on demand for consumer products. RAN may decline the delayed tactics and proceed with the campaigns toward a compromised corporate image and reduced demand for consumer services. Its benefits are however average revenues from both consumer services and project financing services. Entering into negotiations over changes that are more significant is another option for the bank.
This offers potential benefits of the group’s withdrawal of its campaigns and informing the public of the bank’s interest in corporate social responsibility. It will therefore preserve and even attempt to improve the bank’s corporate image and facilitate the marketability of its consumer services. Its commitment to the negotiations is however likely to temporarily reduce its activities in project funding and therefore reduce its revenues from the corporate banking activities. Pulling out from funding the environmentally destructive projects is, however, the extreme option that meets RAN’s demands. The option has the benefit of improving the company’s corporate image because of its developed commitment to corporate social responsibility. This will further improve its marketability for consumer services that are majorly offered to the public. The option however terminates interest in corporate funding to the affected class of projects (Stanford Graduate School of Business 1- 11).