Wachovia Company - Essay Example

Wachovia is a company in the banking industry established in the United s that is ranked the 4th largest financial services company in the country. The company is a diversified enterprise that offers finances services such as retail banking, brokerage, asset and wealth management and corporate and investment banking products and services (Wachovia, 2007). The company has branches in 48 of the 50 states and its operations extend to Latin America and globally through its international division that is composed of 40 branches. The company reaches and expands globally thought effective online marketing of its services. The company’s stock that is traded in the NYSE as of September 11, 2007 was valued at $48.52 with a market capitalization of $92.91 billion and its total assets after the 2nd quarter of 2007 were valued at nearly $720 billion (NYSE, 2007). The company has 5,100 ATM, 13 million on site customers and 12.7 million online subscriptions of various financial services and products (Wachovia, 2007). This company has grown and a lot and expansion into the global market has occurred due to its innovative techniques and effective utilization of technology. This paper analyzes Wachovia by emphasis in its technological accomplishments and how the company has been able to add value to both the customers and its shareholders. Wachovia has utilized technology to create value in the enterprise by streamlining and integrating a log of processes. These types of initiatives reduce the operating cost of the company which increases its profitability and benefits its shareholders since the stock appreciates in value. Other technological initiatives provide higher levels of service or new innovative products which attract clientele and serve the needs of the customers. In 2005 Wachovia looked for a way to increase the levels of mortgage income of the company. In order to accomplished the task the company hired Palisades Technology Partners which sold them an application called PTP Impact Mortgage Services Suite as the solution for their business need. PTP impact suite is a web-based technology that cuts across mortgage channels with its rules based engine (Kersnar, 2005). The beauty of this new software suite was that not only did it serve the purpose of increasing the company’s presence online to target potential mortgage buyers, it also brought to the company an application which was compatible with its imaging infrastructure and its point-if sale (POS) functions. The advantage of the product for the company was that it serve as a value added proposition since it help the company integrate a lot different elements the previous system was unable to. The company wanted to create a service system to integrate multiple channels. The end result was that the company was able to create a platform that integrated services such as credit cards, ATM, equity loans, mortgages, call centers, and their lending centers (Kersnar, 2005). Wachovia is a company that utilizes technology to solve problems and find innovative solutions. If they can’t develop something in-house the company has the business wits to outsource projects to technology vendors. The size of company created problems for its managerial staff in the accounting department. It became difficult to establish adequate budgets for the company branches and establish metrics to evaluate the compensation of its officers at its nationwide branches. The managerial staff determined that the company needed a forecasting system to help them with these problems. In order to solve the problem the company hired Perficient Incorporated. Perficient collected data and process flow details in order to design a high tech system with an object oriented component architecture and solution that analyzes annual data, builds revenue projections and goals for the company, helps determine the budgets for the more than 180 offices and creates scorecards to set compensation metrics for key employees (Perficient, 2007). The bank keeps up with the latest consumer trends in the technological field to create the services customers are looking for. Cellular phones have become a technological gadget which the customer perceives as an item of basic necessity. There were 220 million cellular subscribers in the Unites States in 2006 (Plunckett Research, 2007). Proving information to the customers via the cellular has become a hot trend. In order to capitalize on this tech trend Wachovia introduce a new service called Wachovia Mobile. Wachovia Mobile is an initiative to target the Generation Y demographic and their potential lifetime customer value by providing banking services direct to the customer’s pocket, which is a value proposition that can not be ignored (Usfst, 2007). The financial institution has utilized technology to reach the masses and provide information to the general public. The company recently incorporated podcasting technology to its website to bring a sense of reality to its online clientele. Wachovia utilized cutting edge audio technology to create a service for its customers and potential clients which provides a weekly subscription service in the form of an economic podcast free of charge (Prnewswire, 2007). Adding new services is a great way to attract the general public. A service such as a weekly economic podcast provides value for the customer which is an initiative the clients will appreciate. It is a high tech marketing strategy that is relatively cheap to implement and can bring a lot business to the enterprise. The good customer relationships the new Wachovia established allowed the company to reenter the credit card business in 2006. “Wachovia is hoping to capitalize on the strong relationships it establish with its current customer base, along with the relative lower risk they present to the bank since they are know entities”(Britz, 2006). Companies operating in the 21st century have to keep up with the latest trends to stay ahead of the competition. Technology is a factor that has to utilize to increase efficiency, add value and improve the operation of a business. Wachovia is a company that has applied technology effectively to its business in order to add value to the customers, supply chain and to the shareholders of the corporation. This enterprise will continue to succeed by applying innovation. References Britz, M.B. (2006). Wachovia Re-enters Card Business. Bank Systems & Technology. Retrieved September 12, 2007 from http://www.banktech.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=191601057 Kersnar, S. (2005). Moving to the NEXT LEVEL. Mortgage Technology. Retrieved September 12, 2007 from http://www.mortgage-technology.com/plus/print_archive/?pub=MortgageTechnology&year=2005&issue=T801&item=11 Nyse.com (2007). Wachovia Corporation. Retrieved September 11, 2007 from http://www.nyse.com/about/listed/lcddata.html?ticker=WB Perficient.com (2007). Business Intelligence: Wachovia Securities. Retrieved September 12, 2007 from http://www.perficient.com/case_studies/wachovia.asp Plunckett Research (2007). Infotech Industry Overview. Retrieved September 12, 2007 from Plunckett Research database. Prnewswire.com (2007). Wachovia Launches Podcasting Technology on Wachovia.com. Retrieved September 12, 2007 from http://sev.prnewswire.com/banking-financial-services/20070820/CLM00520082007-1.html Usfst.com (2007). Technology on the move. Retrieved September 12, 2007 from http://www.usfst.com/pastissue/article.asp?art=270916&issue=214 Wachovia.com (2007). Retrieved September 10, 2007 from http://www.wachovia.com Read More