SWOT Analysis on Chase Bank - Research Paper Example

(Funding Universe, 2011) The merger in 2000 cemented the creation of one of the world’s biggest financial concerns. The company’s mission statement is (Company Statements and Slogans, 2011): "At JPMorgan Chase, we want to be the best financial services company in the world. Because of our great heritage and excellent platform, we believe this is within our reach." II. Strengths and Weaknesses One of the greatest strengths of the J. P. Morgan Chase banking line is the vast consumer base. J. P. Morgan Chase is the biggest bank in the United States.

(Tully, 2009) The iterative mergers of banks to form this financial behemoth have meant that the infrastructure and access of the J. P. Morgan Chase enterprise is huge. The bank sports total assets of some $2 trillion while the total equity has been placed at $176 billion. (Forbes, 2011) Currently Forbes has declared J P. Morgan Chase as the world’s largest public company. (Forbes, 2011) These facts point to the bank’s stability as a premier finance institution which ensures that it can deal with fiscal shocks in the short and long term.

Currently, J. P. Morgan Chase sports branches as well as ATM facilities around the globe. Moreover, J. P. Morgan Chase is effectively present in over 60 countries globally. The number of employees is well over 200,000 globally. This ensures that the bank is connected to multiple markets. Problems in one market cannot force the bank into a corner as it has other outlets. One of the reasons that J. P. Morgan Chase fared better than the competition during the recent economic crunch was because it was present globally.

Markets with internal consumption patterns helped J. P. Morgan through the worst. (J. P. Morgan Chase, 2011) On the downside, J. P. Morgan Chase has damaged its reputation over the years. A number of scandals have tarnished the bank’s reputation. In 2002 J. P. Morgan Chase had to pay the United States government some $80 million as fines for deceiving investors through biased market research. Similarly, the J. P. Morgan Chase hand in financing Enron caused heavy losses as well as $2 billion in compensation and legal settlements.

(Market Watch, 2002) Another instance of consumer’s breach of trust occurred when J. P. Morgan Chase admitted to having overcharged military personnel’s mortgages. Families that had been overcharged and foreclosed were compensated through payments totalling $27 million in 2011. (Mui, 2011) These failures to protect the customers have been repeated over and over and may erode customer base in the longer run. J. P. Morgan Chase needs to review its policies constantly and should rely on consumer feedback extensively to judge the reputation and consequences of policies.

Another weakness displayed by J. P. Morgan Chase has been their IT infrastructure. The system has proved to be inadequate to sustain business operations. The cancellation of an outsourcing agreement with IBM caused quite a stir. Employees were transferred to IBM’s payrolls which cause massive employee dissatisfaction. New consultants were hired to take the outsourcing bid forward but this caused additional expense and lost time. Productivity at J. P. Morgan Chase was seen to have decreased as well due to IT problems.

(Kawamoto, 2004) This problem could be relieved by letting a large IT corporation such as IBM, Microsoft etc. deal