Barclays Plc and Its Technology Practice in the Domain of Technology - Case Study Example

Innovation Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Barclays Plc and Its Technological Practice in Banking Domain 3 The Advantages and Disadvantages of Technological Practices in Banking Domain 6 Conclusion 11 References 12 Introduction New age technology has transformed the life of human beings and business processes to a large extent. The banking sector is one of such industry, which has been enriched with technological innovation. Nowadays, banking services have been re-engineered with the use of information technology. Moreover, technology is lifting competition in the banking sector in an enormous manner. In past decades, banking processes were difficult and complex for its customers as well as bankers. Due to absence of technology, bankers cannot provide quality services to its customers. Now, the scenario has been changed as technology has broken every kind of barrier among bankers and customers. With the help of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) service, bankers are able to provide up to date knowledge to its customers. Technology has assisted in providing new products and/or services and efficient delivery channels for banking industry. Notably, information technology provides advanced product development and better market setup for the banking sector. With the help of e-banking, customers can check their account statements and other important information through computer or mobile phones. Through Automated Teller Machine (ATM), customers can withdraw money with the help of smart card. Information technology has made-banking services more upgraded and flexible for its customers. In the past decade, most of people hesitated in travelling with lots of cash. With the innovation of plastic money, people can easily transfer money to within countries. Plastic money and e-banking have made life of human being easier and secured (Ahmad & Ali, 2011). Contextually to make this discussion more elaborate, the essay highlights Barclays Plc and its technology practice in the domain of technology. Barclays Plc and Its Technological Practice in Banking Domain Barclays Plc is a renowned British multinational finance and banking service provider headquartered in London, UK. Barclays Plc provides diverse financial services in United Kingdom, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Middle East regions. Barclays Plc is a universal bank that provides investment, retail and wholesale banking services. It also offers credit cards, wealth management and mortgage lending services. The bank consists of three business units that include corporate banking, investment banking and wealth management. Every unit contain varied sections. Barclays Plc provides financial support to its retail and corporate users. Every unit of Barclays Plc has been fully equipped with latest information technology. It is the fourth largest financial service provider operating on a global context. The bank has around $3.4 trillion assets. In addition, Barclays Plc has introduced e-banking to provide quality service to its prospective customers. To control huge financial sector, technology is the ultimate support for the bank (Tima, 2013). Source: (Barclays, 2014) Barclays Plc has been transforming its strategies to provide quality services and manage its performance in the financial sectors. Every corporate sector has been identified to use various strategies to survive in global economic situation. The managerial authority has used technological support to give quality support to its prospective customers. To improve retail and corporate customer satisfaction level, Barclay Plc implemented high-class technology in its every unit. Barclay Plc and various banks have adopted technological advancement for better diffusion of innovation in its services. In this respect, Barclay Plc has adopted innovation with the aim of providing offering quality and secured services to its customers. Nowadays, to sustain in the market every industry has been implementing multiple services to attain more customers in a limited period. For this reason, every bank has been modifying its entire banking system with various technological practices. E-banking and mobile banking are of the major practices, which have been adopted by every banking organisation. Barclay Plc is one of the banking organisations, which include e-banking and mobile banking to provide services that are effective to meet the needs of its prior customers. In addition, diffusion of innovation has also led to increased customers satisfaction and convenience level. Barclay Plc serves for large and small business customers as well as individuals globally (Suresh & Paul, n.d.). Diffusion of innovation is based on certain procedure based on which the bank has been able to conduct operations efficiently (Pinch & Bijker, 2012). A Six-Stage Linear Model of the Innovation Process Source: (Pinch & Bijker, 2012) Barclays Plc has established an extensive network of outlets and ATMs across the globe. Over the years, the financial performances of the bank have developed confidence among its shareholders and other corporate customers. One of the strategies of the bank is to use information technology for its competitive advantage. Barclay Plc has used Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to provide quality service to its customers for better convenience and satisfaction. Additionally, customers also access e-banking services through mobile and internet. Design of information system service has improved employees efficiency for serving its customer. Every system has been equipped with high-level technology, as it helps the employees to serve its customers in an immediate way. The main objective of the bank is customer satisfaction (Barclays, 2014; Padmalatha, 2011). E-banking and mobile banking have been successful for Barclay Plc to meet the needs of the customers. Due to imbalance in banking system, it generates a negative impact among customers. Barclays Plc has faced a major problem of e-banking system failure. System failure has adversely affected the level of customers’ satisfaction. This kind of discrepancy has created a fall in customer service. Banking is all about interaction between people, technology and processes. Banking service is most common and important function, which every customer wants to experience for management and transaction of money. In this regard, bad customer service generates a negative impression among customers. Similarly, Barclays Plc has been affected for e-banking and mobile banking system failure (Nicoletti, 2014). In order to provide quality and loyal service support, every bank has use information technology. Due to some inconvenience, banking organisations failed to maintain customer satisfaction. Barclay Plc has faced same situation after the launch of e-banking and mobile banking (Ndungu, 2013). Barclays Plc’s mobile banking service has been based on unstructured supplementary service data, which inherently provide higher levels of security as compared to other banking services. During accessing the service, most of the customers have faced difficulties. Some customers do not get exact data about its account summary. On the other side, most of customers’ phone calls are being hanged during accessing the banking site. To mitigate these problems, Barclay Plc has redesigned its e-banking systems to provide more secured transactions (Mittal & Gupta, 2013). The Advantages and Disadvantages of Technological Practices in Banking Domain Technological practices in Barclays Plc banking domain have certain advantage as well as disadvantages that are provided hereunder. Time Efficient Implement of e-banking and mobile banking of Barclays Plc has reduced customer interaction time. At the time of opening a new account in Barclays Plc, a lot of time has been used for unnecessary paper works, which delays the operational process. E-banking has been an effective measure for saving time of employee as well as customers and the operations are conducted with better convenience. New customer or user can obtain necessary information through web sites. E-banking has been proved very time efficient tool for its users or customers and employees (Matthaus-Maier & Pischke, 2008). Easy To Use Barclays Plc provides free online banking facility to its customers. Through e-banking and mobile banking, customer can transfer their money from work place or home. Due to hectic life style, most of the people are not able to pay their bills in a timely manner. With the help of e-banking and mobile banking, customer can pay their bills in an urgent time with better security and efficiency. In addition, some customers are not able to visit the bank branches for long distance. In this case, mobile banking helps those customers to access their personal banking information on mobile (Matthaus-Maier & Pischke, 2008). Safety Barclays Plc provides safety to e-banking service users through many ways. The technical team regularly updates its security systems. Barclays Plc has taken various provisional measures to protect customers account from any kind of threat or attack. The bank has maximized risk management practice to ensure high level of safety of customer accounts. The bank sends warning if customer does not use the banking service for a long time (Krishnan, 2014). Accessibility Barclays Plc provides its customers with 24x7 e-banking facilities in many parts of the world. The availability of e-banking access from every part of country has increased its number of retail and corporate customers (Krishnan, 2014). Value E-banking is beneficial for customer of every age. With the help of e-banking and mobile banking, customers can transfer money on urgent time with better safety measures and convenience. Additionally, ATM also makes banking experience more valuable for customer. Barclays Plc with the implementation of e-banking and mobile banking service has been facilitated in providing better value-added services to customers (Gupta, 2012). Disadvantages E-banking and mobile banking facilities have created some disadvantages for Barclays Plc, which are provided hereunder. Total Global Complaints Received by Business Source: (Barclays PLC Citizenship Report, 2012) Forgery With advanced technology, many people have accessed some other website with user names and passwords. Due to that reason, most of the forgery cases have been identified in e-banking. To prevent forgery from internet banking, Barclays Plc has used high security system to protect customer money. On the other side, during the launch period, most of the customer has not accessed e-banking and mobile banking service facility easily because of its high security system. To avoid forgery, Barclays Plc has faced some problems for high security system installation (Frederick, 2012). Less Trust Some of the customers do not trust e-banking and mobile banking. For that reason, Barclays Plc has failed to acquire more number of customers. To improve this trust, Barclays Plc has provided e-banking service in an easy and convenient manner (BBVA Innovation Edge, n.d). It can be identified that Barclays Plc with the adoption of innovation in its services, has implemented the concept of technological determinism. The bank with the provision of different services with the assistance of e-banking and mobile banking has been able to develop a better cultural values as well as social structure, as its global customers are able to have a better access to the services. In this regard, the bank is able to develop a positive image amid customers as a leading banking service provider. Diffusion of technology in the operations is also recognised to have different managerial implications. Managers of the bank with the implementation of innovation have improved productivity and loyalty of Barclays Plc’s employees. In addition, the managers of the bank on a global context have been able to conduct the operations of the bank with better approaches relating to political, technical and elite factors (Grey, 1999). Technological innovation has assisted every unit of the bank to work more accurately than before. In past decade, due to far distance, most of the customers cannot visit Barclays Plc branches for updating their accounts or check account statements. E-banking and mobile banking has mitigated this gap between the bank and the customers. Nowadays, customers can check, transfer, and update their financial statement through mobile and e-banking facilities. On the other side, with the help of ATM services, customers easily draw from any outlet. Plastic money has make the banking service and money withdrawal easy and accessible for every individual. This technological innovation has generated varied advantages for managers of Barclays Plc to work in a better-coordinated and transparent manner (Garud & et. al., 1997). As a renowned financial organisation, Barclays Plc with the diffusion of innovation has been able to grab more customers from different age group Barclays Plc has implemented new systems of online banking and online transaction services. User-friendly systems helped the bank to enhance trust among customers relating to e-banking and mobile banking services (Frederick, 2012). Through technological innovations, Barclays Plc has made its journey more enriched and flexible for its customer. E-banking and mobile banking has produced a broad arena for Barclays Plc to operative effectively on a global context (BBVA Innovation Edge, n.d; Tiwari, 2012). Conclusion Based on the above discussion, it can be ascertained that technological innovation has made the journey of Barclays Plc more vast and smooth. New age technology such as e-banking, mobile banking and plastic money has made the life of people easy and simple. The innovation has produced more customer and productivity for Barclays Plc. With the support of e-banking and ATM customer of Barclays Plc, customers can connect with its bank successfully. Security update and mails about bank account service improve customer satisfaction level. In order to increase customer satisfaction level, Barclays Plc has implemented strong and effective security system to protect customer funds. With the invention of plastic money and mobile banking, customers can withdraw and transfer money from different places on a worldwide basis. Customer Relation Management (CRM) makes the connectivity between the customers and the employees of Barclays Plc more effective than before. In this respect, innovation has also led to technological determinism owing to which the managers are able to conduct the operations of the bank with effective management and coordination. References Ahmad, M. K. & Ali, H., 2011. E-Banking Functionality and Outcomes of Customer Satisfaction: An Empirical Investigation. International Journal of Marketing Studies, Vol. 3, pp. 1-16. Barclays, 2014. Strategy. About Us. [Online] Available at: http://www.barclays.com/ [Accessed November 24, 2014]. Barclays PLC Citizenship Report, 2012. Improving the Customer Experience. Servicepages. [Online] Available at: http://reports.barclays.com/cr12/servicepages/downloads/files/customer_experience_barclays_cr12.pdf [Accessed November 24, 2014]. BBVA Innovation Edge, n.d. Mobile Banking. Centro De Innovación BBVA. Frederick, A., 2012. The Impact of Electronic Banking Transaction in The Banking Industry (The Case Of ADB, SG-SSB And Barclays Bank Branches In The Eastern Region). University Of Science and Technology, pp. 1-59. Garud, R. & et. al., 1997. Technological Innovation: Oversights and Foresights. Cambridge University Press. Grey, C., 1999. ‘We Are All Managers Now’; ‘We Always Were’: On the Development and Demise of Management. Journal of Management Studies, Vol. 36, Iss. 5, pp. 561-585. Gupta, D., 2012. 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