1. Information Systems for
Organizational Performance
Group Assignment – Group IV
EPGP 2009-10 - Term III- Group Submission
7-Jan-2010
Instructor: Prof. Dr. Prabin Panigrahi
Submitted by:
Abhishek Pangaria - #1
Altaf Hussain Siddiqui - #4
Rajendra Inani - #27
Shikhar Mohan - #34
Tarandeep Singh - #37
Vaibhav Samant - #38

2. Table of Contents
1 What are the impacts of the Internet on the competitive landscape of corporate banking?.............3
2 What has Citibank done to differentiate its e-business products from those of its competitors?
Evaluate Citibank’s Differentiation Strategy. ........................................................................................4
2.1 Citibank’s e-Business Strategy.....................................................................................................4
2.2 Citibank’s e-Business Structure....................................................................................................4
2.3 Citibank’s e-Business Alliance Framework...................................................................................4
2.4 How E-Business Strategy was applied?........................................................................................5
2.4.1 CONNECT..............................................................................................................................5
2.4.2 TRANSFORM.........................................................................................................................5
2.4.3 EXTENT..................................................................................................................................6
2.5 Citibank-Differentiator ................................................................................................................6
3 Evaluate Citibank’s e-Business Strategy using SWOT analysis............................................................7
3.1 Strengths......................................................................................................................................7
3.2 Weaknesses.................................................................................................................................7
3.3 Opportunities...............................................................................................................................7
3.4 Threats.........................................................................................................................................7
MIS – Group Assignment Page |2

3. 1 What are the impacts of the Internet on the competitive landscape of
corporate banking?
The internet had affected many areas in banking and changed how institutions made
strategic decisions. At the same time, technology had changed customers’ expectations and
needs. This imposed a challenge on banking system to translate its traditional strengths to
the internet in a way that would add value for its customers. Major expectations appeared
due to this were following.
• Web-enabling access points to allow customers to connect seamlessly to bank.
• Building a new global infrastructure to deliver products and services online
• Integrating products in a new ways
At Citibank’s end, since 1990, Corporate bank activity strategy changed from decentralized
to centralized activities to attract more global customers
• As a result, in 1997 Citibank was one of the most profitable banks in the US.
• Citibank did not change its traditional services such as transactional, corporate
finance and treasury market services when they began to use centralized set of
operations throughout the world.
After increase in the use of internet in 2001, centralized operations became obsolete.
• Internet enabled the customers to think smarter and demand more from their banks,
forcing Citibank to shift to e-space. Eg: collect payment online.
• Besides the corporate customers, middle-market companies also demanded internet
based services.
B2B market, sophisticated clients, demanded electronic invoicing, automatic application of
payments to accounts receivables, online payment guarantees and non-repudiation of
transactions that could be enabled by digital receipts stored in achieves
• Some of the MNC started constructing new Internet based applications to do their
business before banks have started. Deutsche Bank, in early 2001, started to
develop a global paying system.
MIS – Group Assignment Page |3

4. 2 What has Citibank done to differentiate its e-business products from
those of its competitors? Evaluate Citibank’s Differentiation Strategy.
Citibank's vision was to become the world's leading e-business enabler.
• Aim was to empower local, regional and global customers and B2B2C marketplace
and provide solutions and opportunity created by e-commerce.
• Before 2000, Citibank had tried to excel at all parts of e-business, but it failed.
• By 2000, Citibank's strategy focused on alliances and the use of its partners'
strengths. Citibank partnered with companies that had complimentary technology or
infrastructure to access markets.
• Citibank's key technology partners were Oracle, Commerce Inc., SAP AG, Wisdom
Technologies and Bolero.net
2.1 Citibank’s e-Business Strategy
2.2 Citibank’s e-Business Structure
2.3 Citibank’s e-Business Alliance Framework
MIS – Group Assignment Page |4

5. 2.4 How E-Business Strategy was applied?
2.4.1 CONNECT
Web-enable its core services to connect with its customers
• Main purpose of this goal was more channels to access Citibank and the Internet
provided Citibank the flexibility to meet this demand.
• CitiDirect was designed for corporate customers to do full transactions on-line
anywhere around the world.
2.4.2 TRANSFORM
Draw the full range of Citibank's capabilities to deliver integrated solutions.
• Transactional processing such as cash management, trade finance and derivatives
were back-office activities that are basic and repetable processes. In 1998, Citibank
started to gather all similar activities in one place.
• By May 1999, data centers were rationalised to 60, consolidating all data centers
within each country. First one was built in Singapore, and other centers were built
then.
• Internalizing the Web
• Straight-through Automation
MIS – Group Assignment Page |5

6. 2.4.3 EXTENT
Reach new markets, new customers and new products
• Building a new global infrastructure gave Citibank the opportunity to deliver e-
products at scale more quickly and more efficiently to customers and any capability
improvements concerning worldwide customers.
• Citibank's priority was to move all corporate customers onto CitiDirect to retire old,
legacy systems. They faced with difficulties to retire legacy systems so they provide
services using legacy systems for conservative SME customers.
2.5 Citibank-Differentiator
Citibank's global reach is achieved via the following factors:
• Commitment in a country as much as local indigenous banks
• Local commitment and history together with global reach and expertise
• Strong brand
• Continuous Investment in Technology
MIS – Group Assignment Page |6

7. 3 Evaluate Citibank’s e-Business Strategy using SWOT analysis.
3.1 Strengths
• Global reach – Strong brand - Local knowledge
• Leading in Online banking solution implementation, Leading in online security
• Committed to delivering innovative e-Commerce services and infrastructure
• Commitment to providing global reach for online transactions
• Committed to partnerships
• Success of CitiDirect – a corporate banking platform
• Existing transaction processing capability in over 100 countries
• Large capital base coupled with CEO-level strategic commitment to excel in e-
commerce services
• Focus on technology industry solutions, not just technologies
3.2 Weaknesses
• Challenge in serving MNCs, requiring custom built host to host product interface
• SME not ready for web-based solutions
• Bank to corporate connectivity biggest hurdle in enabling straight-through processing
in treasury and cash management across organization borders.
• Citibank cannot match the technology companies using their technological expertise
and interests in providing new services
• Regulatory scrutiny – Risk Management and legal compliance were priorities for
banks in 2008, more cautious about privacy issues, expecting banks to be able to
identify specific data breaches quickly in order to limit any damage as a result of
fraud
3.3 Opportunities
• Corporations approaching bank and showing interest in participation in development
of e-solutions
• B2B Market – clients looking for ways to streamline and improve their traditional
payment processes
• Client demanding electronic invoicing, automatic application of payments to accounts
receivable, online payment guarantees etc.
• Companies interested in technological solutions allow them to avoid papers with
money transaction
3.4 Threats
• Deutsche Bank and ABN AMRO making serious push to develop its product range
• Competition from ICM (International Cash Management) companies
• Difficult operating environment – pressure of revenue and earnings growth to
intensify cost reduction efforts.
• Competitors offering a single web-enabled platform
• Tough business environment due to outcry of subprime mortgages
• Smarter and tougher customers – clients expanded their businesses globally and
became e-enabled, forcing bank to shift to e-space, demanding additional range of
services
• Some MNC cannot wait for banks to develop web enabled financial products, started
building own systems
• New technology required major investments in people, risk and technology services
that some banks were not ready to make
MIS – Group Assignment Page |7