Ing Direct Case Study

ING DIRECT CASE STUDY
ING CASE STUDY
Liverpool Business School

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CONTENTS
Title Page Number
1.1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
2.1 INTRODUCTION 3
2.2 BUSINESS OBJECTIVES 3
2.3 SWOT ANALYSIS 4
3.1 FINANCE 4
3.2 FINANCIAL DATA EVALUATION 4
3.3 FUTURE IMPLICATIONS 6
4.1 MARKETING 7
4.2 IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING IN ING DIRECT 7
4.3 MARKETING MIX 7
4.4 ING DIRECT’S MARKETING STRATEGY 7
4.5 STRATEGY ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 8
5.1 OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 9
5.2 OPERATIONAL STRATEGY 9
5.3 ANALYSIS WITH SERVICE-PROFIT CHAIN MODEL 10
5.4 CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 11
6.1 INTERDEPENDENCIES OF MARKETING AND OPERATIONS 11
7.1 CONCLUSION 12
8.1 REFERENCE 13
8.2 APPENDIX 15

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1.1) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

ING Direct is an online banking service provider. It offers a narrow range of products
such as savings account, home mortgages, home equity lines and mutual funds. The bank is
one of the six business lines of ING Group and was established in 1997 and it celebrated its
tenth anniversary as world’s leading direct bank.
The report is based on the research on ING Direct. It covers three functional units of
the business which are Finance, Marketing and Operations. We discuss the current situations
of these functional units and their implications to the future. The report concludes with
recommendations to capitalise on the market and to achieve its long-term goals.
2.1) INTRODUCTION
ING Direct established in 1997 by Arkadi Kuhlmann, is one of the six business lines
of ING Group. The bank was built on the foundation of being unconventional. ING Direct
declared itself a rebel with a cause in an era when elaborate business models were more the
fashion, when entrepreneurs spent more time with venture capitalists than they did with
customers, and when being clever got more attention than being authentic (Kuhlmann and
Philp, 2009).
Ever since its establishment there has been a sharp growth in the company
performance. Starting at a loss of Euro 70 million it reported a profit of EURO 691 million in
2006. Definitely those records were the results of a revolutionary approach in the banking
sector and aggressive marketing strategy. Unlike other banks ING Direct is keen on
encouraging its customers to save. Presently, ING Direct is the world’s leading direct savings
bank, active in 9 countries with 22.2million customers worldwide. It sells a limited number of
banking products with a simple slogan: “Great rates, no fees, no minimums”. ING Direct has
a unique approach in marketing and follows tightly controlled operational methods.
2.2) BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

“Our purpose is to be a servant of the average person. Rather than getting people to
spend more - which is what most banks do - our approach is to get the Americans save more-
to return to the values of thrift, self-reliance, and building a nest egg.”
---Arkadi Kuhlmann, President and CEO, ING Direct
ING Direct’s business objectives can be summarised as follows:
 Increase in sales revenue and thereby profit through larger customer base

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 Efficient use of technology
 Minimising the cost
 Delivering high value to customers and encourage them to save more
 Simplicity in operation
2.3) SWOT ANALYSIS

SWOT analysis reflects the organisations existing position and viewpoint. This
inquires into the strength, weakness, opportunity and threats in an organisation (Valentin,
2001). A SWOT analysis of ING Direct is given in Appendix 1.
3.1) FINANACE
Finance is concerned with the ways in which funds for a business are raised and
invested. This lies at the very heart of what business is about(Atrill and McLaney,2006). ING
Direct has a very strong financial background which was initially supported by the parent
company, ING Group. ING Direct is the world’s leading direct savings bank. ING Direct
offer great value for their products along with making it as straight forward as possible.
Further they aim to keep their rates consistently competitive. This is done by minimising cost,
branchless operations and no hidden catches.
3.2) FINANCIAL DATA EVALUATION

Being a service based company, ING Direct’s central objective is to grow and
strengthen market share in the online banking industry. Appendix 2 shows the global profit
progression of ING Direct. The profit and loss account of ING Direct is shown in Appendix 3.
Total income decreased by 1.7%, or EUR 93million, to EUR 2,196million in 2007 from
2,289million in 2006. It further decreased by 60% to EUR 878million in 2008. The interest
margin narrowed to 0.75% in 2007 from 0.89% in 2006 as a result of higher central bank
rates in the euro, British pound and Australian currency zones and the intensified competition
for retail funds. The client retail balance in 2007 grew EUR 27.7billion or 9.8%, to EUR
310.1billion at year-end. Operating expenses rose by 3.9%, or EUR 60million, to EUR
1,598million in 2007 from EUR 1,538million in 2006. And in 2008 it is EUR 1,750million
recording a further 9.5% increase. According to the annual report of ING Group, the number
of full-time staff in ING Direct is increased to 9,980 in 2008 from 8,883 a year earlier. The
number of full-time staff in 2006 was 7,565.
Financial ratios can be used to assess the financial health of a business(Atrill,2006).

Ratios can be used to compare the company’s performance overtime, with competitors and

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with industry trends; can point towards the necessary improvements and possible dangers;
and can also reveal profit and growth potential.
Profitability ratio provides an insight to the degree of success in creating wealth for
the owners. They express the profits made in relation to other key figures in the financial
statement. Net profit margin ratio relates the profit for the period to the sales revenue.
Net Profit Margin= Net profit before interest & tax X 100%
Sales revenue
NPM(2006) = 31.21
NPM(2007) = 24.13
The decrease in NPM shows the rise in competition and the economic imbalances
which the company had to face during the period 2006-07.
Sales to Capital employed = Sales
Capital employed
Sales to Capital employed(2006) = 0.66
Sales to Capital employed(2007) = 0.79
The sales to capital employed ratio increased in 2007 as compared to that of 2006 and
it implies the effective utilization of capital employed in generating sales revenue. Return on
Capital employed is a fundamental measure of business performance which is concerned with
returns achieved from all long term capital invested.
Return on Capital employed = Operating profit =
Capital employed
Net profit before interest and taxation X Sales
Sales Long term Capital employed
ROCE= Net profit Margin x Sales to Capital employed
ROCE(2006) =20
ROCE(2007) =19
The current ratio compares the liquid assets with the current liabilities and is a
measure of short-term solvency. The higher the ratio, the more liquid the business is
considered to be (Brockington,1993). Appendix 4 shows the assets and liabilities of ING
Direct. From that the current ratio can be calculated as follows:
Current ratio = Current assets

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Current liabilities
Current ratio(2006) = 1.013
Current ratio(2007) = 1.011
As liquidity is vital to the survival of a business, a higher current ratio might be

thought to be preferable.
The recent downturn implicates that in future ING Direct has to be more careful as the
credit market is very weak at the moment and the liquidity in the market is at its lowest. The
year 2007 witnessed the beginning of the credit crunch which in turn reflected in the annual
result. Even though ING insisted its declining profits were a result of loss of shares and not
related to US sub-prime mortgages, it has clearly been hit by the general loss of confidence.
That is why they applied for aid from Netherlands government and received a capital
injection of EUR 10billion (The Guardian). Increase in operating expenses and the
repositioning of UK market also accounted for the decrease in profit. Fluctuating exchange
rates is another reason. Yield curves remained flat or inverted in all currency zones, while
competition for deposits intensified as many banks faced tighter liquidity and increased
funding costs on the wholesale markets. Competition with regard to other banking giants like
HSBC, MetLife etc, focused on online banking making it tough for ING Direct in 2007.
Moreover, non-banks have begun to integrate financial functions into their online offerings,
and the competition has intensified because of increased reach and transparency of online
offerings. (Dewan and Seidmann,2001). ING Direct also incurred a start up cost of 22million
in Japan which also added to the expenditure.
3.3) FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

The sales to capital employed ratio shows ING Direct’s capability of using its capital
to the maximum for generating revenue from it. The bank already took measures to stabilise
the financial conditions. They scrapped its dividend payments to the share-holders and senior
executives have agreed to forfeit their annual bonuses. According to Brockington(1993), a
current ratio of around 2 is generally considered to be about right and so in the future bank
should try to bring that up so that it can give confidence to short term creditors. For
preserving its position in the worsening economic condition, ING Direct need to strictly
manage its risks, capital and expense base. In line with these priorities, it was decided early
2009 not to launch its operations in Japan. ING Direct has to capitalise on its ‘simple’, ‘safe’
and ‘savings’ bank reputation as not any of the competitors are as half strong as they were
used to be. A source of growth could be the expansion of product range. They have got a
secured financial support from the parent company, ING Group. But it will be a challenge to
overcome the inherent problems in expanding the product range along with keeping the
‘simplicity’ of the company.

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4.1) MARKETING
‘Marketing is the process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and
distribution of ideas, goods and services to create, exchange and satisfy individual and
organizational objectives’ (AMA, 1985).
4.2) IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING IN ING DIRECT

Unlike the traditional banks, ING Direct used innovative marketing approaches which
differentiated themselves from their competitors. One-third of its budget was allocated to
marketing and it was possible because it had adequate financial support from its parent
company. ING Direct sells its product with the simple slogan ‘great rates, no fees, no
minimums’. Their marketing tactics was the key factor to attract many customers and make
them aware of the combination of rates and its hip brand.
4.3) MARKETING MIX

Marketing mix is a set of controllable, tactical marketing tools that the firm blends to
produce the response it wants in the target market. The marketing mix consists of everything
the firm can do to influence the demand for its products, (Kotler and Armstrong, 2001).
Product, price, place and promotion are the set of controllable marketing tools that an
organization use to achieve its objective in the market; moreover, physical evidence, people
and promotion are the extended tools which are used in the marketing mix to make further
analysis. ING Direct’s marketing mix is illustrated in Appendix 5.
4.4) ING DIRECT’S MARKETING STRATEGY

Marketing strategy is concerned with looking into the future and developing and
implementing the plans that will drive the organisation in the desired direction (Brassington
and Pettitt, 2000). ING Direct had a strategic marketing thinking in which they focused on
their customer’s needs by making them save more through their products rather than to make
them spent more. They had a clear focus on their customers and were not suffering from
marketing myopia (Levitt, 1960). ING Direct’s marketing strategy was the combination of
‘aggressiveness’ and ‘simplicity’ by consistently offering high rates and excellent service
quality.
Cost leadership, differentiation, and focus are the three generic strategies that any
business should pursue to attain competitive advantage (Porter and Millar, 1985). ING Direct
achieved competitive edge and competitive advantage by differentiating themselves from
their rivals in the overall marketing strategies they used and focused on the customers that
they can handle easily. Some of the marketing tactics that they used are:

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a) Sales Promotions and Advertisements:
Sales promotion is a range of tactical marketing techniques designed within a strategic

marketing framework to add value to a product or service in order to achieve specific sales
and marketing objectives (Davies, 1992). ING Direct continuously organized innovative
promotion campaigns like free movie tickets, free gas, etc, which attracted new customers.
b) Branding:
Branding is a way to distinguish the goods of one producer from those of another. It is
a name, logo, symbol, package design, or other attribute that identifies a product and
distinguishes it from others (Keller, 1998). ING Direct invested one third of its budget in
marketing programs to build the ING Direct brand. Many customers were attracted by the
combination of rates and its cool image. They had a simple branding strategy with clear
message and feature the bright colour orange (orange colour indicates cheap and reliable
products according to the vision experts), capturing customer’s attention by communicating
in a humorous, anti-establishment tone. Furthermore, they had a strong support from their
parent company in establishing the ING Direct brand.
c) Cafes:
Another unique feature of the marketing strategy is ING Direct’s cafes. The cafes are
the medium which introduced the customers to the brand. The cafes offer the customers a
place to speak and receive some financial advice with an ING cafe member who in turn is a
trained banker.
d) Guerrilla:
“People are sleeping. You have to shock people a little bit to get them to think
differently about how they manage their money. So we wake them up with one of our
marketing campaigns. They switch their money and go back to sleep”
---Arkadi Kuhlmann, President and CEO ING Direct
Arkadi Kuhlmann introduced this unique and successful marketing tactics to make
people think differently about how to manage their money and to make them save. Appendix
6 shows some of the guerrilla marketing campaigns of ING Direct.
e) Greenfields:
They used green fields like Canada to grow their business because there was small
number of competitors and it was the ultimate place for them to grow.
4.5) STRATEGY ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

According to (Brassington and Pettitt, 2000), the various factors that may influence an
organizations marketing strategy are the objectives and resources of the organization,
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competitor’s strategies, attitude to change and risk, market structure and opportunities
(Appendix 7). ING Direct had strong objectives that has been already mentioned and had
strong resources to support their marketing strategy from the ING group. They have intensely
analysed their competitor’s strategy that was to make people spend more, here, they used a
different strategy to make people save more. They reengineered the banking industry by
replacing branches with cafes which made more customers attracted towards them and finally
their marketing strategy improved their opportunities to grow.
ING Direct’s brand has been strongly established in the past and is a well recognized
brand in the banking industry. It has already done a huge investment in marketing in the
recent years so in this present financial condition they should concentrate more on cutting
down cost in each and every functional area. Most of the banks have been stuck by these
economic conditions and ING Direct is not an exception, so in future less investments should
be made in marketing and key concentration should be given to retain their existing
customers .Another main problem is the queuing method of customers when they frequently
contact the call centre, but in this scenario it is not fair to do so, as there are many options for
the customers to switch.
5.1) OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

Operations management is concerned with creating, operating and controlling a
transformation system which takes input of variety resources and produces outputs of goods
and services which are needed by the customers (Naylor, 1996). Operations managers are
responsible for producing the supply of goods and services in organisations (Schroeder,
1993).
5.2) OPERATIONAL STRATEGY

Operational strategy is the total pattern of decisions which shape term capabilities of
an operation and their contribution ( Slack et al, 1995). ING Direct operates under the broad
head of virtual banking system. ING Direct’s operational strategy is to cut down the cost to
the bore with the support of strong investment in technology. They bought IT hardware
centrally and made it available to various country organizations. Their strategy is to “reuse
before buy and, buy before build”. This helped to save enormous amount of money, higher
level of service, and control their accounts which are rapidly increasing. They introduced a
unique strategy ‘online or internet banking’ and produced a massive impact with a minimum
time span. The operational flow chart is illustrated in Appendix 8. ING Direct is a flat
organization with few management layers. Without an efficient and effective operational
strategy no organisation can hope to retain market leadership, since it will fail on delivery,
price or quality or more probably on all three (Galloway, 1993).

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Every operations in ING Direct is integrated to its ultimate objective ie minimising

cost. They reengineered the industry to cut cost in three different ways, i.e. they are not paper
based, efficient use of call centre and they eliminated costly customers. Product development
in ING Direct involves cross coordination with marketing and IT. The various stages
involved in product development are, developing a business plan which includes the forecast
of demand and marketing expenditures, evaluating the operational, financial and logical risks,
which demonstrates the importance of IT and operational requirements.
Performance measurement is another important factor in its operations. “Performance

measurement enables informed decisions to be made and actions to be taken as it qualifies the
efficiency and effectiveness of the past actions through acquisitions, collation, sorting,
analysis, interpretation and dissemination of appropriate data” (Neely.1998). Every operation
is closely and tightly controlled everybody in ING Direct measures and is being measured.
Again performance measurement system is used to increase customer acquisition and to
reduce costs.
Arkadi kuhlmann introduced a unique system called ‘Orange code’ which indicates
that all the employees have the same goal and removing all the titles and offices. They
recruits people who are willing to do things differently, people with right attitude, and those
who can be easily trained and introduced to a competitive selling culture, but above all they
choose people whose personal values fit with the values of ING Direct. According to Kelly
(2009), human capital is a source of sustainable competitive advantage as it is rare and
difficult to imitate. Most of the employees consider ING Direct as an attractive employer for
the strength of its business model, and its non banking culture.
5.3) ANALYSIS WITH SERVICE-PROFIT CHAIN MODEL

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Heskett et al.
This model establishes a strong relationship between profitability, customer loyalty,
and productivity in ING Direct. Profit and growth of the firm are boosted by customer
loyalty, which has a direct impact on customer satisfaction, that is influenced by the value of
services to the customers and value is created by satisfied, loyal and productive employees in
ING Direct. Employee satisfaction eventually results in high quality support services and
policies that enable employees to deliver results to customers. ING Direct establishes a good
and strong relationship with both these forces which in turn helps in smooth running of the
firm. The most exciting fact is that more than 90 percent of the customers of the company
believe that they are getting a much better service than the competitors and 99 percent of the
employees are proud about their employer.
5.4) CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Some of the challenges ING Direct may face in future is regarding with their cost
control in operation, since their business is growing day by day, controlling their operations is
a critical task. Moreover the IT structure has to be updated regularly to the increasing
demands
In order to satisfy their execution strategy in future i.e. to reduce cost of operation,
deliver better value to the customer, enable closed loop tracking and selling, efficiency
improvement, increase revenues , generate superior return, and higher cross selling rates, they
have to improve their operational performance (Refer Appendix 9). Business Process
Management (BPM) model is used to improve the company’s operational strategy which in
turn may help to achieve their business objectives. BPM is an approach dependent upon

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strategic and operational elements, use of modern tools and techniques, people involvement
and on a horizontal focus to best suit and deliver customer requirements in an optimum and
satisfactory way (Kelly, 2009). As ING Direct is a flat organisation depending heavily on its
technology for delivering high quality to its customers, we suggest BPM for further
improvement in ING Direct’s operational strategy.
6.1) INTERDEPENDENCIES OF MARKETING AND OPERATIONS

Marketing and operation in ING Direct cannot be considered as separate entities, they
depend on each other dramatically. Some of the key challenges that ING Direct may face in
future is regarding the inter dependency of each other’s functional units and cutting down
their operational costs. They emphasise on low product range and simplicity in their
operational procedures, but in today’s world customers are looking for wide range of products
with quality service, moreover the customer inflow may reduce because the customers want
more face to face interaction rather than depending on the internet. Again, the employees
concentrate more on reducing costs in operations which may, make them unable to identify
the customer’s needs and ultimately reduce customer satisfaction. Handling the technology
efficiently is also an important concern that ING Direct may face in future due to the
increased amount of customers and their needs. Earlier they were successful in managing
their employees, customers and the operational policies, but many new comers have made
their job tough and the economic condition is effecting each and every financial organization
day by day.
7.1) CONCLUSION
As credit crunch prevails in the current economy, ING need to capitalise on its
‘simple’, ‘safe’ and ‘savings’ bank image. The financial, marketing and operational aspects of
ING Direct was analysed in the report and few recommendations are suggested. As all these
aspects are strongly inter-related, a change in strategy of any of these aspects will reflect on
other. In ING Direct, marketing and finance acts as supportive functions to operations
management. In order to maintain its image in the current business scenario, ING Direct need
to be extremely careful in its future plans. The level of success achieved by ING Direct holds
some important lessons and offers, some much-needed inspiration to a business world; that
could use a little of both right now.

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8.1) REFERENCE
1. AMA (1985),’AMA Board Approves New Marketing Definition’, Marketing News,
1 March 1985, pp-1.
2. Atrill, P. (2006), ‘Financial Management for Decision Making’ (4th edition), Prentice
Hall, United Kingdom.
3. Atrill, P. and McLaney, E. (2006), ‘Accounting and Finance for Non-Specialists’ (5th
edition), Prentice Hall, United Kingdom.
4. Brassington, F. And Pettitt, S. (2000), ‘Principles Of Marketing’ (Second Edition),

Prentice Hall, UK.
5. Brockington, R.B. (1993), ‘Financial Management’ (6th edition), DP publications,

United Kingdom.
6. Davies, M. (1992), ‘Sales Promotion as a Competitive Strategy’, Management

Decision, 30(7), pp.5-10.
7. Dewan, R. and Seidmann, A. (2001), ‘Current Issues in E-Banking’, Communications

of the ACM, June 2001, 44(6), pp 31-32.
8. Galloway, R.L. (1993), ‘Principles of Operations Management’, Routledge, United

Kingdom.

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9. Heskett, J., Jones, T.O., Loveman, G.W., Sasser Jr., W.E. and Schlesinger, L. A.
(1994), ‘Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work’, Harvard Business Review, 72(2),
pp 164-170.
10. Kelly, P. (2009), ‘International Business and Management’, Cengage, United

Kingdom
11. Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G. (2001), ‘Principles Of Marketing’, Prentice Hall, USA.
12. Kuhlmann, A. and Philp, B. (2009), ‘The Orange Code’, John Wiley and Sons, Inc,
United States of America
13. Levitt, T. (1960), ‘Marketing Myopia’, Harvard Business Review, July/Aug 1960,
pp.45-56.
14. Naylor, J. (1996), ‘Operations Management’, Pearson education, United Kingdom
15. Neely, A. (1998), ‘Business Performance Measurement Theory and Practise’,

Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom
16. Porter, M.E. and Miller, V.E. (1985), ‘How Information Gives You Competitive
Advantage’, Harvard Business review, July/Aug 1985, pp.149-160
17. Schroeder R.G. (1993), ‘Operations Management: Decision Making in the Operations
Function’ (Fourth Edition), McGraw-Hill, Singapore.
18. Slack, N., Chambers, S., Harland, C., Harrison, A. and Johnston, R. (1995),
‘Operations Management’, Pitman publishing, United Kingdom
19. The Guardian | Monday October 20 2008
20. Valentin, E.K. (2001), ‘SWOT Analysis from a Resource-based view’, Journal of
Marketing Theory and Practise, 9(2), pp 54-69
21. http://www.ing.com/group/index.jsp
22. http://annualreports.ing.com/2008/report/ing_direct/index.html
23. http://www.ing.com/xpedio/annualreport2007/report/ing_direct/index.html
24. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=ING%20direct

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8.2) APPENDIX
Appendix 1
SWOT ANALYSIS OF ING DIRECT
Strength Weakness
• Strong brand image and customer • Declining revenues
focus • Narrow product range
• Support from parent company • Less face-to-face interaction with
• Efficient use of technology customers
Opportunity Threat
• Cross-selling • Intensified competition
• Explore new markets • Economic breakdown
• Weak competitors • Security threats
• Rising asset management market

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Appendix 2
GLOBAL PROFIT PROGRESSION OF ING DIRECT
SOURCE: ING Group

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Appendix 3
PROFIT AND LOSS ACCOUNT (in EUR million)
2008 2007 2006

Total Income 878 2,196 2,233
Operating Expenses 1,719 1,598 1,482
Additions to loan loss provisions 283 68 57
Total result before tax -1,155 530 694
SOURCE: ING Group

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Appendix 4
ASSETS AND LIABILITIES OF ING DIRECT (in EUR million)
2007 2006 2005 2004

Assets 262560 253160 232773 170001
Liabilities 259792 249792 229778 167731
SOURCE: ING Group

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Appendix 5
EXTENDED MARKETING MIX
Price
• High rates
• Low interest for loan

payback
Product Place
• Orange savings account • Internet banking
• Home mortgages • Cafes for customer

interaction
• Home insurance TARGET
CUSTOMERS • Call centres
INTENDED
Physical Evidence POSITIONIN
G Promotion
• Cafes for customer
interaction • Advertisements
• Excellent marketing • Sales promotions

tactics
People Process
• Hires people with right attitude • Simple process in front

office
• Targeting average customers
• Documentation in back
• Eliminating costly customers office

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Appendix 6
FEW OF THE GUERRILLA MARKETING STRATEGIES
ING DIRECT FREE GAS
ING DIRECT CASH COWS
ING DIRECT HOT BALOONS

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ING DIRECT ‘SAVE YOUR MONEY AT THE MOVIES’

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Appendix 7
MARKETRING STRATEGY ANALYSIS
(Modified from Brassington and Pettitt, 2000)
ATTITUDE TO
ORGANISATIONAL
CHANGE
OBJECTIVES
Branchless Operation
Make people save more
Reenergised banking
Provide high rates
industry
MARKETIN
G
STRATEGY
COMPETITOR
MARKET
STRATEGIES
OPPORTUNITIES
Traditional banking style
Weak competitors due to
to make people spend
economic crisis
more

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APPENDIX 8 OPERATIONAL FLOWCHART
START
VISIT CAFE
START NO
AN
ACCOU END
NT
YES
APPLY NEW ACCOUNT

VIA INTERNET,
TELEPHONE, OR
OTHER MEDIUM
DELAY
IN
RESPO
NSE
NO
APPROV
ED END
YES
COLLECT MEMBERSHIP
DETAILS
CHOO NO
SE
END
PLAN
YES
1
24 | P a g e
ANY
NO END
INTERNET
BASED BANK
ACCOUNT
YES
LINK THIS
ACCOUNT WITH
ING SAVINGS
ACCOUNT
NO
INVEST
END
MONEY
YES
TRANSFER MONEY FROM

LINKED ACCOUNT TO ING
ACCOUNT
END

25 | P a g e
APPENDIX 9
CURRENT STRATEGIC MODEL
Deliver better Enable
Value to customers closed

loop
-Convenience
Tracking &
-Pricing
selling
Reduce cost of Discipline

Drive lower
Operations Consistent
acquisition costs
Execution
by using database
Marketing
Improved
Technology Generate
Higher
Platforms Superior
cross-sell rates through Integrated
Returns database

26 | P a g e
Call centre
marketing
Marketing
operations
Adapted from case study

27 | P a g e

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ING DIRECT CASE STUDY

ING CASE STUDY

Liverpool Business School

Title Page Number

1.1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3

2.2 BUSINESS OBJECTIVES 3

2.3 SWOT ANALYSIS 4

3.2 FINANCIAL DATA EVALUATION 4

3.3 FUTURE IMPLICATIONS 6

4.2 IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING IN ING DIRECT 7

4.3 MARKETING MIX 7

4.4 ING DIRECT’S MARKETING STRATEGY 7

4.5 STRATEGY ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 8

5.1 OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT 9

5.2 OPERATIONAL STRATEGY 9

5.3 ANALYSIS WITH SERVICE-PROFIT CHAIN MODEL 10

5.4 CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 11

6.1 INTERDEPENDENCIES OF MARKETING AND OPERATIONS 11

Liverpool Business School

1.1) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

2.2) BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

---Arkadi Kuhlmann, President and CEO, ING Direct

ING Direct’s business objectives can be summarised as follows:

Liverpool Business School

 Efficient use of technology

 Minimising the cost

 Delivering high value to customers and encourage them to save more

2.3) SWOT ANALYSIS

3.2) FINANCIAL DATA EVALUATION

Financial ratios can be used to assess the financial health of a business(Atrill,2006).

Liverpool Business School

Sales to Capital employed = Sales

Sales to Capital employed(2006) = 0.66

Sales to Capital employed(2007) = 0.79

Return on Capital employed = Operating profit =

Net profit before interest and taxation X Sales

Sales Long term Capital employed

ROCE= Net profit Margin x Sales to Capital employed

Current ratio = Current assets

Current ratio(2006) = 1.013

Current ratio(2007) = 1.011

As liquidity is vital to the survival of a business, a higher current ratio might be

3.3) FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

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4.2) IMPORTANCE OF MARKETING IN ING DIRECT

4.3) MARKETING MIX

4.4) ING DIRECT’S MARKETING STRATEGY

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a) Sales Promotions and Advertisements:

Sales promotion is a range of tactical marketing techniques designed within a strategic

---Arkadi Kuhlmann, President and CEO ING Direct

4.5) STRATEGY ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1) OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

5.2) OPERATIONAL STRATEGY

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Every operations in ING Direct is integrated to its ultimate objective ie minimising

Performance measurement is another important factor in its operations. “Performance

5.3) ANALYSIS WITH SERVICE-PROFIT CHAIN MODEL

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5.4) CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

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6.1) INTERDEPENDENCIES OF MARKETING AND OPERATIONS

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