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Working on quality
On the job
KaUU
Foreign Office in focus - Rabobank Deutschland
The name is new, but Rabobank has been operating in Germany for
almost a decade under the name ADCA Bank. Raboband Inter
national went visiting in Frankfurt and found the whole staff com-
mitted to a changing culture and to developing quality.
Fact File - Germany
Issue 19/July 26, 1993 hand
In a number of European countries, Rabo
bank has two channels to serve its clients -
a foreign office and a strategie alliance. In
Germany, an agreement with a cluster of
cooperative banks with a comprehensive
network of branches ensures Rabobank-
clients receive the kind of attention and ser
vice they expect at home. Team leader, foreign
advisory service, Tom van der Weijden ex-
plains how the German alliances complement
the Rabobank presence there. 'When talking
about Germany, the first thing you have to re-
member is that it is the Netherlands' iargest
trading partner. In 1992, around 30 percent
of Dutch exports went to Germany, represent-
ing almost NLG80 billion. Most business is
done with the Rhineland, centred on Dus-
seldorf. But the presence we have there - a
staff of only 30 - can't hope to handle the vo
lume of business. 'The thinking behind the
strategie alliance we negotiated last Novem
ber is that since the EC borders opened, the
competition has become increasingly tough.
We don't want to lose out to the competition,
be it Dutch or German, so we have to ensure
our clients are receiving the kind of service
they'd get from their iocal member bank.
The group of German banks involved in the
alliance - DG, WGZ, SGZ and GZB - have
no less than 21,800 iocal branch offices
throughout the country. That means that
wherever our clients want to do business,
they'll find a strategie alliance member bank
in the direct vicinity which can provide full ser
vice packages as well as Iocal know-how.' Van
der Weijden's five-person team - two of whom
are based in Germany - was set up to assist
member-bank clients by providing assistance
and advice. 'We're usually approached by the
member bank concerned with the client's
requirements. We would then advise on the
best course of action for that specific cus-
tomer. This can be anything from a credit
application to advice on whether to open an
account in Germany. Because of trade
volume, we have already put through quite a
lot of business to the alliance partners, and
it's now paying off. We increasingly seeing
initiatives from them for closer cooperation,
so l'd say we were on the right track...'
Editorial staff
Stan Polman and Anne Lavelle
(Editorial Department), Cees van
DfHlfl Rest and Brigitte van Kanten (In-
UUIIU ternational Division).
INTERNATIONAL
Editorial address
Rabobank Nederland, Caroline Renette, editorial as-
sistant, P.O. Box 17100, NL 3500 HG Utrecht, Tele-
phone +31 30 902083, Telefax +31 30 901904
Designed and printed by Hoonte-Holland, Utrecht
Rabobank Deutschland's
staff restaurant was
packed on this hot Fri-
day afternoon in July. Rabo-blue
balloons littered the floor provid
ing a festive note, but this
wasn't a party. Around 80 of the
bank's 121 Frankfurt-based
staff had squeezed into the can-
tine for a presentation on qual
ity. The initiative for the quality
drive had come from general
manager Albert Sonntag, but
once the idea had been pre-
sented to staff, they had joined
in with gusto. The Friday after
noon presentation was the re-
sult of a lot of hard work, soul-
searching and self-evaluation by
the whole bank. And if manage
ment was looking for an extremely critical
overview, that is exactly what it got.
'The presentation is based on a series of
workshops and an extensive questionnaire,'
head of controlling/services Helmut Vortanz
explains before the meeting. 'I think the re-
sults will be pretty controversial in that we
haven't given ourselves a pat on the back.
We've been extremely realistic in evaluating
our current performance.'
Treasury chief Peter Geis agrees: 'What
we've done here is probably unique in Ger
man banking,' he said. 'We have asked the
staff to think seriously about our present
operation and to develop ideas on how we
can improve it. If it works, it will be fantas-
tic. But, of course, these things are often
easier to talk about than to put into prac-
tice.'
Albert Sonntag came up with the idea be
cause 'I want active colleagues, not a pas-
sive staff,' he says. 'By doing it in this way,
the staff are given a chance to self-motivate.
And if you go for a bottom-up approach, and
Type of operation: Head office based
in Frankfurt serving seven branches -
Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, Dusseldorf,
Hannover, Berlin and Stuttgart.
Established: Rabobank presence from
1984 through acquisition of ADCA Bank;
now Rabobank Deutschland since 1992.
General Manager: Albert Sonntag.
Staff: 220 -121 in Frankfurt; others distri-
buted over seven branch offices.
Products: Treasury, corporate banking,
trade and commodity finance, private
banking, investment banking.
Current food agribusiness: 32 percent
of business.
Accounting boss Josef Prokopp (second right) and
his team
you ensure you don't get stuck somewhere
in the middle, then you're really building
team spirit.'
Rabobank Deutschland is unlike any
other bank in the organisation. It began life
as a truly German bank following Rabo-
bank's acquisition of the ADCA Bank in
1984. 'The best way to describe ADCA is a
"mini universal bank",' Vortanz says. 'It of-
fered all products and even had a retail oper
ation. But it was unfocussed. When Rabo
bank acquired an 84 percent stake in ADCA,
we had clients with DM100 savings ac
counts and an average loan portfolio of
around DM100,000 per cliënt. Today, our
average loans are around DM6 million, and
if you look at the DM clearing department,
you see that where we were once handling
five transactions a day, we now have around
80,000 a year for other foreign offices. I
sometimes think it is easier to set up a new
bank than to change an existing one, espe-
cially when your goals are very different from
those of the established bank.'
The name change in 1992 was the culmi-
nation of a strategy designed to bring Rabo-
bank's German operation more into line with
other foreign offices in the Group. 'Our first
restructuring was in 1988,' Vortanz conti-
nues. 'This was intended to gear our activ-
ities in the seven branches - Frankfurt, Ber
lin, Munich, Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Hann
over and Stuttgart - to Rabobank's strategie
market. In a subsequent phase, we central-
ized the back office here in Frankfurt, which
now services all of the branches with the ex-
ception of Dusseldorf and Hamburg. Cur-
rently, each branch has a staff of between
10 to 14 people - account managers, pri
vate bankers and credit analysts. Only Dus
seldorf is larger, with around 30 people
based there.'
The revamping of the old ADCA into the
