Rabobank - Past and Present
4 International
The beginnings of
internationalization
CAM progress
report
ISSUE 26/21 FEBRUARY 1994
Following the merger between
the two cooperative banking
organizations, great changes
were in store for the new
Rabobank - not least a
tentative start on international
operations. Former director of
the international division and
now executive vice president,
Bert Steketee, looks back on
the early days.
'It would be easy in hindsight to
point fïngers and dweil on the
mistakes we made then. And be-
lieve me, we certainly made
mistakes. But the only relevance
they have today is that we were
able to learn from them - and as
after-dinner anecdotes for newer
Rabobankers. Our international
beginnings were very small and
we had little experience abroad.
But you can't become mature
unless you have built up the kind
of know-how that brings matur-
ity, and that includes burning
your fïngers occasionally.
'Starting in 1974/75, there was a
feeling in the newly merged bank
that there should be some kind of
coordinated activity around
doing business abroad. This was
not only related to the needs of
the Dutch customer base, but
also to their payment require-
ments. Our first foray into the
world of international banking
was through a joint venture -
which was quite a revolutionary
construction at that time - with
Bank of America; called Rabo-
America and located in Amster
dam. Both banks put in man
agers. We recruited one from the
Mees Merchant Bank, and Bank
of America brought over one of
their people from California,
who happened to be a Dutchman
- Hugo Steensma.
'I suspect it was based on inaccu
rate premises on both sides. Bank
of America saw the immense
guilder base we had in the
Netherlands, and thought a jv
would be an ideal way to tap that
resource. Besides, at the time
Rabobank had no wholesale
business, so I think they believed
this was a way to get new busi
ness. That's not surprising as
Bank of America was the most
internationally-oriented of the
US banks at that time.
'I think Rabobank's expectation
was that through the joint ven
ture, the bank would mature
more quickly. But what Rabo
bank didn't recognize was that it
also had staff within the bank,
often hired in specifically from
elsewhere, to do the same kind
of work as the people at Rabo-
America were doing. Okay, they
More next month - keep
watching this space.
were preactive rather than active,
but that would soon change. At
the same time, a division then
called Banking Affairs had also
set up an international direc-
torate. It was not particularly
structured, but it was in place.
'The bank then recruited a
Dutchman, Brands, who also
came from Bank of America in
Vienna to head up that director-
ate. His approach to the direc-
torate's scope of responsibility
was to say: If a corporate is in-
volved in any way in export
activities, then it falls under in
ternational. And just to make
matters even more complicated,
he was also a director of Rabo-
America in Amsterdam.
'It was at about this time that I
joined the bank from Mees. I came
in to start up an account man
agement team with a small group
of other people, including Henk
Visser, who's now on the execu
tive board. There had been a
great deal of M8tA activity in the
Netherlands and people were
starting to see us as a potential
source of funding - after all, we
had a huge capital base. But they
didn't know how to go about it,
who to see, who to talk to.
'But in the end, the task was not
getting the clients in, it was to see
if we could restructure the bank
so that we were adaptable and
open for this type of market.
How do we organize it, create an
infrastructure, make it oper-
ational. I think we did quite well
and even became quite visible
within the organization. But that
led to tension with the director-
ate that would ultimately become
corporate Banking and with the
'international' directorate...'
In January 1993, Rabobank
lauched the so-called CAM
concept. One year on and it is
time for evaluation.
The Coordinating Account Man
agement concept was designed
by the bank to deepen relation-
ships with multinational corpor
ate clients. The notion is to es-
tablish short lines of communi-
cation, both between the bank
and clients and between mem-
bers of the CAM teams them-
selves as part of an all-out effort
to provide better services and
products to clients.
In today's global market, many
corporate work in more than one
country, so communication be
tween account managers in each
place is essential. CAM teams
consist of a coordinating account
manager in the country where
the cliënt has its principal resi-
dence. He/she works with LAMs
- local account managers in
those countries where the cliënt
also has interests. CAMS and
LAMs and further supported by
specialists in the broadest range
of fields, and the teams' composi-
tion is flexible, so that clients can
be offered tailored packages
based on a so-called Relationship
Development Plan.
The concept was welcomed with
great enthusiasm early last year.
But how has the initial stage of
this three-year plan developed?
'I'd say that what we have seen in
this first year is that we have cer
tainly been able to place the con
cept in the market,' says Karei
Plasman, co-chair of the confer
ence, 'and it has been welcomed
very positively. It has also started
to work. However, what we have
found is that the specific roles
within the CAM teams, that of
Executive Account Manager
(AE), CAM, LAM and Product
Specialist (PS), are not being ful-
filled optimally yet.'
This is, of course, hardly surpris
ing. Although the will is there, it
is difficult to develop a strong,
frequent working relationship in
teams that are not only scattered
around the world, but also run
through the whole organization.
The conference began with a
tough, self-critical evaluation of
progress to date. Paticipants
completed a questionnaire on
how they feit the first phase had
developed, and on how they feit
each of the team members had
functioned.
The results of this questionnaire
were collated and presented to
the conference, which brought
to the Netherlands account man
agers from all over the world.
'It showed us that although the
concept was working and the
cliënt response had been very
positive, we still have to work
on our own communica
tion,'says Plasman. 'It became
clear that people still had
questions. And this means that
the mechanism needed for an
automatic CAM response is not
fully in place throughout the
bank yet.'
The 1994 CAM conference was
essentially about reinforcement.
'I mean that in two ways,' says
Plasman 'Management had to
confirm its commitment to the
concept. And we had to look at
ways of improving how we
work.' The external guest speaker
was Ben van Rooijen of Citibank,
which introduced a similar con
cept 20 years ago, dissolved it in
1982, and then picked it up again
in 1985 - because its works. 'In
essence,' says Plasman, 'the con-
cepts are very similar, although
there are differences. These have
nothing to do with differing cul
tures within the two banks. It's
more a question of approach be
cause, you know, we can't talk in
terms of one specific culture
when you're dealing with multi
national clients. We have to
think internationally, and ap
proach CAM from a global per-
spective.' The next phase is con-
solidation. In the coming year,
CAM teams will continue to
work on perfecting their ap
proach so that in year three the
ultimate goal of increased return
on relationship is achieved.
