Co-operation map
Quality gauge
product makes in profit for the bank, but
it's the share of wallet for each cliënt that
we're looking to increase. And in order to
increase that we need to work in alliance.'
Outside of politics, the formulation of a
'federation' is not a textbook move. The
definition of a federation is an alliance of
collaborating bodies. Characteristically, it's
a compact in which all parties retain their
individual status. This distinguishes an
alliance from a merger and, Ten Cate is
quick to point out, ensures that CC's and
all product groups' focus on the Dutch
market can and must be maintained.
So what's been achieved in the six months
since the changes were announced? The
most important developments include:
integrating GT into GFM - now complete
and headed by Rutger Schellens (see
pages 8-11 for an update on the new
GFM); bringing together Relationship
Management and the Rl product groups
(Sipko Schat, the member of the Managing
Board appointed in September as Flead
of CC, will continue to facilitate this); the
unification of the support environments
(Ralf Dekker's mandate); and the integra-
tion of Food Agribusiness Research (FAR)
into CC's domain (which Sjors Kruiper
and Adrie Zwanenberg have been
co-operating on). See sidebar on page 6
for more information about the changes.
And would they describe the changes
so far as successful? 'Co-operation is
hard to measure. The only thing we can
accurately rate is market share,' answers
Van Slingelandt. But this is not just about
quantity it's also about the quality of
our relationships and products. 'We
definitely want more clients and a
bigger share of wallet,' clarifies Ten
Cate, 'but we also want happier
clients, greater efficiency and better
professionalism.'
'In the end however,'Ten Cate
concedes, 'if people don't want to
co-operate we cannot force them,
whatever structures are in place. What
we've done is to create a federation
and ask people to co-operate,' he says.
'Giving the example ourselves,' says
Van Slingelandt.
The Word will bringyou updates from
Sipko Schat, Ralf Dekker and Sjors Kruiper
in coming issues.
The Word
