The global food agri bank with its roots in
the Netherlands
Operation Service
Higher customer satisfaction in the Year of Service
2006: the Year of Truth
Positive outlook for 2006
8 Rabobank Group Annual Report 2005
Chairman's foreword
our position in the upper segments of the markets for corporates and
private individuals. The efforts towards that goal were intensified in the
year under review and met with a favourable market response.
An independent survey showed that in 2005, private individuals ranked
Rabobank as the best private bank after our own subsidiary Schretlen
Co, which came in first place. In addition, entrepreneurs in the corporate
segment awarded Rabobank the title Bank of the Year for the second
time in three years.
This is the profile we will be working on hard in the coming years, both
in our home market and in markets worldwide. From this perspective,
the strong growth in 2005 of our international retail banking business,
with its important focus on food agri, gives us great satisfaction.
The intention expressed in 2005 to strengthen our position as a food
agribank in the United States through a bid for Community Bank of
Central California has been realised. The acquisition was completed at
the beginning of 2006. We succeeded in strengthening our position
elsewhere in the western hemisphere besides the United States. In 2005,
a start was made with extending our agricultural financing activities in
Brazil. Regrettably, it transpired in early 2006 that, in Turkey, Sekerbank's
largest shareholder had annulled an earlier agreement for the sale to
Rabobank of an equity interest of 36.5% in this bank. We have decided
not to resign ourselves to this unilateral withdrawal and legal steps were
in preparation at the time of writing.
The move towards a smaller number of larger and more professional local
Rabobanks requires customised support from Rabobank Nederland.
In order to be able to respond better to the service needs of these
professionalised local Rabobanks, an organisational adjustment - named
Operation Service - was initiated at Rabobank Nederland in the autumn
of 2004, scheduled to be completed by the end of 2006. Goals under
Operation Service include a staff reduction of 1,200 FTEs. In the year
under review, the reduction in the number of FTEs under Operation
Service was 509, against 373 in 2004. The object of Operation Service is
to achieve better, more efficient and more transparent service for the
local Rabobanks by Rabobank Nederland, at lower net costs. The first
results are now becoming visible and in 2006, the costs charged on to
the local Rabobanks can be reduced further.
Early in the year under review, I used Operation Service, which had only
just been initiated at the time, to call on staff and management alike to
turn 2005 into the year of service across the board. Now, one year later,
I find that there is still some room for improvement in Rabobank
Nederland's service to the local Rabobanks. I am confident that the com
pletion of Operation Service in the course of 2006 will contribute to this
improvement. However, my appeal equally concerned the service to our
clients. It pleases me very much therefore that a market survey showed
that customer satisfaction among private individuals increased from 7.3
to 7.4 in the year under review. Needless to say, this is an encouragement
to do even better in the future. The longer-term target is a customer
satisfaction of at least 7.5.
If 2005 was the year of service, 2006 will be the year of truth for
Rabobank Group: the year in which a great deal of what was prepared
in past years should yield tangible, visible results. In all our Group
entities, we are very busy with reorganisations, mergers, restructuring,
reorientations and other internal alterations. Besides increased efficiency,
the main aim of each of these is even better service to our clients.
This has to be our chief challenge for 2006. It is a challenge that ties in
seamlessly with the solid foundation we have laid over the past years.
Thanks to the same commitment with which our 50,988 employees and
managers made 2005 a successful year and thanks to the dedicated
efforts of the more than 3,000 directors and supervisors of our local
Rabobanks, we will succeed in harvesting what was sown. I thank our
employees, managers and local managers for their many dedicated
efforts on behalf of Rabobank Group during the year under review and
I am grateful to the members of our local Rabobanks for the commit
ment demonstrated by them. Their input and that of our other clients is
more than welcome if we are to remain what we are: a bank of and for
people, and a bank of and for society.
My colleagues on the Executive Board and myself are positive about the
current year 2006. We see growing business activity across a broad front
and expect that the Dutch economy will perform better this year than
in 2005 and that Rabobank Group will be able to benefit.
