Analysis of Citibank California's Evaluation System

Citibank’s strategic objectives for California are to build a profitable franchise by providing its customers relationship banking and a high level of customer service. The financial factors of Financial, Strategy Implementation, and Control evaluate each branch's profitability directly through financial and other objective reporting methods; measurements that are directly aligned with the goal of building a profitable franchise. The non-financial factors of Customer Satisfaction, People and Standards are more subjective and evaluate the branch manager’s efforts to align subordinates with organizational goals, and maintain high levels of customer service and relationship banking. 

All of the current factors are necessary in evaluating the health of the branch and how successfully it conforms to Citibank strategic objectives for California. They also give the branch manager the means to set operational goals in order to perform well. The factors also sufficiently address multiple aspects that will directly affect the success of the organizational goals, though the measures within the factors may not directly reflect aspects within the branch manager’s control. 

The financial sections have quantifiable criteria that are established and agreed upon prior to beginning the scorecard cycle. The Control section is evaluated relative to internal corporate guidelines and clear standards are established that are tied to the three ranking categories. The Strategy Implementation section includes an indicator of overall market share, which provides a good balance to the total number of customers gained or lost. Having well defined and measurable goals, these sections fairly evaluate the financial performance.

The non-financial sections and the overall evaluation ranking have problems that need to be addressed. Customer Satisfaction contains items such as on-line banking experiences and ATM performance which are out of the manager’s control. There are short comings in the...