Which Exec Is Banking On Franchising?

The Australian:

Commonwealth Bank chief executive Ralph Norris believes he can teach the ‘elephant’ to dance. And because the ‘elephant’ has enormous economies of scale – if it actually does dance – then smaller banks will need to watch out or they will be trampled.

To make sure everyone understands he is serious, Norris declares that by 2010 most CBA branches will be run as a ‘virtual franchise’. Never before has any major bank embraced a franchise system in its mainstream operations, despite the fact that smaller banks have used forms of it with great success and retailers like Harvey Norman swear by the franchise model.

But the Norris elephant dance goes much further. He is determined to substantially increase the bank’s share of small and medium-sized business bank lending, which could start a dogfight between the majors as the other 3 big banks seek to preserve market share won at the Commonwealth’s expense over the last decade or so.

Norris concedes that the dancing lessons will take 3 years – that’s the time it takes to change the culture of an organisation as big as the Commonwealth Bank but he is already 1 year into the task. More.