THE BANKING CHALLENGE provides participants with the opportunity to manage a complete commercial bank making decisions covering funding, marketing, business development, staffing, quality and productivity improvement.  And, in doing so understand the issues associated with running a complete bank, develop business acumen and their knowledge of finance.

This simulation is one of a range of business acumen simulations exploring the issues facing manufacturing, service, retail, distribution, banking and not-for-profit industries.

The simulation was developed for the Academy of Banking and Finance of the National Bank of Serbia as part of a project supported by the European Agency for Reconstruction.

KEY LEARNING
As described later, the simulation covers the following key areas:

•          BANKING APPRECIATION
•          BANKING OBJECTIVES & MEASURES
•          FINANCIAL APPRECIATION
•          CLIENT MANAGEMENT & POLICY
•          PRODUCT MIX & CONTRIBUTION
•          MARKETING - PRICING & PROMOTION
•          FORECASTING & CONTROL
•          BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT POLICY & IMPACT
•          TEAM WORKING
•         (BUSINESS PRESENTATION)

DURATION
Approximately one day. (Although it can be run in an accelerated manner in just over half a day.) Its duration makes it suitable for use at the end of a training course, in stages over the course, as a one-day seminar or as a feature of a conference.

TARGET AUDIENCE
The simulation is designed for use by trainees, junior management, functional specialists and supervisors on banking appreciation courses. (If used in an accelerated manner, it is suitable for more senior management.)

METHOD
After a short briefing, the training group is divided into between two and eight teams of between three and five your learners. These teams consider the problem facing them and then make decisions for a trading year. These decisions are fed into a microcomputer that simulates their effect. The results are returned to the teams who analyse them before making the next decision. This decision-making cycle is repeated for six to eight periods before the group recombines to discuss and compare results and justify their performance.

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
A single PC and printer for each group of two to eight teams.

The simulation uses an advanced simulator that supports tutoring, provides for ease of use and will run on all Windows operating systems from Windows 98 thorough Windows 7.

KEY LEARNING
BANKING APPRECIATION
The simulation involves running a complete bank with decisions covering marketing (promotion, selling, sector and product focus), finance (funding sources and mix) and operations (operating staff, quality and productivity improvement). It should help your learners appreciate the issues associated with a operation of a complete bank.

BANKING OBJECTIVES & MEASURES
During the simulation, your learners will be concerned with creating a profitable, growing bank that survives. They will develop an understanding of the bank’s purpose, how their decisions influence this and how their objectives and measures interact.

Your learners without business experience may be especially challenged by the need to deal with ambiguity and make decisions without perfect information and, where, some information is provided as qualitative comments about the bank.

FINANCIAL APPRECIATION
The simulation introduces your learners to financial fundamentals (Income Statement, Balance Sheet, cash flow and key ratios) and issues (Capital Adequacy and the reserves required by the National Bank).

CLIENT MANAGEMENT & POLICY
The bank serves two markets - retail (private) and corporate (business) - that it sells a range of deposit and loan products. In each market, your learners must ensure that they keep existing clients and attract new clients while maintaining good profitability and cash flow.

PRODUCT MIX & CONTRIBUTION
Although only selling into two sectors each of these involve four products: Demand Deposits, Long Term Deposits and Long Term Loans & Overdrafts. your learners must to decide how each of these contributes to the bank's profitability, growth and cash flow.

MARKETING
Your learners must consider how clients perceive the bank and how they will respond to interest rates, promotional activities, the competitors' actions and the financial and operational consequences while servicing both existing and new clients.

FORECASTING & CONTROL
With decisions covering staffing and funding, your learners must forecast operating needs and plan their staff and funding levels. This must take into account the uncertainties of the impact of marketing decisions, competitive actions and a changing economy.

BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT POLICY & IMPACT
With decisions about quality and productivity improvement, your learners must balance the cost of this with the benefits obtained in the marketplace, to staffing capabilities and costs.

TEAM WORKING
With your learners working in small teams, they have the opportunity to share experience and knowledge, present and promote different viewpoints and develop their people skills.

(BUSINESS PRESENTATION)
Optionally, at the end of the simulation, teams can make a board presentation covering objectives, strategies, process, the future (of the simulated business) and learning.

MANNER OF USE
The simulation can be used in several ways

AS A COURSE FINALE

        AS A COURSE THEME

        AS A BREAK

        AS A STAND ALONE EVENT

        AT A COMPANY CONFERENCE

        ON DEVELOPMENT/ASSESSMENT CENTRES

        IN GRADUATE RECRUITING

DOCUMENTATION

Documentation is provided in MS Word format and comprises:

The Participants' Manual that provides, for the your learners. a description of the simulation, a description of their task and information about the business that they are to manage.

The Background Notes describe the simulation for the trainer. (Please email to receive a copy of the Background Notes.)

The Decision Forms are the forms used to communicate a team's decisions to the trainer.

Briefing is a MS Power Point briefing explaining the simulation to the your learners. (You may find it useful if you review this before reading the briefs.)

Participants' Manual
Decision Forms
Briefing

SIMULATOR DOWNLOAD

This is provided to allow you to download an evaluation version of the simulation. 

The table below shows the files to download, their description and size. You should copy them to a folder, a USB Flash Drive or even to floppy discs! Run setup.exe. The program will then install.

Note: When downloading the setup.lst file you must right click and then select Save As. (If you left click the file will open - this is a feature of Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7.)

If, instead of installing from the Web, you are installing from the CD-ROM version of this resource you can install directly by clicking setup.exe and opening the file.

Most recent update: 12/08/11
Hall Marketing, Studio 11, Colman's Wharf, 45 Morris Road, London E14 6PA, ENGLAND
Phone +44 (0)20 7537 2982 E-mail jeremyhall@simulations.co.uk