Group Assignment-1

Identifying the characteristics of EBLs Marketing Strategy

Course Title- Marketing Theory and Practices (M501)

Submitted to: Professor G M Chowdhury Director, IBA University of Dhaka

Submitted by: Name Afm Riasat Hossain Md. Raihan Shourov Wazedur Raman Imrul Huq Md. Shamim-Ul-Alam Md. Mahmudur Rahman Majumder Roll 134 139 143 145 151 154 Batch 46D 46D 46D 46D 46D 46D

Date of Submission:

Institute of Business Administration University of Dhaka

With a vision to become the bank of choice and to be the most valuable financial brand in Bangladesh, Eastern Bank Ltd. (EBL) began its journey in 1992. Over the years EBL has established itself as a leading private commercial bank in the country with undisputed leadership in Corporate Banking and a strong Consumer and SME growth engines. Marketing strategy of Eastern Bank Limited: Products EBL offers a wide range of depository, loan and card products to cater virtually for every customer segment. From Student Banking to Priority Banking to Platinum card EBL has almost all banking products in its repertoire. The product basket is rich in content featuring different types of Savings & Current Accounts, Personal Loans, Debit Cards, Credit Cards, Pre-paid Cards, Internet Banking, Corporate Banking, SME Banking, Investment Banking, Treasury & Syndication services. In this sector, the service offering are almost similar as most of the competitor as SCB, DBBL. EBL do not offer significantly different product than its competitors. Pricing is an important aspect of marketing mix that differentiates EBL with debit card. Having low cost debit card with the less yearly charge can easily attract the customers. EBL also launch life style prepaid card and cool debit card for the students. However, there is no extra charge for using the ATM booth owned by the bank itself. Segmentation & Target Market Mainly they segment the market by geographic area. The reason is that the product line (debit card) is not used in many places for example in rural areas, they mainly use cash as they dont know and have the e-banking facilities. EBLs main target is to extend banking service in important cities throughout Bangladesh and offers online banking facilities therein. The target audience of EBL Debit card is the mass market and university going students, executives, people who want to use Debit card as a replacement of cash. Distribution & Promotion The customers are served through a network of 59 Branches, 116 ATMs and 21 Kiosks countrywide. EBL has its presence in 11 major cities/towns in the country including Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet, Khulna, Rajshahi Rangpur & Cox's Bazar. EBL has Visa Electron so one can now draw cash from the Q-cash ATM network, 24 hours a day through out the year. It is also accepted at Visa merchants with Electronic P.O.S Visa Symbol. EBL conducts its marketing

promotion in various ways- Advertising (Print media, electronic media, outdoor advertising, and online presence), Sponsorship etc. Competition At present there are 4 nationalized commercial banks (NCB), 5 specialized banks, 11 foreign banks, 26 domestic private banks and 4 Islamic Banks. So at a whole there are 50 different types of banks currently operating in the country. But the Main competition EBL faces from the banks who provide debit and credit card service, online banking. Moreover there are banks those offer quality services at a higher price. Therefore, the competition primarily revolves around quality service with a convenient price. All these banks have the almost same product and services like Debit card services, credit card services, Internet Banking, ATM facilities and SMS Banking, etc. The target audiences of EBL are Upper, middle and upper middle class peoples. So, it is similar as the other private and foreign banks.

Conventional approaches available as marketing tools: The production concept holds that consumers will prefer product that is widely available and inexpensive. It is based on high production efficiency, low cost and mass distribution. The product concept holds that consumers and businesses will favor those products that offer the most quality, performance or innovative features. That is, making superior products and improving them over time. The selling concept holds that consumers and businesses, if left alone, will ordinarily not buy enough of the organizations products. Therefore, the organization must undertake an aggressive selling and promotion effort. The marketing concept emerging in 1950s is more like a customer centered approach. It holds that the job is not to find the right customers for the products but to find the right products for the customers.

Matching the characteristics: By analyzing the characteristics of EBLs marketing strategy it appears that it adheres to the marketing approach as a whole. However, in case of operating card division, selling approach is applied to a limited extent.