Executive Interviews: Interview with Anil K Khandelwal on Rebranding Strategies of Bank of Baroda
June 2006 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary

Dr. Anil K Khandelwal
Chairman and Managing Director Bank of Baroda

The issue was hot in the sense that "we want to change, we want to hire a firm", before I left to head Dena bank in February 2004.When I came back on March 1, 2005, I found that the board had approved the logo, it was in the files and we needed to take a decision. With regard to timing, I think, it was perfect. Because analysts and equity researchers were writing a lot about the bank for not being IT savvy. On other hand, banks advances growth was quite slow compared to other banks as our IT project was delayed and bank's image was one of the government banks. Even one of the marketing experts, Roger Tuvvy, which Gartner brought, had undertaken a study and it also revealed that the bank could do a lot in terms of marketing efforts. So I think the timing was absolutely right, because when I came I thought I had to address all these concerns. Then the issue was,what comes first marketing or branding or the real issues.I think at the same time it was important for me to fire on all cylinders and I put marketing and branding at par with business.

• Was it for the first time in the history of Bank of Baroda that marketing and branding were given more importance?
  No, I would say this much that the pressures have been there for the first time. Because of competition, the market is on fire. Even public sector banks have been giving us good competition. I must confess that we lost some time in our IT project. The expectations fromBoB in themarket had been very high and I could clearly see that those expectations needed to be fulfilled and I thought that time was ripe to catapult the brand itself and I thought that branding was such a thing that would bring in all our 40,000 staff into a new frame of thinking. Branding also gives you new responsibility. It is not merely a cosmetic change, but you feel lots of pressure when you do this. Nothing was hunky dory and I also observed there had been a certain degree of complacency. So when I came back as the chairman of the bank I thought it was a great opportunity for me to put things in perspective.And I wrote communication to our staff saying I was going to various places telling themhow we've slid down over a period of time, and how and I can say I could create some survival anxiety. This is not fear but definitely survival anxiety that if we want to grow in this competitive environment, we've to come out of this complacency mode which I always used to comment as "there was a virtual celebration of complacency" and I was telling people that "we are so obsessed with the word excellence in this bank that "we are excellent!" So I used to tell them "yes we have under performed excellently" since you are comfortable with the word excellent, let me use it that we have under performed excellently." These are the kind of frank revelations about the bank that I was doing throughout.One ofmy key agenda was I knew BoB had tremendous strengths that had been leveraged like overseas presence, huge human resources and strong standing. But somewhere the ignition was missing and branding provided that ignition.

  For me, at that point of time, I wasn't sure that the new logo would create so much interest. I only took it out fromthe files because I always thought that we must now implement things faster than ever. Although I was away from the bank, I found that it was a beautiful logo with a beautiful color and we could give it a go. So the timing was perfect because when there is a sense of anxiety, people implement transformation with passion. So in reality, the logo launch set the stage for further transformation in the bank.

• Coming back to this entire process of transformation, when did you actually start this transformation and how did you identify the people whom you made responsible for this entire transformation?

  Are you talking about transformation in terms of the brand building or any other initiatives?

  
  Basically, branding as a key initiative.

  We already had a marketing department in place, headed byMookerjee; I had complete confidence that Mookerjee would see through the brand building. I had a couple of other colleagues and by that time we had some newcomers in the department. I don't know but one day I just decided that on June 6, 2005 we were launching the new logo. I don't know where from I thought of June 6, but my experience told me about public sector that there has to be a certain degree of positive restlessness. You give clear timelines and everyone runs after that. Themoment you only show the intent to do a thing Parkinson's Law applies and you are only chasing people. Therefore, I just declared a date. I wasn't myself too confidentwhether we could achieve it in about two months time 2,800 branches, change of signages, logo change, stationery, and cheque books. And I think I put our marketing team to the most daunting and if I can say, intimidating task of achieving it. It was a great experience seeing our marketing people work. Often I left late in the night and I could see them working in the night. Some of our marketing guys fell sick but theywere back in the shortest possible time to work again. I wasn't too sure whether they can achieve this. Internally, I had preparedmyself to extend this timeline but the marketing guys would always tell me that they will not let me down.

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