外文题目： A Customer View on the Most Preferred Alliance Structure between
Banks and Insurance Structure
出 处： Zeitschrift für Betriebswirtschaft 作 者：Pekka Korhonen, Lasse Koskinen and Raimo Voutilainen
原 文：
Overview
In this paper, we have studied alternative alliance structures between banks and insurance companies from the point of view of Finnish customer representatives. Seven criteria were introduced for the evaluation of six alternative structure models for such alliances. The evaluation was carried out by an expert panel consisting of customer representatives. As a supporting tool, we used the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).The alliance models based on plain cross-selling agreements were considered most preferred.
We also studied how familiar the customer representatives were with the alliance problem from the point of view of the bank and insurance executives and that of the supervisory authorities. We observed that the customer representatives did not recognize the problem as well from the point of view of the supervisors as that of the executives. In addition,it was interesting to note that the customer representatives did not consider a risk aspect in the control by ownership alternatives as critical as the executives.
Comparing the results in this study to our previous studies, we may conclude that the best compromise model from all three points of view could be the financial conglomerate on the condition that certain supervisory and customer criteria are satisfied to a sufficient degree.
A. Introduction
Alliance formation in the financial industry has been a growing trend during the last decade.Insurers in an alliance between banks and insurance companies are most
often life insurance companies, but also non-life companies can be found. Financial alliances often include units like mutual fund managing companies, asset management companies, securities brokerages and corporate finance companies. In most European countries, banks are allowed to be “universal”. It is customary that they include the above mentioned functions. The same holds more and more often for insurance companies as well (see, eg. Skipper [2000]).That’s why the various types of alliances on the retail market between banks and insurance companies are of special interest.
In our previous papers (Voutilainen [2005], Korhonen and Voutilainen [2005] and Korhonen, Koskinen, and Voutilainen [2005]), we have studied alliance structure alternatives from different perspectives. In Voutilainen [2005], we introduced six different alliance structure alternatives and nine criteria relevant for evaluating those alternatives from the perspective of the executives of the banks and insurance companies. The alternatives and the criteria were introduced together with bank and insurance experts. Each expert was interviewed individually. The experts were representatives of the top management of Finnish banks and insurance companies.
In the second paper (Korhonen and Voutilainen [2005]), the same group of experts were used as a panel to find the most preferred model for a financial alliance. As a decision support system we used the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) developed by Saaty [1980].The problem was a typical AHP-problem: few alternatives and few qualitative criteria.The use of the AHP focused the discussions on the relevant aspects of the choice problem.The final solution was found in two meetings. The second meeting was the initiative of the panel. The panel felt that the problem required more considerations. The panel preferred the Control by ownership models. On the other hand, a risk-averse manager might also prefer looser alliance alternatives.
In the third paper (Korhonen et al. [2005]), our aim was to find the best financial alliance compromise structure between the executives of the banks and insurance companies and the bank and insurance supervisory authorities in Finland.1 First, we searched for the best alliance structure from the point of view of supervisory authorities. Together with leaders and experts of the supervisory authorities, we introduced eight criteria for the evaluation of the previously defined six alternative
alliance structures. The evaluation was carried out by an expert panel consisting of the representatives of the supervisory authorities.
The alliance alternatives based on plain cross-selling agreements received the highest ranks in the evaluation of supervisory authorities. Under certain conditions, the financial conglomerate might be an acceptable compromise alternative for the supervisory authorities as well.
In this paper, we have approached our problem from the point of view of customers.The importance of this perspective has been emphazised by e.g. Belth [2000]. Customer perspective to mergers is taken in Bank Marketing International [2004]. We did not take a sample from the population of customers, because most customers are not familiar with the problem at all. We were interested in the opinions of “advanced or well informed” customers.To represent those customers, we used leaders and experts of Finnish customerorganizations and labour market organizations (see, Acknowledgements at the end of the paper). As before, each customer representative was interviewed individually. Based on the interviews, we initially introduced seven relevant criteria. The final evaluation was carried out with four criteria. In the evaluation meeting, three out of those seven criteria turned out to be insignificant.
We have also studied how well the customer representatives know the alliance problem from the point of view of the bank and insurance executives and that of the supervisory authorities. We asked them to play the role of executives and supervisory authorities and to make the evaluations by using their most important criteria. We also asked them which they would think were the most important executive and supervisory criteria. This provided us with interesting information about the knowledge of the problem of the customer representatives from the perspectives of the other parties. The analysis revealed us which aspects are not yet well known to the customer representatives. Finally, we compare the prioritizations of all three decision maker groups considered in this and the earlier papers.
The paper is organized as follows. Section B. reviews our main previous results. In Section C., we provide a brief introduction to the theory of the AHP. The decision criteria from the customer point of view are given in Section D., and in Section E., the
results are given and discussed. In Section F., we present the results obtained when asking the experts to assume the roles of executives and supervisors. In section G., we compare the criteria and the prioritizations of all three decision maker groups. Finally, in Section H., we conclude the paper with general remarks.
B. Review of our earlier research on alliance structures
Since this paper is founded on our earlier research on alliance structures, we summarize here our key results.
I. Structuring the problem
Voutilainen [2005] studied alliances between banks and insurance companies. His perspective was that of the top management of a financial enterprise in the retail market.Alliance structures were classified into three main categories depending on the degree of co-operation of the partners. These categories were derived together with representatives of the executive management of Finnish banks and insurance companies. The categories in the increasing order of closeness of the partners were Cross-selling agreements. The parties agree to sell each other’s products to their own customers. The cross-selling is frequently one-sided. Most often a bank sells an insurance company’s products to its customers. In principle, it could be vice versa as well. The alliance category can still be divided into two subcategories depending on whether the parties’ service channels are overlapping or not. Non-overlapping service channels can be achieved, for example, if the parties actively try to organize cross-selling in such a way that there is no competition between the parties.
Here a service channel can be a branch office network, but also a contact center, subside etc. Especially in the case of overlapping branch networks one easily faces channel conflict: the alliance members do not co-operate effectively in the fear of losing their customers to the other party and consequently the sales provisions etc. Non-overlapping service channels often means that the other party has no service channel at all.
Thus the two different sub-models are
? Cross-selling agreement, no overlapping service channels (abbreviated CSA1) ? Cross-selling agreement, overlapping service channels (CSA2)
Alliance of independent partners. The alliance type is a special case of a
cross-selling agreement where the alliance is tightened by cross-ownership and/or joint ownership in third parties. Cross-ownership means a minority stake of the other party’s shares. If the ownership were one-sided, it would probably be a sign of asymmetry and one party’s dominance of the alliance. An example of joint ownership is a mutual fund management company owned jointly by a bank (banks) and an insurance company (insurance companies).One could also think about cross-ownership/joint ownership without a cross-selling agreement, but such a model seldom occurs in practice.
The degree of overlapping is also used to divide this category into two different subgoals:
? Alliance of independent partners, no overlapping service channels (AIP1) ? Alliance of independent partners, overlapping service channels (AIP2)
Control by ownership. In both the previous models, earnings and costs are divided. The third category means the model, where all the control is in the hand of one party: a bank can simply own (a control of) an insurance company or vice versa, or a third party owns the both ones.
This category is divided into two sub-models depending on the controller: ? Control by ownership, when a bank owns an insurance company or vice versa (CBO1)
? Control by ownership (financial conglomerate): a holding company owns one or severalbanks and one or several insurance companies (FC)
We can notice that the classification of the different alternatives is based on the closeness of the alliance and the degree of the overlapping of the service channels. Criteria. The alliance models were compared and eventually prioritized according to the following criteria (the choice of the criteria was also based on the management views).
1. Product development (maximize efficiency),
2. One-door-principle (implement as effectively as possible), 3. Earnings logics (avoid conflicts),
4. Customer relationship management (maximize efficiency), 5. Cost and revenue synergies (maximize),