| COOL FRIENDS |
|
| Emil Bituleanu, President LIBRA BANK |
|
 |
1) Libra Bank is considered and promotes itself as a specialized bank for liberal professions. How profitable is it for a bank to focus on a niche sector? What are the elements required for success?
The advantages of focusing on a certain segment of the market, like we do, can be seen in the evolution the bank has had these past few years. Libra Bank stays true to the strategy we initiated ever since 2004, when we were the first bank in Romania that had such an approach, based on profession. We started with doctors and continued to expand with accountants, jurists, chemists, architects as well as other categories we added this year such as psychologists. However we won't stop here. Because we didn't face any sort of direct competition on the liberal profession market, we strengthened our privileged position, which led to Libra Bank being considered a constant partner for over 7400 clients, to which we add more every day. Today, Libra Bank is promoted and recognized as the "Liberal Professions Bank" because we offer "high end" products for our specific segment of the market: we have dedicated products, with characteristics and special conditions targeted at liberal professions and the added value is that we treat our clients in a distinct manner and they know and appreciate this. We have the responsibility of meeting our client's demands - they themselves being Super Professionals!
2) What are Libra Bank's plans for the future? What is the degree to which they are affected by the worldwide financial crisis?
Our plans concern completing the project of centralizing the bank's operations processing as well as rethinking the structural concept of our subsidiaries, which are now only focusing on a direct work pattern with our customers, to their benefit of course. Other priorities include optimizing the internet banking service, maintaining and improving the efficiency and performance of our units. At the same time, we're concentrating on developing our territorial network within reasonable parameters, so that we can maintain the cautious approach which is characteristic to our company.
Because our bank's offer is not centered on mortgage loans, the effects of the financial crisis are neither direct nor relevant, therefore Libra Bank continues to have a solid and stable position, representing a stable and trustworthy option for any client. Our expectations regarding the bank's profitability are positive, based on carefully weighed predictions as well as control measures and fine-tuning with regard to the Romanian market.
3) How do you prepare your managers and employees to deal with the changes Libra Bank is going through? What kind of programs do you implement?
The main criteria we use, starting with the process of hiring people, are their
personal potential and attitude. Those who successfully integrate into our organizational
culture and naturally adopt our values have high chances of performing and rapid
promotion. This is where the Libra Bank training programs come into their own,
they focus on more than just simple initiation. We organize intensive courses
dedicated to the learning of banking techniques for our new employees, through
our Libra e-Learning system. In order to build and define management abilities,
we hold periodical meetings with all the division directors of Libra Bank, in
which - alongside business components- we discuss/practice "soft skills" necessary
for coordinating people and projects. These are similar to permanent coaching
sessions. In order to increase loyalty and keep retention low for key personnel,
our top management team meets with the bank's performers, every 6 months in order
to strengthen the direct relation and recognize their efforts. We hold competitions
weekly, monthly or every 3 months in order to encourage performance in our managers
and employees (the best team in 3 months, creativity and initiative, logical
reasoning etc.). For 3 years, Libra Bank has been implementing the Junior Banking
League paid internship program, which addresses students in their final year
of college. At the end of the program we hire them based on performance.
4) You recently attended a unique strategic workshop in Romania, called
"The Leadership Challenge". What where your most important personal conclusions
after this session?
We appreciated the content of "The
Leadership Challenge" workshop and we noticed that the approach and
abilities of the Human Invest trainers were extremely stimulating for participants.
On a personal note, I carefully weigh the results of that meeting, which strengthened
my belief that people are capable of extraordinary things, many times far beyond
what we would have imagined. In order to utilize this potential, you have to
develop consistent programs, both medium and long term. These people must believe
in the values of the organization and everything must be built on trust both
horizontally and vertically. In this sense, the Human Invest workshop gave us
a series of useful instruments which we will assimilate in our internal approach.
5) What changes have you noticed among your employees and managers as a consequence of their participation in the sessions that make up the Master in Leadership program?
The positive effects of the leadership program implemented at Libra Bank by Human Invest can already be seen at many levels. Employees analyze daily activity, colleague relations and projects from a different perspective, more complex, better focused on resources, results and performance. When they approach a problem, alongside the operational point of view, our managers take more time and pay more attention to the essential aspects that concern human resource strategy and improving the team's way of thinking in the sense of motivating, inspiring and personal development through overcoming each new challenge, which is a tremendous gain for the bank.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recommend this newsletter to a friend
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Human Invest is a Premier League company in the arena of training and
organizational development consultancy services, present on the Romanian market since 1998.
We are recognized for conceiving and implementing programs which offer managers an authentic experience towards improving their leadership
performances, and thus we support companies in becoming more and more engaged in delivering excellent services for their clients.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
