Jas Business Blog

The story of Phoenix may be a myth, but its alter ego reflections in brands is not. State Bank of India (SBI) is one such rare brands which have come back to life from its ashes. Though many may counter that SBI was never facing extinction, but nevertheless one has to agree that five years back the SBI brand was looking at the last leg of evolution cycle, desperately in need for some fresh idea or a fresh vision or pure luck. Well as luck would have it (no pun intended) the latter two happened for this massive amalgamation of nationalized banks cluster. The fresh vision came in form of Om Prakash Bhatt and the luck came in form of 2008-09 world recession triggered by the collapse of financial system worldwide.

Bhatt started off as a probationary officer in the State Bank of Indian in 1972 and worked his way up the ladder. Ironically, banking was not his first choice for a career. He joined the bank only after he proved to be “underage” to appear for the Indian Administrative Service. After that it was a dance of his skills, within an year of taking over as chief general manager of the bottom-ranked north-eastern circle of SBI, Bhatt lifted the circle to the No. 1 position. In his next assignment as the managing director of the State Bank of Travancore, Bhatt changed the profile of a traditional traders’ bank into a retail bank and aggressively sold mutual fund and insurance products.

Bhatt was later elevated to chairman in July 2006 . The first thing he did was to stop the roll-out of core banking solutions in SBI branches. TCS was implementing the computerization of SBI banks and Bhatt made them do about 700 changes to the project they were already rolling out as he felt it was just a “mechanical roll out of technology without checking of it was benefiting customers”, which seems to true for image of SBI at that time! Bringing a new word AUDACITY to SBI he opened about 955 branches in just 5 months. He plans to use ATMs for issuing cheque books and bill payments apart from cash dispensing. Results? “Our home loan portfolio has grown 27% this year, higher than the competition. Similarly, the auto loan portfolio’s growth has been 30%. You can’t call SBI a sleeping elephant any more,” said Bhatt with a wide grin in his interview in May 2008.

With him at center-stage of aggression, SBI has managed to come up with campaigns such as Surprisingly SBI. Although this campaign caught people unaware and many wondered why such an old and reputed bank went for “surprising” campaign, but it did a huge publicity of banking facilities to the younger generation. Thanks to great execution, some of the ads like “Chiman lal Charlie“, guy with no pants etc made a strong mark in mind of customers. The brand recall of SBI shot through the roof! It had just to connect old  faith with new customer and these ads did brilliantly. It was backed with elderly couple ads. Stage was set for the luck to come and make the party louder for SBI.

Sep 2008 saw the unimaginable sublimation of Lehman Bros empire, and with it eroded the reputation of and trust in the financial world. Suddenly the private banks saw their liquidity drying up. The strongest competitor and the only other bank apart from SBI in world’s top 500 financial services brands, ICICI, suddenly was again caught in bankruptcy rumors which erodrd the trust to great extent. People were now chanting PSU banks and running there. And with high brand recall guess who came to the mind? Yes, the war was won by SBI.

Bhatt has become businessman of the year, 2009 and is now in race for the Indian of the Year award instituted by CNN-IBN. HDFC chairman and member of the jury Deepak Parekh said of Bhatt: “OP Bhatt has proved that given the constraints of working in the public sector one can move forward….he has improved the results of the bank and has put State Bank of India on the global map.”

Since he took charge at India’s largest public sector bank in 2006, he has raised the banks market share and loans from 15% to 16.5% and deposits from 15% to 17.5%. He has also regained the top slot for market capitalisation, a position it lost to ICICI in 2007. And SBI has also taken over HDFC  in home loans. The State bank of India is now 29th most reputable company in the world according to Forbes.

Some stories make much great read once completed, you just read one of them. All the best SBI!