Description

The South African financial services industry holds a relatively high ranking in global competitiveness reports, yet operates in the realities of an emerging market, meaning retail banks are not immune to the changes required to remain successful. Marketing leadership, as customer custodians, can play a vital role by directing their key internal stakeholders’ alignment to evolving customer centricity. A case study design conducted in a major bank with a national footprint and various international subsidiaries in broader Africa and beyond, explored the potential broadening of the role of marketing leadership in the studied context. The qualitative research employed an interpretivist philosophical stance and a deductive research approach, providing a rich and meaningful understanding of the main phenomena and their interdependence. A mono-method was used with a longitudinal time horizon of five years. Data was collected using semi-structured discussion guides in two rounds of individual interviews in 2018/9 and 2022/3. Purposive sampling was used to select executive and senior marketing leadership and key internal stakeholder (such as Chief Executive Officers and Chief Financial Officers) participants. Findings, recommendations, and implications were based on an extensive literature review of phenomena with practical applications and thematic analysis of primary data, revealing emerging themes, to achieve the primary and secondary objectives of the study. Findings included that marketing leadership could broaden their role to include the direction of key internal stakeholders’ alignment to evolving customer centricity, they must have a clear vision for customer centricity and be able to articulate it to their stakeholders, to ensure all are aligned on the vision for customer centricity and their roles in achieving it. It is important for marketing leadership to measure the impact of customer centricity initiatives. The study concludes that by broadening the role of marketing leadership to include the direction of key internal stakeholder alignment to evolving customer centricity, marketing leadership can play a critical role in improving overall customer centricity. A conceptual framework created to depict this broader role the bank’s marketing leadership could play was an added contribution to the body of knowledge. Recommendations for future research include conducting more related studies in the region, in order to advance the discourse.