Marketing System: NAB Case Study

This paper analyzes the marketing system theories and the role of National Australia Bank (NAB) within the system. It also identifies key opportunities for NAB and provides recommendations for improving its structure.

Marketing System
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Organizational Background.........................................................................................................................2
Organization’s Role within a Marketing System..........................................................................................2
Key Opportunity for the Organization.........................................................................................................3
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................5
References...................................................................................................................................................6

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Introduction
The paper will amylase various aspects of the marketing system theories and for this NAB has
been selected for Banking Royal Commission. The paper will provide the background of the
organization and its role in the marketing system along with the marketing system theories.
Moreover, it also analyzes the key opportunity for NAB in the marketing system and there will
be some vital recommendations for enhancing the work process of NAB.
Organizational Background
National Australia Bank (NAB) is one of the largest banks of Australia in terms of market
capitals, earnings, and consumers. The bank was established in 1982, and its headquarters is
located in Melbourne, Australia. The total number of employees are 42,800, and the bank serves
various nations including Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. The current chairperson of the bank
is Kenneth R Henry AC, the CEO is Andrew Thorburn, and the CCO is Mike Baird. In
November 2014, the bank had 1,800 branches and service centers and 5,512 ATMs all over
Australia, New Zealand and Asia which has served 15 million consumers (Barrios et al., 2016).
The bank deals with business, customer and wholesale banking as well as with wealth
management and insurance.
Organization’s Role within a Marketing System
NAB identified that offering financial advice and financial products to the customers would be
profitable for the bank. If the bank charges money for providing financial advices to the
customers, including its financial products, then it will help in generating more profits for the
firm (Conejo and Wooliscroft, 2015). It has examined the quality of financial advices which are
being offered by NAB. After reviewing 75% of advised files, it was found that the financial
advisers of the bank had failed to fulfill the best interests of the clients. It is evaluated that
several conflicts occurs while offering financial advice and selling financial products to the
customers and thus, there is crucial requirement to develop suitable strategies for reducing these
issues.
The marketing system theories related to banking royal commission are the Mechanism, Actions,
And Structure (MAS) theory and the General Systems Theory of Marketing. The MAS theory
offers a framework and methodology for NAB for surveying the marketing systems and argue

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for a systematic and holistic approach (Jagadale, Kadirov and Chakraborty, 2018). It starts with
accurate recognition of the main marketing systems and continues in an iterative way to redefine
the systems at each level. The customers are paid attention at each level of the multi-level
system, in order to assist them as per their satisfaction level.
The General Systems Theory of Marketing provides NAB to develop and change its feedback
both from the customers and employees of the bank. This theory shows to provide a source for
development that is utilized to describe small-scale systems of interest to the marketing persons,
and also helps to understand the organizational structure and whole marketing process (Layton,
2015). As the inherent conflict of interest has aroused from the bank while offering financial
advice to the retail customers and also selling financial products, this theory can help NAB with
new information by providing power to the bank for effective operations.
Key Opportunity for the Organization
The key opportunities for NAB in the marketing system are as follows:
 To know the current system of a market – The organization requires to review the marketing
system continuously. They need to know the sensitivity of people in pricing, their way of
purchasing decisions and what the people feel about the organization through the help of
digital media (Leary, Minton and Mittelstaedt, 2016). The presence of digital media in the
market helps to increase the efficiency of the business procedure of the firm.
 To check the competition level – The business process of the banks are highly competitive,
so they have to investigate and develop proper strategies to get the desired competitive
advantage.
 To learn all about their customers – The business, at first requires to know which customers
they are targeting and what area their needs. Then, they should design the products as per the
needs of customers (Mittelstaedt, Kilbourne and Shultz II, 2015)
 To review the seasonal trends – Seasonal issues such as holidays or school examinations may
affect the business. The business has to promote their products by developing a calendar
during the year (Varman and Sreekumar, 2015)
 To work with the local businesses to get more customers – The business can collaborate with
the other organization to attract more customers towards them

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 To gather feedback from the customers or social media – If the business receives negative
feedback from the people, then it should make possible changes to get positive feedback
from the customers. The organization needs to collect information from time to time so that
they can make changes in their products and services (Vieira, Araujo and Sampaio, 2017)
 To raise the growth of social media marketing – It is essential to connect with the customers
regularly with the help of social media platforms.
Recommendations
It is strongly recommended that the marketing strategy and operational planning needs to be
developed to improve the structure of the marketing system of NAB. The risk management and
compliance should be improved. It is recommended that the competition level of the organization
should be tackled with appropriate strategies within the market. The business needs to change its
executive leadership as well as the other staffs to improve the business structure.
It is recommended that the organization should review and recheck the quality of the products or
services provided to the customers. They have to actively participate in the decision-making
process of the organization. The firm has to make their customers aware that they can make
changes in the products as per customer’s needs. By using social media platform and by
interacting with the customers, the firm can easily get the feedback, which will help in enhancing
the quality of the products and services of the organization.
It is also recommended that the organization requires to focus on the strength and weaknesses of
the professional activities or on the growth of the company to improve the efficiency as well as
the effectiveness of the business. The firm should use innovative technologies to raise the
efficiency and profitability of the company. The HR department of a firm plays a key role in the
development of the company, so the HR professional should develop proper tactics for
enhancing the skills and capability of the employees associated with the firm.

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Conclusion
NAB is one of the fastest growing firms and in order to analyze the marketing system theory, it
has been taken into consideration. The paper effectively concludes the background of NAB, its
working procedure and its role in the execution of marketing system. Two marketing system
theories have been analyzed with their crucial role in evaluation of business process. The paper
concludes the key opportunity for NAB in the marketing system. There are three
recommendations to NAB for improving its structure.

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References
Barrios, A., de Valck, K., Shultz, C.J., Sibai, O., Husemann, K.C., Maxwell-Smith, M. and
Luedicke, M.K., 2016. Marketing as a means to transformative social conflict resolution: lessons
from transitioning war economies and the Colombian coffee marketing system. Journal of
Public Policy & Marketing, 35(2), pp.185-197.
Conejo, F. and Wooliscroft, B., 2015. Brands defined as semiotic marketing systems. Journal of
Macromarketing, 35(3), pp.287-301.
Jagadale, S.R., Kadirov, D. and Chakraborty, D., 2018. Tackling the Subaltern Quandary:
Marketing Systems of Dignity. Journal of Macromarketing, 38(1), pp.91-111.
Layton, R.A., 2015. Formation, growth, and adaptive change in marketing systems. Journal of
Macromarketing, 35(3), pp.302-319.
Leary, R.B., Minton, E.A. and Mittelstaedt, J.D., 2016. Thou shall not? The influence of religion
on beliefs of stewardship and dominion, sustainable behaviors, and marketing systems. Journal
of Macromarketing, 36(4), pp.457-470.
Mittelstaedt, J.D., Kilbourne, W.E. and Shultz II, C.J., 2015. Macromarketing approaches to
thought development in positive marketing: Two perspectives on a research agenda for positive
marketing scholars. Journal of Business Research, 68(12), pp.2513-2516.
Varman, R. and Sreekumar, H., 2015. Locating the past in its silence: History and marketing
theory in India. Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, 7(2), pp.272-279.
Vieira, M.H., Araujo, C.F. and Sampaio, C.H., 2017. Unconscious thought theory and marketing:
A novel perspective for new insights. CBR-Consumer Behavior Review-ISSN 2526-7884, 1(1),
pp.11-23.