The Banking Group offers a platform of workshops, lectures, readings, case studies and a simulation intended for staff newly assigned to financial services responsibilities. This is intended as a learning event to replace the traditional awareness approach to training with a focus on the analysis of the component parts of financial services. These components include market segmentation, profitability drivers, yield and risk management, synergies across sectors, regulatory imperatives, external (shareholder value) analytic perspectives, alliances, and competition (traditional and non-traditional).

How is this platform used?
Commercial Banks are using the platform for their high potential new hires. Central Banks, superintendencies, and universities are using the course as an introduction to analytics. Consulting and audit firms are including the platform in their curriculum for staff recently assigned to Financial Services. Credit and Risk departments are tailoring their offerings with this platform to highlight the analysis of the companies in the financial services sector. Major global corporates have used this platform for their account teams who serve the financial services industry.

The instructional design will be derived from the analysis of the target population’s needs, but generally the flow of the learning begins with the microanalysis of a single business unit, broadens to a sector, then a division and finally the integration with the financial institution and the industry environment. The platform covers Commercial Banking, Asset Management, Investment Banking, Insurance, and Retail Banking in a consistent bottom to top approach. The treasury management, operations imperatives, and secondary markets activities are integrated into the entire exercise through the use of simulation.

The component modules are developed according to the design dictated by the needs of the audience, but the lectures and readings represent a standard curriculum from the academic and consultancy literature. We use the professional press with contemporary analytics and peer group comparisons, as well as buy-side equity analysis and rating agency criteria. The dominant theme is that business choices and financial performance are invariably linked. By understanding the choices that managers make in the business, participants learn where the quantitative results derive. Participants are encouraged to anticipate what these choices will be.

The simulation platforms are tailored to the audience requirements and are often determined by the scale and scope of the industry segments faced in the real world. Domestic and International, Banking and Insurance or Investment Banking, and broker/dealer activities are all tailored in the choice of simulation and case studies.

The dynamics of the session include dialogue, on-going facilitation, and multiple group work (often the session has up to sixteen different syndicate groupings) to develop the participants’ familiarity with the taxonomy of the industry and the analytic methods used in financial services. These participative dynamics are part of the instructional design, but we encourage the use of a final presentation to synthesize the learnings of the modules.