Core competencies in the retail sector of the financial services industry

The combination of these rapid structural changes has forced retail service providers to develop new managerial capabilities and technical competencies. Financial service providers must be sure to differentiate their managerial capabilities: service (customer interface), intellectual capital and infrastructure management. Instead of focusing on end-users (customers) a firm may change its strategy to develop economies of scale in transaction execution. This allows new entrants to become aggregators and interface with the customer. At is point the firm has become a commoditized service provider, furthest from the points of sale. The transaction execution component is the domain of Sales, IT and Operations. The transaction component accepts the inputs from the customer interface and processes the data. Once the processing is competed, the results are forwarded to the customer through an appropriate interface. The skill sets of the transaction and customer interface converge on data processing, CRM-data mining and systems integration. This skill set is especially important for customized products.