Identification of competitive resources most likely to be used by the Brazilian banking industry from 2008 to 2012

Abstract

As part of a competitive environment that is increasingly regulated and changes rapidly, banks are obliged to be permanently alert, adapting and adjusting to environmental changes. Inevitably, the information that they use must have the highest level of reliability, to enable them to outline their future actions with a greater degree of certainty. Within this context, the aim of this study is to identify what competitive resources are more likely to be employed by the banks in the face of the scenarios constructed for the 2008 to 2012 period. To this end, a questionnaire was applied to 159 multiple services and commercial banks. The collected data were analyzed using frequency distribution and cluster analysis. The results showed that, out of the 14 competitive resources considered, 8 were seen as the most likely to be used in the two scenarios: qualified personnel, management of talent and competence; high quality of products and services rendered; personalized service and customer relationship management; on-line banking services, credit card services; management of third party resources; loans to individuals; and improving the quality of the credit portfolio. The authors concluded, therefore, that regardless of the scenario, the resources to be used will be the same, which strengthens the basis of the resource-based view of the firm, with only a change in the priority of use, depending on the scenario (pessimistic or realistic).