Abstract

The loss of confidence in the global retail banking industry following the banking crisis of 2009, has forced Nigerian Retail Banks (NRBs) to rethink their business models, by focusing on the micro-level practices that characterise strategic decision-making and customer value
creation activities. This paper uses quantitative data from a longitudinal Questionnaire Survey of 1,187 customers to diagnose the strategic capabilities of NRBs, with a view to assessing the fitness of their value chain and networking activities for sustainable business model. We reject the hypothesis that NRBs’ internal activities for creating customer value do not support their strategic capabilities. We find that activities relating to assurance, awareness, enhancement, relationship, and trainings have a statistically significant positive
effect, whilst activities relating to benefits, interactions and alliances have a statistically
significant negative effect on the strategizing abilities of NRB managers to sustain their bank’s business models. We therefore conclude that for NRBs to sustain competitive advantage they need to reconfigure and embed their unique mix of value creating primary and support activities, resource base and value propositions, within a culture for service excellence.
Keywords: Strategic capabilities; Strategy-as-practice; Value chain and networks; Nigerian Retail Banks