MOST AWARDED PROFILE
NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT BANK
RANK 1
NUMBER OF AWARDS 60
Q: How does the National Development Bank’s (NDB) focus on innovation enable it to retain its market position?
A: The banking sector is highly competitive and the products offered being mostly homogeneous accentuates this. NDB’s focus on innovation and customer centricity has enabled it to carve a niche, and secure a market positioning that is unmatched by its peers.
Our focus on innovation takes a dual pronged approach – i.e. in customer solutions and internal processes. The former has led to a more visibly delightful experience for the bank’s customers.
NDB’s innovative digital solutions have transcended customer expectations around convenience in banking. Innovations in process automations have also led to superior customer service with quicker turnaround times.
Today, innovation led capabilities have become a prime factor based on which customers opt for our services in the long term. Other benefits include more productive job roles and enhanced work-life balance for our employees. This has enabled us to attract and retain quality talent.
Meanwhile, innovation led cost optimisation has enabled NDB to enhance and preserve profitability amid the prevailing macro challenges. As such, the focus on innovation that is strategically driven at NDB has stood us in good stead.
Q: How much value does the bank place on winning accolades and awards – and how do they help build team morale and brand image?
A: NDB has been the recipient of a number of coveted local and international awards for which many institutions vie. When awards are an outcome of independent, rigorous and highly competitive evaluations, they yield the satisfaction that you’ve truly excelled.
Team NDB and their hard work is one of the key success factors for us.
External endorsements on such hard and smart work in the form of awards are a definite motivator, and they act as a stimulus within the team. Such awards and accolades propel us to raise the bar for the team as a whole; and they motivate us to compete against ourselves, which is the best form of competition.
The stature and credibility of the awards that the bank has won have certainly had a positive impact on NDB’s brand image. And the respect garnered through them has enabled scores of stakeholders to partner us in their successes with confidence.
Q: What’s commendable about the awards that NDB has won is that they’re spread across multiple performance areas. How has this been possible?
A: As rightly observed, our excellence is widespread and not concentrated on one or a few categories.
Our excellence ranges from digital financial services, core banking service offerings, human resource management and corporate reporting, to many more aspects of performance.
I believe this is a testament to the holistic strategy we have built around our most important stakeholder – the customer.
The strong organisational culture within the bank unites the entire team towards achieving a common goal, which in turn makes NDB the banking group of choice for our customers.
This has provided consistent clarity to team members about our growth journey and their role in it. The versatility of our strategy has pushed us to excel in multiple areas, which has led to NDB being viewed as one of the most dynamic corporates in Sri Lanka.
Q: Is financial reporting a critical focus area for corporates striving to achieve operational excellence?
A: In today’s connected world, a corporate entity cannot exist in isolation because its stakeholders are varied and influential.
Financial reporting is a tool that corporates can use to tell a story that speaks to all stakeholders. In the past, this story was about numbers, and of interest only to a handful of stakeholders such as lenders, customers and regulators.
Today however, financial reports have evolved to cover other important aspects such as human resources, environmental impacts and the wider social impact.
This increase in transparency makes one want to do better; and as I said earlier, to compete with oneself and in the process, create an entity that people are proud to be associated with.
Q: To what extent does focussing on stakeholder relations impact a corporate’s recognition in the business community and beyond?
A: As mentioned above, managing stakeholder relations has become one of the key areas occupying a CEO’s time. As a bank, NDB has a critical role to play in the wider community – especially during times such as these.
The Central Bank of Sri Lanka and government’s request to support macroeconomic challenges, small-time traders who are struggling to survive and team members who are concerned about their loved ones are all stakeholders who are critical to NDB.
Letting down any of these stakeholders has far-reaching consequences across the community. The key is to do the right thing – you may have to sacrifice growth and profit in the short term; but doing the right thing by your various stakeholders to the extent possible creates a sustainable and resilient business model.
This sustainability articulated in the financial reporting is what impacts a corporate’s recognition in the business community and beyond.
Q: Would you say that digital initiatives have strengthened your brand’s presence amid the volatile business climate we’ve endured?
A: Digital initiatives are central to our long-term strategy. We have invested and are investing substantially in our digital capabilities. I believe digitalisation is not an option but a necessity.
Our digital initiatives are devised with the customer in mind. This approach to digitalisation has been recognised by the various awards the bank has won – for example, the Best Bank for Digital Transformation Sri Lanka 2021.
When the pandemic hit in early 2020, we were well on our way in our digital journey. This enabled us to muster our capabilities quickly to ensure we were able to provide uninterrupted services to our clients.
An example of this is NDB’s NEOS platform, which recorded transactions exceeding Rs. 137 billion in 2021. During the year, we took this a step further to introduce Virtual Know Your Customer (VKYC) capability aided by AI technology.
Digitalisation is not only about customer touch points; it is also about staff and internal processes. The Robotic Process Automation (RPA) programme we had implemented along with our workflows enabled staff to work from home seamlessly – once again, ensuring that our customers receive seamless services.
In a volatile business climate therefore, we were able to solidify and grow our customer base; and in the process, support the more vulnerable customers to weather these challenging times.
This holistic approach of using technology with the customer in mind has helped us solidify our brand image and presence.
