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Case Study

Alfa Bank (Kazakhstan): Digitalizing through agile teams

By Benoit F. Leleux, Alexander Averbuch, Viacheslav Kostin, Denis Samokhvalov and Taku Yokoyama

18 pages

May 2021

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Reference: IMD-7-2173

Alfa Group for a long time was named as one of the leading private banking groups in Russia and CIS countries with successful and continuous business growth. Alfa-Bank (Kazakhstan), a subsidiary of the group operating in Kazakhstan, had been focused on corporate clients in previous years and was reasonably good in that. However, that segment didn’t support the expected growth rates. Hence the bank made the decision to diversify its business by developing Small and Medium Enterprises segment (SME), as well as retail markets, which required revision of its current business model and introduction of innovative practices. To execute the initiative agile, principles were implemented, organizational structures and processes were changed in line with the intrapreneurial framework. Nowadays agile teams are actively engaged in developing innovative digital products and services, which resulted in significant growth dynamics in target segments (SME clients: from 9 to more than 45 thousand and Retail clients: from 359 to more than 581 thousand). The journey was not easy, and the case describes many issues that arose during the implementation phase, as well as doubts regarding the sustainability and efficiency of the intrapreneurial framework in future. Following the 3 years of intensive development and initial successful results, the intrapreneurship initiative was clearly on the crossroads. The key question addressed in this case is whether Alfa-Bank (Kazakhstan) should continue to develop the intrapreneurship framework, and if so, what are the next steps to be taken by protagonists to develop the bank into a truly intrapreneurship organization, with efficient agile-based innovation framework, contributing to the bank’s profitability.

Learning Objective

How to make changes in business when the current situation looks good and nobody in organization feels a necessity of change
What is the efficient way to establish and manage intrapreneurship framework within a traditional organization
How performance management systems and approach to incentives can support intrapreneurial framework in traditional organizations

Keywords

Strategy, Intrapreneurship, Agility, Corporate Culture, Performance Management, Key Performance Indicators, Change Management, Digital Transformation, Innovation, Decision Making, Demonstration

Settings

Kazakhstan
Finance and Insurance, Banking
September 2014 – November 2018

Type

Field Research

Available Languages

English

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