A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN CURRENT AND DESIRABLE SITUATION OF INTERNET BANKING USING 3R MODEL – CASE OF MELLAT BANK IN IRAN

Commercial banking is undergoing rapid change, as the international economy expands and advancestowards institutional and market completeness. A major force behind these developments istechnology, which is breaching geographical, industrial and regulatory barriers, creating new products,services and market opportunities, and developing more information-and systems-oriented businessand management processes. A more efficient distribution channel will not bring sustainable strategicadvantages. To compete effectively, banks may need to embrace a new set of strategic priorities, basedon the unbundling of banking services and processes, and the deconstruction of the integratedbanking model.Publications in both the academic and popular press has helped to clarify the complex nature of estrategy.Three concepts—reach, richness, and range—have appeared in literature from severalacademic disciplines and have been cited for illuminating a number of issues related to e-business.Over the last years Mellat Bank has been one of the fastest adopters of information technology,particularly because of its capability to provide online solutions to customers using its services in Iran.This paper reviews existing studies on the use of the Internet in banking, and highlights the 3R modelwhich was first introduced by Wells and Gobeli (2003). To have a proper e-strategy, first, we analyzedcurrent situation of internet banking in Mellat Bank –using those three R’s– and compare it to thedesirable situation which was mapped by the head managers of bank. In order to know the current circumstances, customers of Mellat internet banking in Tehran are studied and a questionnaire wasdistributed among about 500 customers. Having considered that gap between current and desirable situations, this paper provides proper strategic reach, richness and range solutions for bank to develop its position in customers’ minds. Our results draw attention to demand-side changes in explaining the recent activities in internet banking, and may also be useful for development planning and marketing of other electronic components of Mellat Bank.

کلیدواژه ها:

E-strategy ، Reach ، Richness ، Range ، Internet Banking