Dashen Bank S.C has issued floated a tender to hire a consultant to redesign its management strategy , to bring the Bank in line with the international banking arena.
This makes the Bank the third private bank to have a management strategy designed by an international firm, after Awash International Bank (AIB), which partnered with KPMG Management Consulting, and Bank of Abyssinia (BoA) which partnered with Delloite Consulting Ethiopia Plc.
The Bank announced the request for proposals for the formulation and implementation of the management strategy on January 23, 2017, with the bid closing on February 15, 2017. But it was extended until the beginning of March. Both international and local firms were invited to participate.
Fortune confirmed that major international consultancy firms including KPMG Management Consulting and Delloite Consulting Ethiopia Plc submitted their proposals for the project. Fairfax Africa Fund LLC and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) have a one-time joint partnership and jointly submitted a proposal to design and implement Dashen’s management strategy.
Fairfax Africa is represented by its board chairman Zemedeneh Nigatu, who recently separated ties with Ernst and Young Global (EY), a well known global consulting firm, after working as its managing partner in Ethiopia for 15 years.
Mulugeta Alebachew director of Marketing & Corporate Communications of Dashen, confirmed that the Bank received the proposals from the bidders and it is now undertaking technical evaluations of the submitted offers.
The exact project cost has yet to be disclosed by either the companies or the Bank. However, the project cost for management strategy studies is estimated to be around 500,000 dollars, according to experts in the field.
“It has become a normal trend in the industry as many of the private banks are aspiring to be pertinent and dominant in the banking industry, which is evolving these days,” said a financial expert.
In June 2016, AIB partnered with KPMG to craft a holistic transformation strategy for the bank titled “Transforming AIB: Vision 2025”. The two companies partnered for one year. The new strategy of AIB includes implementing a new organisational structure, adopting a new business model and adding new units to the Bank’s structure.
“We aimed to push the standard of the bank to the international level and develop our resistance capacity if the banking sector is opened to international banks,” said Dereje Zebene, vice president of international banking at AIB.
Dashen, one of the 16 private banks operating in the country, has been the leading bank in terms of profit earnings until the 2015/16 fiscal year. But last year, AIB took the leading position, earning a little under one billion Birr.
Last year, Dashen has netted a profit of 727 million Br.
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