The encyclopedia · Strategy & Leadership · Strategic decision · 2011
ICBC optimized 16,000 bank branches with IBM's reconfiguration models
ICBC and IBM built a branch-network optimizer used in 40+ Chinese cities; in Suzhou alone it is credited with $1.04B in added deposits.
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)
the move
ICBC, the world's largest publicly traded bank by market capitalization, deposit volume, and profitability, runs a network of over 16,000 branches.
To keep its position in a fast-changing Chinese market, ICBC partnered with IBM to customize Branch Reconfiguration, an operations-research-based branch network optimization system.
BR was implemented in more than 40 major cities. In Suzhou, a typical major city, ICBC attributes US$1.04 billion in increased deposits to the system, which also guided service capabilities to match regional economies and customer distribution.
why it works
- Location and service mix are jointly optimized, not decided case by case
- The model ties branches to regional economy and customer distribution
- A 16,000-branch network makes small per-branch gains huge
- Bank and IBM research team tailored generic OR to banking constraints
what transfers
A physical network that took decades to build can be rebalanced like a portfolio: when growth shifts geography, model-based location and service-mix decisions beat branch-by-branch judgment.
what came after
ICBC's Branch Reconfiguration was a 2011 Franz Edelman Award finalist. The Interfaces paper reported the Suzhou result of US$1.04 billion in increased deposits and the rollout across more than 40 major cities.
references
- Branch Reconfiguration Practice Through Operations Research in Industrial and Commercial Bank of China
- Interfaces Volume 42, Issue 1 table of contents
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