Management Role in Leading IS-Technological Innovation Offensive Strategy among Universal Banks in Ghana

Introduction

In Ghana, there are 23 licensed universal banks, 484 microfinance institutions, 144 rural banks, and 70 microcredit companies (BoG, 2019) making the banking industry fairly saturated. Banks must adhere to government policies, adapt to globalization, culture diversity, and social renewal, offer distinctive products and/or services, and cope with advancements in technology. In addition, these financial institutions need to create strategic opportunities to attract new customers, respond to the demands of customers, streamline operational systems, and improve performance. Management do search for sources of sustainability through efficient use of resources, efficient utilization of capabilities, and exploitation of technology to support their operations. These operations include formulation and implementation of strategies.

In the Ghanaian banking industry today, most of the universal banks are maximizing the unique and valuable capabilities of information technology (IT) to pursue technological innovation as an offensive strategy. With such a strategy, these banks are able to address important concerns of their customers that include better service delivery, enhancing operational efficiency, and reducing the time of performing transactions. Information technology serving as an important ingredient of innovation development in services (Nardelli, 2015) requires a strong fit between business and information systems (Chen et al., 2010). Business and IS/IT managers as part of their commitments, collaborate with each other through information systems to share knowledge. Such action facilitates organizational learning and agility, aligning strategies, and enabling innovative functional operations to address business challenges. However, there is little evidence on the role management play in leading IS-technological innovation offensive strategy, especially among the universal banks in Ghana. The major objective of the study is to explore managerial activities at the various functional areas that facilitate the formulation and implementation of technology-driven strategies. In addition, the authors explore the strategic value of IT, and the importance of leading an offensive strategy through IS-innovation alignment.

The sections of the paper include an overview of management role in leading an offensive strategy and IS support for technological innovation in a banking firm. The other sections include the research method and data collection technique, analysis and findings, and the concluding remarks of the research findings.