Research Paper on:
BANK OF THE WEST AND SWOT ANALYSIS

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
of products and services to a variety of customers. In order to keep up with the competition, banks must constantly be on their toes, and must constantly find ways to  improve their images, products and services. The one way in which banks can do this is by conducting a SWOT analysis. The  following is a SWOT analysis for Bank of the West. Strengths. Bank of the West serves a very specific niche market  - the West Coast. The banks target audience are individual and business customers in California, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington and Idaho (Bank of the West, 2003). The fact the  bank can focus on a specific area means resources arent spread too far. In addition, Bank of the West has longevity - its been around for more than 120 years  (Bank of the West, 2003), meaning people are very familiar with the brand name, and are comfortable with it. And because the bank is part of the larger BancWest Corp.,  resources are handy to develop and market specific products. Weaknesses. What makes Bank of the West so unique unfortunately can be  its weakness as well. In this day of consolidation, mergers and acquisitions, the financial institutions with the most resources can end up surviving, especially in a poor economy. Such resources  include advertising - Bank of the West could be confused, for example, with Bank of America, an institution that has a national and international presence. For example, the slogan on  the banks web site - "weve gotten bigger, by acting smaller" is certainly meant to convey a community bank feeling. Unfortunately, it may also give people the wrong idea about