The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) boasts of over 1.2 billion transactions monthly with market strength of 16.6 million customers 6.2 million of which use digital channels. There is such enormous volume of customers’ data, which is predicted to increase. This necessitates the need for Big Data Management. The demand for data analytics is expected to surge by 13.4% in Australia (Marous, 2016). Research done by the bank showed that only 34% of the SME’s in Australia made data-driven decisions. The emergence of online and mobile banking has seen consumers sharing more information and generating big data about their needs, risk tolerance and personal profile. This large volume of transactional and behavioral data is an opportunity for banks to optimize customer experience.

Over the next five years, the bank should aim at increasing its customer reach by 10% from its current 16.6 Million to slightly above 18 Million. The banks should also aim at doubling the number of customers covered by digital channels in the next five years. In order to achieve the above I recommend the bank develop friendly digital channels and embrace development focused on mobile to attract the crop of young potential customers. The millennial generations is networked, tech-savvy and have high-earning potential thus will form a major target for the next five years. The goal of attracting new customers should not overlook the risk of losing the current customers. The bank should adopt Real-time analytics to help managers try retaining their existing customers. The management should create a seamless customer experience across all delivery channels and upgrade data collection and analysis for regulatory and growth initiatives. This will help the bank to also spot changes in behavior– cancellation of direct deposit, declining account balances etc. that may signal that a customer is switching to a competitor. I recommend the bank automates customer-care since customers demand more self-service options and any-time, anywhere service. It will help ward off the competition from foreign banks and nontraditional entrants, such as Internet-only or direct banks, many of which run on real-time banking platforms.

CBA bank should double its SME expense and reach to US $ 9B in the next five years. To achieve this, the management should see a smooth and timely adoption of Daily IQ 2.0, a data analytics platform to place big data into the hands of the SME’s. Daily IQ platform will help aggregate data pools to provide managed services to business still relying on ‘gut-feel’ to make their decisions. The bank should also simplify money movements for the SME, the lending should be fast, easy and profitable. The bank should simplify its pricing structure. The SME’s prefer easy to understand rates and be able to determine cost of processing payments quickly. The bank should also increase customization and offer tailored services to its SMEs to prevent attrition.

In conclusion, consumer expectations are rising hence the bank stands a risk of falling behind in leveraging consumer insights. Building data management capabilities has become a necessity. The bank must tightly align their risk and finance functions to reap the full benefits of any data management initiative. Consumers are increasingly making decisions based on the ease with which they can interact with their financial institution. The banks will need to develop ways of improving digital and mobile engagements with such customers. Several financial institutions have created a chief data officer (CDO) position to oversee the bank’s enterprise-wide data governance and its use of information as an asset. Big data will also help the bank to anticipate customer needs and resolve them before they become problems. The success of integration of data management in all financial banking sectors will distinguish winners and losers.