Out To Win
Andy Ojei epitomizes the business entity he leads; he thrives on taking swiftly any territory he takes up. In seventeen years, his bank – Zenith Bank, grew from a start-up to occupy one of the top three spots in the banking industry in Nigeria. Ojei and his bank are on a mission again; this time in Ghana, and they want to improve upon their record in Nigeria.

"Our vision is to be one of the first five top banks (in Ghana) before the next five years," Ojei, CEO of Zenith Bank Ghana Limited says of their mission. It's been just over two years since Zenith Bank pitched its tent in Ghana and according to Ojei, they are on track to accomplishing their brief. "We are getting there, we are presently 13th in relation to deposits and 11th when it comes to balance sheet,"says Ojei.

Ojei believes their entry has invigorated the banking sector; they blazed the trail with Saturday banking, extended banking hours till 5p.m., and again introduced toll free numbers for customers. They also go the extra mile of picking deposits from the location of their customers.

A key part of Zenith Bank's strategy for taking over the market is anchored in customer care.

"Products have become generic, strategy has also become generic; but our differentiation is how we serve. That is our competitive edge," Ojei reasons. "Banking is about customer service; not just preaching customer service but living it. Our initial goal was to make an impact, we did not want to operate like any bank," he elaborates. There are two facets to Zenith Bank's customer care: serving the client speedily and courteously. To achieve their results in customer care, Zenith Bank has turned to technology.

Ojei explains the role technology plays in the strategy of the bank "How you get speed is through automation. We have deployed cutting edge technology that ensures we are able to deliver high quality service that our competitors cannot match," he adds. In addition to investing in a robust technology platform to deliver service, the bank also places emphasis on innovation. – commissioning custom made solutions that caters to the needs of their clientele. A typical example of one of their custom made solutions is the Automated Direct Payment System (ADPS). The ADPS is designed for clients who normally make multiple payments. The Client provides the bank with the list of entities they want paid to; the clients account is debited and the entities accounts are credited, thereby saving the client the time and effort of writing individual cheques.

Their mobile banking service- Zenith MobileLink, allows a Zenith customer to carry out transactions on his account via a GSM handset. On the other hand, Zmobile enables a customer to carry out various banking and payment transactions on his/her mobile phone. The ZPrompt is a transaction notification service which informs customers of transactions on their account via email and SMS whilst their Automated Cheque Writing solution is an electronic business application geared towards eliminating the stress of manually writing and signing cheques or drafts. After building the Zenith brand in Nigeria, directors of the bank decided that it was time to build it into a global brand and they settled on Ghana as their first port of call.

Ghana was chosen for an array of reasons: common official language, legal system and proximity. Zenith Bank also noticed that there were opportunities in Ghana; it had an emerging economy (opportunities in real estate, power generation, political stability etc).

Their decision to locate in Ghana is paying off. "It's been good; there were the initial challenges of starting a business and differentiating. Overtime we have warmed ourselves into the hearts of the populace; we have been well received" he says.

Again, the leadership of the bank settled on Andy Ojei to lead the Ghana operation. Ojei is not new to spearheading Zenith bank into new destinations. In Nigeria he was responsible for setting up branches in Abuja, Kano and Ibadan.

To him, the Ghana operation was different. The others in Nigeria were just branches, but with Ghana, it was a complete new bank; he had to work at acquiring a license, getting the premises; training and getting the staff to imbibe the culture.

He says: "The others were a piece of cake; the Ghana assignment was most exciting and satisfying".

Although Ojei has pioneered many of Zenith's operations, his training has ironically been in a profession where the practitioners are considered to be conservatives—accounting. He is a Chartered Accountant by training.

"Our training (accounting) is supposed to make you broad, versatile, able to deal with issues as they crop up; not only to deal with figures," Ojei said. Even though he grew up in the small Niger State Town of Agbor, he was very used to traveling.

He spent most of his holidays visiting other cities in Nigeria. His father, a farmer and trader believed that traveling was a part of education. Since coming to Ghana, Ojei has again found something that will push his adrenaline; golf. "Golf is a game you can play on your own and score yourself. I love competition, it challenges me and brings out the adrenaline in me," Ojei said.