Subprime Tsunami on Indian Shores: Crisis Hits Icici

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All the campaigns conducted by ICICI were successful because they curbed the damage to a level lesser than what it could have been. One of the messages that the bank was unable to convey to people was that its exposure to the international is limited, which is also stated in the case study that the bank was trying to target majorly only the NRI population. People perceived ICICI as an international brand and that’s what they were not able to convey to the masses that their international exposure is just the tip of the iceberg.

Also, only the top management personnel were in the media to tackle the negative sentiment, which showed that the message and information, on as to how to tackle the situation was not being transmitted to the divisional/branch managers, who could have collectively reached out to more number of people using the local media, which were main cause of the rumors later on.

One thing ICICI could have handled in a better way is the online reports. They did campaign on online sources but they did solve problems and complaints that people made on different online portals, even after being one of the most technologically advanced bank. One other issue was the image of ICICI due to cases involving harassment by collection agents trying to recover bad loans and pending loan payments from the people, leading to bad reviews on online platforms.

Given the fact that the effects of the Subprime Crisis were felt by all the major financial companies, ICICI should have thought of and designed a crisis strategy. Had they planned or thought of a strategy when the early bumps were witnessed by international financial firms, they would have had a better position. Hence, it is a preventive crisis.

So major problems that ICICI should have considered are to use better ways to make people aware of their international exposure, providing a response to online queries, and space to the divisional/branch managers to communicate to their customers and the people who they know and connect personally.