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The Commerzbank HQ in Frankfurt is one of Europe’s tallest skyscrapers – an effective way of conveying the organisation’s ambitions to play a dominant role in the landscape. Commerzbank consolidated its position in the sector with the 2008 announcement that it was taking over Dresdner Bank, and this merger has opened up fresh opportunities in the field of investment banking. The ‘New Commerzbank’ is keen to promote and develop its corporate and private banking services and to pursue opportunities for expansion in China.
Commerzbank naturally has strong ties to the European market, and also has a global presence, particularly in commercial banking in the US. It operates in a range of fields, including retail banking, providing advisory services to clients, commercial banking and capital markets activities such as commodities and derivatives. Clients tend to be small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
Another strength is funding property development projects through its subsidiary Eurohypo. Acquired in 2005, this is a specialist bank that provides services to clients involved in commercial real estate and public finance.
Commerzbank belongs to the Inter-Alpha group of banks, an association of banks with European headquarters that explores areas for co-operation and knowledge sharing. The other members of the Inter-Alpha group are:
The merger of Dresdner and Commerzbank prompted the creation of a new logo and led to a project to amalgamate the organisations’ IT systems, a complex process that was not completed in full until May 2011 (although this was still well ahead of schedule). Employees and customers alike are now able to access all the same systems and services across the board.
Salaries vary depending on the role. For some positions, pay is related to company wage scales. Other jobs are exempt from this, in which case the salary on offer is likely to be largely related to performance.
In 2009 Commerzbank launched a flexible benefits package. This has been developed in order to provide better options for traders in particular, given their abnormal working hours. Benefits options include:
The bonus culture appears to be one that depends upon performance in the markets. In 2009 and 2010, Commerzbank did not give out bonuses to its investment bankers, on account of the losses incurred by the bank during those years. This comes in stark contrast to some competitors in the investment banking field.
Commerzbank has identified five core qualities that summarise the way it conducts business. These are actually referred to as ‘ComWerte’, which for all intents and purposes translates to ‘Commerzbank’s values’. These were distributed as the working mantra right across the company in 2007, having been defined by the Board of Managing Directors, rather than HR for their approval:
Values are defined by your own team and what suits your goals.
More than 2,000 employee workshops were run to generate feedback on the terms and explore how they were interpreted by staff. As a result, each team within the bank has defined its working practices in the light of these values to best align with its own needs. ‘Performance’ for example, could be measured in several ways depending on the team’s goals – profit margins, the generation of new business or a wider impact upon the team, for example.
After Commerzbank acquired Dresdner in 2008, it adopted a new company logo, which consists of the bank’s name and a triangular yellow ribbon. This is a clever amalgamation of elements of the logos previously used by the two organisations. The three-sided ribbon echoes Dresdner’s logo, while the yellow colour and Commerzbank name are familiar aspects of the bank’s brand identity prior to the merger. It’s a simple way of symbolising an integration rather than one completely overthrowing the other. The ribbon is also intended to show how Commerzbank brings together three key groups: customers, employees and business partners. By ‘business partners’, Commerzbank are referring to businesses that fall into categories such as SMEs (small and medium enterprises), various agent companies, external legal teams and so on.
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