A number of factors are integral to a successful implementation of the relationship banking concept in Bank of America's TQM program. Relationship pricing is a process whereby services are priced in ways that encourage clients to consolidate financial services in a single institution. Advocates of relationship banking contend that a bank's best customers should be rewarded, and that relationship pricing helps achieve that end by adapting the prime rate concept to preferred retail customers. Two-tier pricing is a part of Bank of America's TQM program, with lower prices for those customers who concentrate their banking business at Bank of America. There is an emphasis on the product concept in the more traditional approach to banking. In contrast, the marketing concept involves the identification and satisfaction as many customer needs as is feasible. The marketing is central in relationship banking in Bank of America's TQM program. The organizational configuration at Bank of America may best be described as a machine bureaucracy, although the strategy implementation structure at the bank does not perfectly fit the parameters of this configuration. The fit of Bank of America organization with the dimensions of the machine bureaucracy configuration is as follows: Bank of America's diversity program also includes efforts to build career development, and its diversity network assists employees in developing on both a personal and a professional basis. The emphasis is on bringing employees together in order to build better communication skills and to openly discuss diversity issues. Although the company sometimes makes facilities available to the employees, the meetings are on employees' time and are not limited to women and minorities. White men are invited which contributes to better understanding among the employees. In 1997, the head of diversity management at Bank of America stated that failure to adhere to the corporate diversity management polic |
