Ben Doster
What is Our Mission?
The mission statement of Credit Suisse is “The Credit Suisse commitment to the visual arts in Switzerland takes two forms: while Cultural Sponsorship supports the exhibition activities of leading art institutions in the country, the Art Unit is building up a collection of works by contemporary Swiss and Switzerland-based artists”. Our tour guide mentioned that even though the company is Swiss, they put the local customs and laws before that of Switzerland’s.
Who is our Customer?
There are two types of customers of Credit Suisse, high profile clients who go to them for investment banking services and people who seek their wealth management services. Credit Suisse is simply a Swiss Bank that specializes in intelligently managing and investing the wealth of high profile people around the world. According to our tour guide, a high profile client in the eyes of Credit Suisse is anyone who has over five million dollars to invest or have managed.
What does our Customer Value?
The average customer of Credit Suisse values the ability of the company to properly manage individuals’ private wealth. They are known to be one of the most reputable investment banks in world, with offices in many countries. It is easy to see why customers continue going back to Credit Suisse to manage their wealth due to how established they are as a company and how they have not received any negative publicity in the past few years.
What are the Results?
The results of all this are simple, Credit Suisse is a leader in the investment banking industry with one of the most reputable names in the business. The company has grown up so much in the recent years that they have split into three sections that include private banking, investment banking, and a combination of the two which is known as shared services. The Raleigh office that we visited was divided up between four functions, which include operations, IT, finance, and shared funds. There are no plans to expand into any other functions as the company continues to increase in size.
What is our Plan?
Credit Suisse only plans on continuing to grow in the future. According to our tour guide, they are trying to comply with the current theme in business of moving their offices into areas with a lower operating cost such as Raleigh. She mentioned how it was roughly one/third the cost to operate an office in Raleigh as opposed to Wall Street. The money that is saved by doing this allows for more to be invested back into the company, ultimately making it better each year.
Overall, I really enjoyed our visit to Credit Suisse today. One thing that stood out the most to me was the organization of the company and how they would recruit people based on their personality and then place them where they are expected to be successful. This is very different from some other companies that base their hiring strictly on degrees. This gave me the sense that Credit Suisse is a very efficient company.
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