ABSTRACT

       The banking industry is undergoing a period of transformation and this requires new orientation on the part of the banks. In this new competitive environment, banks have to re-think their total marketing strategies and come to terms with the necessity for marketing of services. The objectives of this study arte to determine if the bankers are effectively customer-oriented of this study are to meet the challenges posed by the changing environment and to determine the marketing philosophy or orientation of the banks (represented by their employees) vis-à-vis current happening in the industry. In course of the literature review, five distinct marketing philosophies were identified. They are the production orientation, product orientation and societal marketing concepts. In order to achieve the objectives of this study, opinion of the bankers and their customer were sampled through administered questionnaire and personal interviews. The marketing philosophy of banks as represented by their employees and customer were found not to be effectively customer oriented. The conclusion of the study is that marketing concept is not effectively practiced by banks. The hypothesis that the marketing concept or orientation in the bank is dependent on their marketing training, environmental factors, such as competition in banking, government policy, technology in banking, legal provision, banking culture and clients behavoiur and the banks presents marketing concept is bad could not be disproured thus they were accepted. Recommended strategies for introducing and establishing marketing task force and getting a managing director or chief executives, that is market oriented to initiate the Moure. The argument for a market orientation in a competitive environment remains that an organization has to be close to its customer in order to identify their whole organization towards satisfying them better than their competitors.