The Research On Competitive Strategy For Investment Banking Department Of Qilu Securities

The Investment Banking Department (IBD) of Qilu Securities was established at the end of year 2006. In May 2007, IBD started offering clients a full range of advisory and underwriting services, including equity offerings, debt offerings, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), restructuring and the private placement of equity. With rapid development of China's capital market and robust demand of equity financing, IBD is moving up to a broader stage. Therefore, it becomes a crucial task of IBD to grasp essence of capital market, to enhance its own core competitiveness, and to shape a clear competitive strategy.The external opportunities that IBD enjoys are:the support of industrial policy, the establishment of sponsor system, rapid growth of economy, great increase in equity financing, strong IPO pipeline, accelerating development of bond market, the coming M&A boom, weak bargaining power of buyers, and no alternatives. On the other hand, IBD faces threats such as the shortage of talents, strong bargaining power of suppliers, the entry of potential substitutes, and intense competition within the industry.The internal strengths of IBD are:nationwide branches, senior managers' commitments, robust capital base, flat organization structure, government supports, competitive professionals, and strong research capability. Meanwhile, IBD has its own internal disadvantages, including lack of large-scale transactions' experience, weak brand name, fragile loyalty from institutional investors, insufficient improvement of customer value, and ambiguous business model.Through comparative analysis, this thesis concludes that differentiation strategy is the best choice for the Investment Banking Department of Qilu Securities. To ensure the its implementation, Qilu Securities should focus on the following areas:optimizing the organization structure, creating unique IBD culture, enhancing the management support, promoting cross-department collaboration, recruiting specialist teams, providing consistent training, introducing attractive incentive mechanism, establishing flexible assessment system, making breakthrough in sales volume, strengthening IPO pipeline, setting clear operating procedures, and improving pricing capability.This study not only helps foster the core competitiveness of Qilu Securities to make it unbeatable in the fierce market competition, but also, with its conclusions, provides a model for reference and guidance for companies in the investment banking industry to develop their own competitive strategies.