The Bank of America Corporation, known as the Bank of America, was founded in 1998 after the merger of BankAmerica & NationsBank. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, BoA is both a financial services holding company and a multinational investment bank. The second-largest banking institution of the nation, the bank’s history is more than a century old, beginning in 1904 with Amadeo Peter Giannini opening the Bank of Italy in San Francisco.
Like any other banking institution, Bank of America generates revenue through net interest income from the loans they issue and other assets. This amounts to most of the corporation’s income while the rest comes from fees and commissions, i.e., non-interest income, the bank charges for its services. These services comprise card income, investment banking income, and brokerage.
Bank of America is a financial institution that offers standard banking services to its customers, including investments, consumer banking, global investments and wealth management, global banking, and legacy assets. Currently, Bank of America serves a customer base of 66 million in over 35 countries, including the continents of Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America.
The business model of the corporation is known as click-and-mortar. As the name suggests, this business model includes operations that are based both offline and online. The services typically offered can also be accessed through the company’s website or mobile application, making it more convenient for customers to keep tabs on their bank accounts. BoA achieved this by investing in information technology to make their services more conveniently available and being more efficient as a good online experience adds to customer satisfaction.
Even though it is clear the company knows what it is doing through its commitment to providing its customers with the best services in the financial sector and making these available in the most efficient way possible; studying the mission statement along with the vision statement would equip one with a greater understanding of what exactly needs to be achieved for the company to be a global leader in the world of finance.
The bank’s mission statement shows its commitment to being a dedicated service provider to its clientele, promising success and a better quality of life. On the other hand, the vision statement shows a long-term ideal that needs to be achieved by constantly working towards it by innovation and creativity. Thus, both the mission and vision statements are complementary and make the reader and the customer well-aware of the corporation’s priorities.
However, without studying the core values of Bank of America, understanding just how they aim to achieve the standard they strive for would be difficult, if not impossible. Analyzing the core values would help us gain a deeper understanding of how the company aims to succeed both its clients and the company itself.
Following our mission and vision statements and the core values of the Bank of America and their analysis.
Mission Statement
Bank of America’s mission statement is “to help make financial lives better by connecting those we serve with the resources they need to be successful.”
The company aims at developing and growing by combining its resources to benefit individuals and communities achieve their personal and professional goals. The mission statement of Bank of America is straightforward and spells out the company’s motive. However, a few core elements need to be studied to completely understand and analyze the mission statement of Bank of America. These are:
- Helping people financially.
- Connecting people with resources.
- Resources are required for success.
Mission Statement Analysis
The company explains via its mission statement that through financial resources at their disposal, they invest in the future of their employees, individuals, and communities. This is done through the creation of jobs, supporting economic mobility, and developing communities. Bank of America also aims to provide a good return to its clientele and works on risk management.
The mission statement can be analyzed by taking the core elements one by one. As per the first core element, Bank of America aims to make people and communities’ financial lives better. This organization aims to do this through its proposal of eight lines of businesses that address the various stages of financial activities. It has different approaches for different segments:
- For people: Bank of America provides financial products for retail.
- For Small Businesses: A range of investment guidance, solutions, and advice and solutions are offered to preferred businesses to manage wealth.
- For Companies: Services like global commercial banking, global investment, and corporate banking, along with integrated financial solutions and advice. For investors, a range of services is offered across the global exchange, commodity, debt, and equity markets.
The second core element puts the company in between the people in need of financial resources and the needed financial resources. Bank of America has rightly placed itself in the mission statement as all of the services offered are developed to cater specifically to a single group or another mentioned above. In the United States, Bank of America serves these three groups of customers while globally caters to large institutions and institutional investors.
The final core element is to aim at success as the goal. The bank places itself in a position that makes it well-equipped and capable of empowering its clients with the needed resources required to achieve personal and professional goals. This success applies to both the organization and its clientele because one cannot exist without the other.
The mission statement states that the bank shall provide people, communities, and businesses with the adequate resources they require to be successful and does not mention the company’s success. It is deliberate as the bank will automatically establish its position as a successful organization if its client base is successful.
Therefore, the mission statement of Bank of America focuses on growth by taking into account the social and environmental factors along with the diverse needs of the people and communities they serve. Connecting individuals, businesses, and governments, the bank keeps attention on environmental, social, and governance (ESG). Following these criteria allows the investors to be responsible while socially conscious while investing.
The company’s focus on connecting people while empowering them without compromising responsibility about financial matters distinguishes Bank of America from other banks. The mission statement thus establishes that Bank of America is committed to continuous and sustainable growth, customer-centric planning and services, offering a model work environment to its employees, seeking operational excellence, continuing growth, and development while taking into account the risk factor, and empowering communities through their offered services.
Vision Statement
Bank of America’s vision statement is “to be the world’s finest financial services company.”
The company’s CEO Brian Moynihan announced the above-mentioned statement as the vision of Bank of America in 2019 during a corporate meeting. The vision is simple and fulfills its role as the long-term goal for the company to establish itself in the global market as the leading provider of financial services. The vision statement can be divided into the following core components that add up to explain just how the company aims at achieving its vision:
- To be the finest in the world.
- To be the leading financial service provider.
Vision Statement Analysis
Bank of America has branches all around the globe and has already established itself as a multinational corporation. One of the leading financial service providers, the company’s expansion process, started in the 1930s and hasn’t stopped since. The bank’s branches are situated in 35 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America.
The bank is already reaching people and businesses around the world. Still, it aims at further growth as its vision describes its aim of being the ‘finest’ of all financial providers worldwide. By establishing its long-term goal to continue providing financial services worldwide, the vision statement echoes the mission statement but takes it a step further and encourages constant endeavor towards becoming the leading corporation in the business.
The vision encourages the company to constantly innovate and develop its services, care for its employees and improve its business practices. Bank of America thus erects itself as a corporation committed to helping its customers and the society they live in through financial services provided that help society’s economy and aids in personal betterment.
Some of the specific projects the bank is involved with include its support of environmental causes, spreading awareness about finances to engage more people with investments and other finance-related activities, and investing in several projects that aim at improving socio-economic progress.
Core Values
Bank of America’s core values includes “deliver together, act responsibly, realize the power of our people, and trust the team.”
Looking at these values is important as without considering them, we cannot hope to understand the company’s mission and vision statements fully. Going into detail, these values can be interpreted and analyzed as follows:
- Deliver Together: This core value stands for unity within the corporation amongst all people employed by the company, no matter their station. The aim is to be respectful not only to each other but to extend the culture of respect towards their clients as well.
- Act Responsibly: Accountability goes hand in hand with responsibility. If the company does not take accountability for its actions whether they are favorable or unfavorable, it becomes difficult for them to retain its customer base. The idea is to be responsible while making clear-headed decisions, taking into account all the risk factors that may influence the consequences of the action taken.
- Realize the Power of Our People: Placing the employees and their betterment as a core value makes their role a priority to the corporation. This core value also suggests that the company favors the process of letting its employees reach their full potential. It is also crucial to respect the diversity in the employees’ culture, ethnicity, experience, and style.
- Trust the Team: Operations within a corporation would never be well accomplished if the team does not function together properly. An extension of the first core value, trusting is a given in a healthy work environment. Trusting individuals, teams, and new ideas helps with the promotion of respect and responsibility. Developing a culture of teamwork also builds interpersonal relationships within the company.
Due to these core values, Bank of America can stay true to its vision and mission statements. Without these core values, the vision statement would be an ideal that seems impossible to achieve. Therefore, taking all three aspects that guide Bank of America’s functions and operations into consideration, one can say that the corporation is on the right path to achieve its mission and vision.
