ANZ Bank: Building a Strategy for Asia

This case considers the Super Regional Strategy adopted by the Australian and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) under the leadership of CEO Mike Smith from October 2007 to early 2011. The Super Regional Strategy had the goal of deriving 20 per cent of ANZ’s profit from the Asian region by 2012 and between 25 and 30 per cent of profit by 2017. This strategy was a significant departure from the relative safety of the Australian banking sector and necessitated significant organizational changes. Not without risk or critics, ANZ is still in the formative stages of its strategy which will be a decade or more in the making. This article documents some of the changes to date.