Quality over Quantity

Former Citigroup chief Chuck Prince commented last week that the firm needed to

“install better leaders within top management rather than break up the various businesses”

Restructuring is an unsettling time for both the management team and its people. It often the case a new person steps into the shoes of his/her predecessor, the reporting lines and the business landscapes shifts from decentralised to centralised and vice-versa.
Todd Thomson ex Citigroup noted at the NY Reuters Finance Summit that “I fundamentally don’t believe the issues at Citi are ones of strategy. I fundamentally don’t believe the issues at Citi are ones of being in too many products and too many businesses. I fundamentally believe it’s an issue of execution.” He futher added: “If you look at every other significant bank out there today, they do exactly the same thing Citi does. There’s nothing that Citi does that JP Morgan doesn’t do, that Bank of America doesn’t do, that UBS doesn’t do, that HSBC doesn’t do. They all do the same things.”

Its true, its not how many product lines you have. It comes back to leadership and execution, having the right person at the top of the company who can look down and see what's happening on the ground level, listens to people, has a management team that works as a team.

Source: Financial News Online