Report Structure


This analysis starts with Chapter 1 presenting the history of Citigroup, highlighting major developments the company has been through, in particular before and after the merger of its two parents Citicorp and Travelers.

Chapter 2 describes the company’s structure as of today and briefs the reader on activities within global businesses, i.e., Citigroup Global Consumer Group, Corporate and Investment Banking Group, Global Wealth Management Group, and Citigroup Alternative Investments.

Banking industry is analysed in Chapter 3 using Five Forces and Value Net framework, which also allow us to map Citigroup businesses on the industry environment as well as to compare them with each other.

Citigroup strategy is introduced in Chapter 4 based on the information retrieved from company’s senior management as well as official company reports.

In Chapter 5, we dig in the various financial metrics and compare Citigroup’s performance against its major rivals.

Finally, Chapter 6 draws the conclusions on the major finding of this research and provides the recommendations for the future.

Chapter 7 lists references to sources of this research.

Frameworks

Throughout this report I have used various frameworks, which I believe were the most appropriate to reflect the reality and to provide the objective view on Citigroup. Frameworks used explicitly in the report were justified in the corresponding chapters.

Some frameworks were used implicitly and passively in different parts of this document, namely:

  • PESTEL, a technique for understanding the various external influences on a business: Political, Environmental, Social, Technological, Ecological and Legal
  • 7 S’s, three hard ones: Strategy, Structure, and Systems, and four soft ones: Style / Culture, Staff, Skills, Shared Values / Superordinate Goals
  • SWOT Internal:    Strengths (positive)     and Weaknesses (negative)
  • SWOT External:    Opportunities (positive)     and Threats (negative)

In my table research I also used other research instruments, however they didn’t make it into this report due to the limitation of ten thousand words.