The majority of respondents see significant profit potential in developing competitive Internet services. The profitability of small business relationships remains a top concern for this year's respondents. Small business bankers are challenged to utilize their growing base of resources to cultivate and maintain profitable relationships. This year's survey provides some insights as to how managers are using their human resources practices and technology to deliver profitable growth. Competition Small business banking is still viewed as a largely local business by this year's respondents.
Respondents believe the landscape is shifting away from local to more broad-based competition.
People Management Small business bankers face a number of people management issues in 2000. To drive desired behaviors, bankers rely heavily on incentive programs. Relationships, while important, do not figure prominently in incentive programs today, largely because of the difficulty banks face in tracking results on a relationship basis. However, as managers seek to encourage a relationship focus among small business staff, relationship-based measures no doubt will figure more prominently in the next several years. Leveraging Information Systems and Technology Survey respondents continue to fine-tune small businessinformation systems.