Multifactor analysis of strategic reports: A diagnostic tool for the UK banking ecosystem
Abstract
This research addresses the challenge of complex language in strategic reports, which hinders effective communication with stakeholders. We propose a novel, resource-based diagnostic tool utilising text mining to simplify these reports by inductively generating a factor dictionary. This approach enables the transparent classification and clustering of strategic factors, organised using the PESTEL framework (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal). The tool application to the 2019 10-K reports of the four major UK retail banks reveals a predominance of technological and customer-centric factors, particularly in the context of digital banking. Finally, these findings are visualised through a bespoke framework designed to assess stakeholder strategic alignment concerning operational resilience and sustainability across social, economic, and environmental dimensions. This tool enhances reproducibility, stability, reliability, and accuracy of text mining in strategic reports. This research contributes significantly to the fields of strategic reporting and data analysis with a rigorous and transparent approach.