Pro-Exec founder Nick Langman resolved a major sales problem in Asia for a major bank.
The Problem: Forty salespeople from many different cultures, were based in six different countries, with varying degrees of ability and reported to local, regional and global management. Sales volumes were increasing, but so were expenses. Profitability was falling rapidly.
The Product: Complex financial instruments written in different languages and legal jurisdictions that had dynamic inputs that changed twenty hours a day, five days a week.
The Clients: From Sovereign wealth funds to small insurance companies in many countries with many cultures and different degrees of sophistication.
The Solution: Reduced the salesforce to thirty-five and sales centres to four (resources reallocated). Reduced travel arrangements from business class to economy, maximum number of business trips a year reduced to five per salesperson and for a maximum of one night. Changed sales focus from low-margin products to high-margin through client and sales education and training. Created an execution window between Asia and London, standardised documentation, redeployed structurers from London and New York to Asia. Changed interactivity between sales, product and client so that business trips were focussed on cohesive meetings between internal and client decision-makers. Reallocated accounts on the basis of best match, i.e. sophisticated sales individual allocated to sophisticated client.
Result: twenty percent increase in risk-free sales revenue and twenty percent reduction in costs in the first year.