Financial Services Case Study

Case #4910: Improved Service and Operating Performance - Sales Division

In an effort to increase sales, a leading provider of pension plans had recently reorganized its Sales Division. But the resulting organization elevated top sales people to managerial positions, where they no longer performed as sales persons, and was characterized by high turnover and poor product knowledge among the staff directly charged with effecting sales.

We were engaged to identify opportunities to help the organization increase sales. Among other things, we discovered that the metrics being focused upon were not the critical indicators required, that many processes were inefficient, and that the company's databases were outmoded.

We reorganized the company's regional sales office structure, implemented a comprehensive sales training program, and installed a competitive intelligence database. In addition, critical support processes were redesigned, roles and responsibilities better aligned, and a new management reporting system created. Together, these changes transformed the sales force from one that usually failed to achieve quotas into a more competitive and productive one that consistently exceeded them.