Launching into new products and markets

Novabank

Challenge: Prepare conventional banking managers and inexperienced staff recruited from outside banking to open a brand new high-tech concept bank in six weeks.

Solution: Devise an holistic curriculum that delivered joined-up training in the full range of branch activities-- system, process, product fluency, sales and sales management, and service management all from the customer's point of view.

Result: The bank opened on time, acquiring 10,000 customers in three weeks and selling an average of 2.5 products per customer.

Bank Europa

Challenge: Revive a moribund Istanbul-based bank, which had been bought by BCP to take advantage of growth in the Turkish economy and the emergence of newly affluent customers.

Solution: We worked with in-house teams to develop systems and materials, designing and helping to deliver integrated training for relationship managers, branch staff and head office.

Result: All the new branches opened on time, achieving ambitious early growth targets and moving into profit well ahead of schedule.

Read Online

Bank of Scotland (Ireland)

Challenge: How to launch a different business in a new country in such a way as to steal a march on rivals while simultaneously adapting to the new pressures, adjusting to a new branch design, and coping with an unsettled regulatory environment.

Solution: Clarify the customer proposition, write the sales process from the outside in, and help to define the Training and Competency scheme in a way that staff and managers could understand it easily and deliver it reliably.

Result: A clear blueprint to train against, and a distinctive customer experience on which to build profile in the new market.

BCH

Challenge: Increase market reach to non-conventional customers through high-tech, new-concept stores in shopping malls.

Solution: Define in detail a new operating model especially designed for malls, and devise a highly experiential training programme to teach the new activities.

Result: Staff felt confident about initiating conversations in the shopping mall, and managers acquired the understanding and techniques to work collaboratively and on equal terms with neighbouring stores to generate business.

First Active

Challenge: Help a mortgage lender to transform its culture into a modern, customer-oriented model.

Solution: Start with regional, area and branch mangers, redefining their roles and helping them to model and coach an entirely new set of customer behaviours.

Result: The seminal programme led to significant sales growth, service improvement and cultural change. That achievement in turn won the attention of the RBS Group and led to an attractive and successful takeover offer from it.

Post Office

Challenge: How to drive sales of financial products through a network much more used to selling traditional, non-financial products.

Solution: Using our unique Sales Effectiveness Diagnosis methodology, we reviewed all sales and sales management processes within six weeks, and delivered an insightful report focused on five critical action plans.

Result: Top management saw the distribution issues through new eyes and implemented all five recommendations. The CEO commented: "I'm not used to consultants who are so practical and specific with their recommendations."