2008 - The Year of the Sales Rep

Implications:  have completed 154 consultations for 67 investment firms in the past two years.  The analysts asked a lot of good questions, and none that I didn’t expect, about the performance of bank tech companies.  However, no one ever asked me about the competence of the sales force.  Not one  -  nada, nyet, rien, niente, keine, tipote.  So I feel the need to speak out about the condition of the bank tech vendor community.  Most of it is good.

Analysis:  •  All the required products have been developed and most of them are good, some not so good.•  The right support teams are in place waiting for nagging calls from customers.•  The operating departments are doing a good job making sure trillions of transactions are processed correctly every day.•  Data security is pretty good.  From day one, transaction processors were conscious of their obligation to properly manage other peoples’ data.  Governance by regulatory agencies also helped.  Now if only they could figure out how to protect courier deliveries.•  R&D appears to be current because fewer customers are asking for new stuff anymore.•  Acquisitions are occurring at a consistent clip of about 30 per year, even though there’s a shift to acquire companies unlike the acquirer.•  The CFOs are counting their beans accurately and reporting honestly.•  CEOs are still checking management reports after the fact as opposed to looking for what’s going to go wrong three quarters down the road.  So what’s new?  Bank CEOs are no better, and that makes it OK in a club-based business environment.  •  A few hands-on CEOs are doing the Lee Iacocca exercise  -  walking the assembly line, talking to the workers, and getting their hands dirty.•  The strategists are absent, unless you call the Monday morning management meetings a place where new strategies are discussed.This sounds like a pretty tight ship, right?  In my opinion, WRONG.  The biggest void is in the sales department, and it is hugely apparent these days because “consultative selling” is what works. The problem is that most vendor sales organizations are still selling “left over” products, and that game ended about three years ago.  The game now is to sell capabilities that will improve the performance of their customers  -  commercial banks, credit unions, thrifts and mortgage companies.  If you don’t know what I mean, let me use one example to explain  -  Accenture.  Accenture doesn’t own products.  It “owns” 140,000 employees.  What a lost opportunity for major bank tech vendors if large banks brought in Accenture with this work order:  “We bought all the best products from Vendor X.  Now help us to achieve the performance we need for a desired ROI.”