Case Study: ICD014: Marketing Excellence through Relationship Management Technique
Drivers
- Increased industry turmoil
- Rapidly changing distribution channels
- New government regulations
- Increased demand for efficiency and cost effectiveness
Over the past few years, the financial services industry has been experiencing turmoil with the introduction of new government regulation, falling investment returns, and radical changes to its distribution model. This has, in turn, placed extreme pressure on businesses operating within this industry to perform with greater degrees of efficiency and effectiveness. Alongside this there is the added challenge of sustaining and improving relationships with distributors, predominantly Independent Financial Advisors which has put a particular onus on marketing departments to deliver more effective support to not only operations but the distribution channel.
Inputs
- Internal review of strategic marketing objectives & practices
- Interviews with senior management and staff
- Training review
- Benchmarking amongst accepted best practices in marketing and relationship management
The client, recognising that there was a requirement to transform how marketing was performing engaged the ICD Partnership to conduct an internal review of the company’s marketing objectives and practices. Meetings with staff and senior managers were conducted in combination with a review of learning resources and the training that was in place to support staff members’ personal development. The output of the review was compared with models of good marketing practice and an assessment of the understanding of new and accepted relationship management techniques and practices.
Deliverables
- Mentoring and coaching to senior team
- Consultancy input to project teams to support gaps in knowledge
- Training for 150 staff
A support plan was developed for the client involving a mix of mentoring and coaching of staff in key positions with consultancy input to support the work of project teams. A further series of bespoke training sessions was created for 150 staff with the ICD Partnership working with senior managers to identify new ways of operating that would support and facilitate the required change in performance and operations.
Outputs
- Improvements in effectiveness and satisfaction of staff
- Improvements in project outputs due to increased focus
- Improvements in the use of customer data
- Strengthened internal relationships
- New methods were applied across the ‘marketing family’
The client immediately experienced improved effectiveness and satisfaction amongst individuals in their specific roles and, as a result projects had improved outputs due to improved segmentation, improved processes and greater consideration of the customers’ needs. Staff through a better understanding of how their distributors operated, were able to consider their daily work and progress needed to change, in order to support and enhance the distributor relationships and ultimately improve the sales of their products. Within the business there was an improved use of customer data, information and analysis of data at an earlier stage plus strengthened internal relationship between sales, service and marketing teams. Increased effectiveness of internal communications and ownership of issues enhanced the respect internally for the organisation’s marketing department and the added value approach that they bring through better knowledge and new techniques.