Case Study
Driving profit through sales transformation
Bancomer, the largest Mexican financial institution, with about $100 BUSD in assets, approximately 2,000 branches, and 50,000 employees, needed to align its people to the company’s new sales strategy as they continued to push towards growth and generating even higher profit levels. They wanted to elevate their current sales model by: first, increasing profitability of products; second, penetrating products into underserved segments; and third, increasing productivity and cross selling.
To bring this transformation to life, Bancomer partnered with BTS.BTS was tasked with improving the existing bankers’ sales productivity and ability to drive low cost, incremental sales by up-selling existing clients. To do this, BTS engaged in a series of intensive interviews with bankers and branch managers at Bancomer. Through the interviews, the team identified what “great” behaviors looked like for bankers and their branch managers, and what “not-so-great” looked like. This meant identifying the high performers and the actions that allowed them to be successful, as well as those whose actions did not promote success. The next step involved identifying the challenges that bankers and branch managers faced most often, the derailers that kept them from getting to “great,” and the pivotal decision-making moments they faced on a daily basis that defined their ability to be “great.” After determining what these were, the design team focused on creating an experience that would ultimately “make everyone great!”
BTS, in close partnership with Bancomer, developed two solutions to drive behavior change and deliver the results that Bancomer desired. The first solution targeted bankers, helping them hone their strategic skills through role plays and a customized business simulation in which they competed against one another in a highly realistic situation. The second solution targeted only branch managers, engaging them in a tailored business simulation that featured role plays, training them on what their direct reports would be learning.The first solution was rolled out as a three day program that allowed the bankers to test-drive new behaviors in a risk-free environment. Before arriving at the program, participants completed pre-work via Changr, the BTS mobile platform, which allowed them to gain familiarity with what they were about to experience, and provided Bancomer’s leadership team with data about the participants’ initial understanding and knowledge.
Next, upon arrival at the program, participants engaged in the customized business simulation to help align their mindset, skills, and knowledge to Bancomer’s new Sales Model, as well as leverage tools to be successful in these areas. Participants competed against one another in the simulation that spanned nine “months” in the life of a banker, managing a portfolio of clients, dealing with unexpected situations, and practicing and building the sales skills that they would need to take back to the job. They also interacted through role plays to practice the conversations they would need to implement under the new sales model.
At the end of the three day experience, participants used the Changr application to track the “Go-Do” actions they pledged to complete, applying skills learned in the program back on the job in the next two months. At this point, branch managers certified the bankers who had gone through the program based off of the behavior changes that Bancomer had determined were critical to making the new strategy a reality back on the job. Over the next two months, participants worked on their “Go-Dos” and BTS tested bankers on Bancomer’s identified critical behavior changes, “re-certifying” them on their knowledge using one of Bancomer’s internal platforms.
The second solution followed a similar trajectory to the first, but was targeted towards the managers of the bankers who had gone through the first program. The branch manager program was rolled out in a two day session that involved a customized business simulation tailored to specifically address the changes branch managers should see, reinforce, and facilitate in bankers back on the job. Before the program, the managers completed a series of pre-work exercises via Changr, similar to what the bankers had done. Upon arrival at the program, branch managers worked through a different customized business simulation that directly embedded the specific mindset, skills, knowledge, and tools that they would need to coach and work with bankers and their new skills back on the job. They engaged in role-plays and also created “Go-Dos” to reinforce this learning back on the job.
After the completion of both programs, Bancomer was able to measure the impact of the initiative and reflect on the participants’ overall performance. The results from the experiences have been powerful.
The first round of participants in the program encompassed divisions that had been underperforming. Shortly after rolling out the program, the under-performers began to outperform their peer divisions, who were considered above average prior to the program’s implementation. Since then, the program has been rolled out across the organization, reaching all divisions and branches.
To date, 1,318 participants from four different divisions have completed the training, which had an overall score of 4.9 out of 5 (excellent).
The business impact of the program implementation was tremendous. Over the course of nine months, Bancomer saw the following increases in profitability:
Bancomer saw the following profitability improvements in its important cross-sale index
Both measures were defined by average per individual when compared with those who did not complete the training. Furthermore, across all segments, each certified banker has individually delivered an average of $15,500 in incremental profit over the course of 7 months.
Overall, Bancomer was successful in achieving alignment with the new sales model, focusing on profitability, product penetration into unattended segments, and productivity and cross selling. Through the use of customized business simulations and partnership with BTS, Bancomer was able to effectively transform their sales organization, creating a real and lasting business impact.