Throughout the years, the banking industry has faced immense change, especially in terms of digitization. However, this change has provided the opportunity for bankers to interact with customers in a new light. As banks shift their go-to-market (GTM) models in response to digitization and increased competition, revenue leaders are left with several questions about “how” and “how fast” to change. Balancing the pace of change, sorting the GTM options, and simultaneously driving revenue growth is complex, and this is now the prevailing mandate for many banks.
Building Momentum with Digitization
In a world where technology is at the forefront, embracing digitization can provide enhanced customer services as well as help reduce human error and create strong customer loyalty. The banking industry has a unique opportunity to influence customer preferences for digital platforms while still strengthening relationships.
Digital platforms are facilitating faster sales cycle times and driving coverage realignments for customer-facing roles. Coverage models of the past must change and quickly. Post pandemic and evolving virtual account management and prospect interactions have been an additional workload complexity. Performance expectations and goals, as well as traditional incentive plans that drive these new required behaviors, must be smartly modified. Digitization has proved to help all these aspects.
Here are a few things to consider when addressing new coverage models:
- Define new front-line roles (such as RMs), supporting teams and align processes; Integrate tools that will drive enablement
- Establish the optimal organizational structure across segments that will enhance digital transformation
- Identify how many and what type of commercial resources are required to retain market share and stave off competition
- Ensure goals and incentive compensation plans are aligned with sales strategy and incentive design best practices
- Determine the strategic and management performance metrics that are critical to drive profitable revenue growth
Utilizing Sales Enablement Tools to Enhance Revenue Growth
In today’s world, there are higher expectations to drive strong revenue growth within the banking sector. Commercial and business bankers are looking to become more sales centric in their coverage approach. According to a recent Alexander Group 2022 Banking Survey, it was revealed that banks are looking to bolster their growth with improvements in the sales process playbooks, customer relationship management (CRM) adoption and other critical GTM elements. Other key challenges include territory-based prioritization of targets, goaling and balancing virtual vs. in-person engagements. The pressure is on the GTM organization—the relationship managers, sellers—to focus on retaining and growing market share in a competitive environment.
Embracing Coverage Models to Drive Strong Relationships
When it comes to coverage models, larger banks usually have more complex coverage models, and have many options from which to choose, while small banks have questions on how to scale operations and drive new client acquisition. As client needs have changed, banks need to remain nimble and reconfigure coverage models quickly.
Critical too is to have an understanding of the addressable market opportunity by customer segment. This helps bankers understand where the most relevant and addressable opportunity resides and informs what GTM priorities and downstream sales targeting activities should be a priority focus. Many of today’s most successful banking organizations are shifting away from communicating what is being sold and instead focusing on the particular use cases that help customers.
As the industry continues to adapt to the everchanging trends, it’s always important that banks evaluate their current GTM models, carefully choosing the right levers for growth and keeping digitization at the forefront. To take control of the future, banks can assess their strategy, structure and management roadmaps and consider a variety of GTM imperatives to drive trust and success with clients.
