Channel Head Organised Channel

The posting

1) Job Purpose:

The purpose of the Channel Head is to strategically build incremental market share, drive sales and create new business opportunities in the foreign and private banking and the wealth management space by deepening existing partnerships with them.

This entails engaging with them to build incremental market share measured in terms of AUM, Customer Acquisition, Gross and Net Sales in all asset categories (Equity, Debt, Alternates and PMS) and SIP, while being the internal nerve center linking investments, products, legal, finance compliance and sales in order to capture and capitalize the new business opportunities in a changing landscape.

Further, this role is responsible for assessing market trends, to get the sales team to focus on specific products, partners and locations with an aim to improve sales productivity. Planning and monitoring of activities and sales’ numbers at a relationship level with timely support and guidance to the sales leadership and channel sales team is also a significant part of the role.

2) Dimensions:

Dimensions

Remarks

1. Manpower (Nos.)

4

Including self, 3 direct reports

1. Equity

9 Lac Crs

Industry AUM of Foreign Banks, Private Banks and Wealth Management Counters.

1. Non Equity

3.4 Lac crs

Industry AUM of Foreign Banks, Private Banks and Wealth Management Counters.

1. SIP Book

4000 crs

Industry SIP Book of Foreign Banks, Private Banks and Wealth Management Counters.

1. Market Share

Targets as per the target set at the organization level.

1. Touchpoints across distributors

59

More than 30,000 branches

3) Job Context & Major Challenges: (What are the specific aspects of the job that provide a challenge to the jobholder in the context of the Unit/Zone)

Organisation Context

Established in 1994, Aditya Birla Sunlife Asset Management Company, (ABSLAMC) is a joint venture between Aditya Birla Group and Sunlife Financial Inc., a leading international financial services company in Canada.

ABSLAMC is a fund manager for Aditya Birla Sunlife Mutual Funds and currently ranks as the fourth largest fund Management houses in India with a total domestic AUM of close to Rs.2540 billion (As on June 2019). ABSLAMC is one of the leading fund houses in India based on domestic average AUM as published by the Association of Mutual Funds of India (AMFI). ABSLAMC has an impressive mix of reach, a wide range of product offering across equity, debt, balanced as well as structured asset classes, sound investment performance and over 7 million investor folios as of June 30th, 2019.

Distribution Network: With a PAN India presence across 300 locations, ABSLAMC is committed to deepening mutual fund penetration in the country. The company is ceaselessly working to enhance the appeal of mutual funds across a wider set of investors and advisors across India. Part of this effort includes introducing smart solutions, user friendly services & conveniences which simplify mutual fund processes with digitization for both – investors as well as distribution partners. ABSLAMC has a footprint in locations across the country with approx 45,000 IFAs, 350 National Distributors & 85 banking partnership. ABSLAMC also has its offshore presence through its rep offices in Singapore, Dubai & Mauritius. The employees’ strength of ABSLAMC is 1000 + employees (Onrolls as on June 30th, 2019).

ABSLAMC offers investors a range of comprehensive investment options, which includes diversified and sector specific equity schemes, hybrid funds and a wide range of debt and treasury products. Additionally ABSLAMC has various other business lines such as Portfolio Management Services, Real Estate Investments & Alternative Investments Funds. The Company follows a long – term, fundamental research based approach to investment and thrives to provide a transparent and ethical services to its investors.

One of the key challenges for ABSLAMC has been to maintain a balance between moving with dynamic and constantly changing regulatory norms of the country and maintaining growth and profitability in the extremely competitive market. And some of key strengths of the organization that have helped it to sustain and grow are:

1. Focus on Technology – The organization has been in the forefront in implementing technological innovation to foster innovation and also to improve efficiency for its stakeholders, whether it is employees, clients or distributors
2. Product Innovation – ABSLAMC has been known to be a pioneer in terms of products and has a history of launching innovative, category defining products like Birla Cash plus, etc.
3. Research based approach – ABSLAMC has one of the largest team of research analyst dedicated to tracking down the best companies to invest in
4. Strong Distributor Delivery Mechanism – The Company has developed a 4 -pronged sales/delivery mechanism to ensure maximum reach and penetration to the end customers. This mechanism includes Company’s direct Channels (branches/online), Independent Financial Advisors (IFAs), National Distributors (ND) and Banks.
5. Regulatory Interface – ABSLAMC plays a key role in the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) with quite a few members of the top management being a part of the AMFI Board. It has hence ensured that it can discuss any new Industry development from a regulatory perspective at the initial stages with the Regulator as well as the Industry Association
6. People Management – ABSLAMC believes in continuously measuring the perception of its people using a 4-S approach, namely Satisfaction, Say, Stay and Strive, which has enabled it to garner a workforce committed and aligned to the overall business success.

Functional context

Business Development (BD) is the fulcrum for the organization’s relationship with distribution partners. While it is closer to sales, it is an independent function that carries a huge responsibility of selling not only the product, but also process, history, goodwill, brand and commitment of the organization.

BD is a highly visible function within the senior management team of ABSLAMC. The senior management team relies on BD to dive deep and provide thoughtful analysis on the 4 distribution delivery mechanisms or channels in a manner that is action oriented and enables informed decision making. The team is part of the larger Business and Sales Enablement vertical at ABSLAMC.

BD is also the “nerve-center” for the organization as it collaborates with internal teams to understand where our relative advantages or risks lie, what are the “trends” in the market and which new distribution strategies or solutions should be created. This department also guides the organization’s pricing strategy and manages some of the most complex programs or projects with external and internal stakeholders that are unconventional in nature and need centralized advocates.

Please refer to the diagram below that clearly illustrates where BD is positioned internally and externally as a function.

The function carries responsibility to look at the business from an overall perspective i.e. Product positioning, Profitability, Operations, Compliance & Risk perspective, to provide significant breakthrough for organizational success. Hence BD is an enabling function which provides strategic input for the entire organization.

This Channel is an important part of distribution with ~60,000 Crs of AUM with ABSLAMC and 12 Lac Crs in industry as on Nov’25. The BD Channel team interacts with the distributor’s Research and Advisory team to share AMC’s market view & positioning with an aim to provide solutions catering to multiple customer segments ranging from mass retail, UHNI, corporates and online channels. They also work closely with the business and product teams of the distributor, to negotiate the pricing and ensure profitable growth with meaningful allocation for ABSLAMC.

The banking channel and the national distribution channel together contribute to over 34% of the industry’s AuM. Banking contributes 16% and national distributors contribute 18% of the industry’s AuM. Despite the breakout growth in the mutual fund industry in the last few couple of years, mutual funds in India account for only 6% of the gross financial savings of households. Savings deposits and fixed deposits still account for nearly 40% of the financial savings. Meanwhile, mutual fund AuM of individual investors accounted for just 15% of the total savings and fixed deposits in the banking industry, reflective of the large headroom available for growth.

To mobilize the immense opportunity the banking channel and national distribution channel is best placed to help individuals deploy their money away from simple term deposits into additional return generating products offer mutual funds.

Mutual funds are also equally important for the both the channels – that is national distributors and banks as they help in meeting their revenue targets through fee based income and customer acquisition targets as well.

Job Context

The Business Development executives at ABSLAMC are strategic solution-drivers who put internal and external stakeholders at the core of everything that they do. They build and manage key organizational relationships, serve as experts on the distribution channel they manage and facilitate the productivity of the entire sales and relationship management teams of the organization across the country.

To be effective at their job, the business development executives require outstanding communication skills, interpersonal skills, strategic thinking ability, negotiations skills and ability to build consultative relationships with product heads, research heads, business heads and CXOs of distribution channels.

The job requires strong business acumen, ability to gather, understand and analyze information and data from internal and external sources to plan effectively and ensure sales objectives are met. Hence the role demands a combination of a high degree of strategic thinking and string execution ability.

Some of the primary responsibilities associated with this role are:

1. Writing business proposals to drive the organizational business plans and set up the roadmap for the year. Develop frameworks for engagement plans and deepening of organizational relationships with distribution partners
2. Actively work with the investment management and product teams to ensure that distribution partners have absolute clarity and comfort on different products so as to confidently approve and/or retain the on-boarding of ABSL AMC products on their distribution platforms.
3. Negotiate a “win-win” pricing that is competitive for the distribution partners while at the same time keeping a balance of potential channel conflicts scenarios and AMC profitability.
4. Program management and project management to ensure successful launch, track and drive campaigns by effectively coordinating internal and external teams to maximize business output.
5. Share guidance with sales team across regions and hierarchy to ensure sales strategy and distribution tie-ups are executed as intended.
6. Enthusiastically communicate and defend house views with research and product teams of all assigned relationships for AuM retention and growth, to gain their feedback, and understand their requirements in detail.
7. Monitor overall distribution landscape and specific partner performance so as to identify and deliver corrective or improved actions to achieve target sales outcomes.
8. Work closely with and drive multiple distribution verticals including retail sales, institutional sales, Alternates (PMS, AIF, RE) and offshore.

Key Challenges for the role are as follows:

1. Multi-faceted approach: Routinely switch between business discussions with business heads of distribution partners and product update discussions with product and research heads.
2. Build comprehensive product pitches and on-board products at distribution counters in for all asset classes even in tough market environments and poor performance cycles.
3. Due Diligence: The channel follows an extensive process before empanelment or recommendation of a new product in the system. This requires constantly engaging with the research teams, sharing insights, engaging with investments and building confidence to ensure successful on-boarding.
4. Pricing: In the current scenario, pricing has become a key driver to get fresh inflows in the business. The challenging task is to negotiate with the distributor to be in their top recommendation and at the same time keep it profitable for the organisation.
5. MIS & Data analytics: Procuring the most detailed MIS and develop easy-to-understand metrics that ensures that there is common understanding of achievement against business goals across all the business functions.
6. Cross Functional collaboration: The BD team is a curator of ideas, teaming up and working in a collaborative manner with internal teams like Sales, Products, operations, marketing, digital, analytics and finance to update or make adjustments to processes, so as to accommodate distribution partners’ business requirements.

4) Principal Accountabilities

Accountability

Supporting Actions

Develop and drive channel strategy

• Develops the channel strategy by scanning the environment, interacting with key distribution teams, tracking competitors & identifying trends /areas of opportunity.
• Drive the sales team in a manner that is most suited to ABSL AMCs goals in the near and long term by understanding the nuances, strengths and weaknesses of every distributor in detail and creating a relevant action plan.
• Defines and drives the implementation of the communication plan to distribution partners and internal sales team which includes focusing on certain key product categories from time to time based on Fund house view and exclusive drives executed with distribution partners.
• Identifying and placing the right product with the right channel in a manner that will make sales closures easier for the sales teams across the regions.

Own and drive the channel targets

• While the regional teams are responsible for the targets in their respective locations, the BD Channel Head is responsible for the channel’s targets across all locations.
• There is a dual responsibility of owning the channel targets and supporting the regional targets.

As part of that it is critical to monitor sales on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis to track progress towards agreed sales targets with distributors.

• Plan and execute central interventions after constant consultations with regional sales teams and distributors to further support achievement of sales numbers.
• Be responsible for the marketing initiatives undertaken by the channel to support sales activities

Optimize pricing negotiations with partners

• Understand the distributors internal revenue sharing structures to negotiate the most optimal pricing strategies that will lead to incremental sales
• Negotiating “claw backs” and recoveries (if any) in an amicable and acceptable manner for both the distributor and ABSL AMC
• Negotiations with partners also entails making the most of their “platforms” in lieu of the pricing – for instance, exclusive drives or allowing ABSL AMC to address their customers and RMs across different segments or creating visibility or access on their online portals.
• Ensuring that assets are acquired profitably for ABSL AMC – either through ongoing sales, NFOs or deal specific pricing.
• Implementing the agreed pricing on the brokerage tie-up system - DICE

Program and Project Management

• During regular work of deepening the relationship with the channel partners, there could be several projects that emerge due to joint exploration of a specific opportunity.
• These projects could be long – term in nature, like jointly building capabilities in a specific area like ETFs, PMS or SIP book building or could also short term in nature like developing a certain legal agreement, creating a detailed engagement plan or developing and implementing a marketing plan to support one particular product.

To strengthen and nurture ties with every Banking and wealth management relationship formally and informally.

• Regular interaction with the research teams of the banks and connect with our investment team for the market outlook and relevant product inputs.
• Defend or show case the fund performance to research, product and central sales teams of the distributors.
• Timely approval and recommendation of the focused funds in the banks.
• Driving central level engagements that are meaningful to the distribution partners and creates opportunities for the sales teams across the country.

Facilitate Seamless communication flow between internal and external stakeholders to improve sales productivity

• Understanding the thought process of the distributor and their sales plans to align internal activities along the same lines.
• Planning regular interactions with the Zonal and central business teams to review channel performance, share guidance and inputs on initiatives and activities across the country, offer feedback and address region specific issues if any.
• The information sharing is necessary to improve the productivity of the sales team. Productivity is measured at the channel, partner and regional level.
• This entails maintaining a central database of distributors that has every information of the distributor that can help the sales team. For instance, the different segments, branches, products, internal revenue sharing mechanism, regional focus etc of every distributor.

Manage, guide, develop and groom the team

• Oversees on-boarding, capability development and retention of team members to drive channel productivity
• Sets high performance standards and drives accountability for results
• Recognizes team efforts in a timely manner and provides opportunities for learning
• Contributes to building an environment of trust and respect for individuals

5) Job Purpose of Direct Reports:

Channel Manager –

The job purpose of the channel managers is to work with the Channel Heads in a manner that leads to full coverage of the channels that are assigned to them and the entire breadth and depth of the channel is fully explored from a business development perspective. For instance, there are approximately 180 national distributors and 20 banks. Each distributor may have multiple avenues through which they distribute mutual funds – online, HNI, Advisory, Tele, Sub-Broker etc. At the same time, each of these distributors have their own hierarchy of research, product teams and business teams.

Understanding the very diverse business requirements and views of such a large distribution landscape with support from the channel and functional head and create solutions to subsequently drive central engagements, product approvals so that our products are recommended with adequate revenue weightage in the distribution partner’s sales channels and regular business review with the partners is their key responsibility.

The channel manager also supports the channel heads in adherence to internal processes like regular reviews with sales heads, updating of distributor profiler documents or briefing documents that outline key business peculiarities or USP of the distributor, executing several key programs and projects in adherence to time lines.

The channel managers also support the sales team with giving their views on certain regional marketing plans that have impact centrally. A significant proportion of the channel managers efforts also go towards communicating the decisions that have been taken at the HO of the AMC and the distribution partners that could have a direct impact on the rules of engagement with that distribution partner regionally.