Asset Management Salespeople are from Mars, Portfolio Managers are from Venus Implementing a strategic business plan in an asset management organization is fraught with even more difficulty than other businesses. I have seen experienced business managers, with years of experience in the financial services industry in developing and implementing plans, wilt under the pressure of dealing with the personalities encountered in the asset management business. OK, so you have a plan. The sales force is quite enthused about your ambitious goals and loves your vision. They do have some concerns about some of the investment products but you have promised them that the performance of the old products will be fixed and they will soon have a line-up of new and exciting products lined up. Salespeople generally stay with any one firm about 3 – 4 years on average according to industry data, so you have some time to fulfill your promises to them. Next, all of your support teams are relatively, well, supportive of your business plan. These people feel adequately paid, though they know or suspect how much more the sales and portfolio management staff get paid, but these are hardworking, dedicated people. Does your strategic plan affect their work? This is what they need to know. The portfolio managers on the other hand, are outright annoyed with your brand new strategic plan. They need more technology, they want to hire more analysts and the salespeople have been pretty ineffective in their view in recent times. They smirk at your vision statement, have picked apart your financial projections which appear unrealistic to them and they keep hearing about portfolio managers at other firms who get paid much more than they do. They are also a little nervous about any idea of changes that you might implement that might impact their area. While your portfolio managers probably won’t leave all at once, they are professional cynics and it is difficult to keep them on board with the brand spanking new business plan. I like to think of portfolio managers as artists – temperamental geniuses but also a primary source of value in the business. Of the three, the support groups are probably the easiest to address. There is a well trodden path of how to motivate and measure traditional business people. While I won’t go so far as to say that support groups are easy to manage in this business there is a lot of experience from other industries to draw upon so I won’t discuss this here. With your sales force, having a vision, a solid line-up of products and fair compensation goes a long way towards keeping your sales force engaged with your strategic plan. Other ways to engage them include involving them in new product development, in creating the marketing plan and most importantly, encouraging and ensuring regular interaction with portfolio managers to openly discuss how to improve product acceptance in the marketplace. Portfolio managers have a powerful culture that transcends individual organizations. These professionals have their own traditions, rituals, myths, and talismans. As a business manager you can only implement personnel changes in a portfolio management unit very slowly and with the full agreement of the portfolio managers. The necessity of incremental evolutionary change is compounded by the premium placed on team stability by the consulting community. If you are prepared to eliminate teams or products, changes can be made more rapidly. However even here you must be cautious as consultants, clients and prospects worry incessantly about turmoil within asset management shops. Rapid fire changes in teams, products or business strategy are not only of no value to current customers but in fact detract from a continuing relationship with your current customers and make prospective clients and consultants wary of your firm as well. In summary, once your strategic plan is in place, implementation is an enormous challenge in this business. My approach has been to separate portfolio management from sales and support, and to create implementation plans which acknowledge and address the very distinct cultures found within asset management organizations. Russell Campbell Russell1@vzw.blackberry.net www.russellcampbell.com