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Campbell And Bailyn's Boston Office Essay

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Campbell And Bailyn's Boston Office Case Study

The ‘sub-prime’ crisis triggered by the meltdown of the US mortgage backed-securities market in 2007 was a precursor to the global financial crisis. It would drastically change the competitive landscape for all firms in the financial services sector, including Campbell and Bailyn (C&B), one of the world’s five largest investment banks.

In response to a loss of clientele to competitor firms, Ken Winston (C&B’s Boston Sales Office Director) assembled the five most successful salespeople into a Key Accounts Team (KAT). Having previously enjoyed the autonomy of selling a diverse array of products to their own clients, these five ‘Generalists’ would now ‘Specialize’ only in one specific…show more content…
1.2 Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration
If proven that inferior product expertise was a determinant of clientele loss, then this deficiency should have been addressed with the ‘Generalists’ in question. While the option of formal training was dismissed by Winston, the important role that is played by New York based Product Managers should not be overlooked. They are responsible for providing support and technical information on C&B’s saleable financial instruments. Accordingly, closer communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing between the two parties would appear to be critical in enhancing salespeoples’ product expertise.

To pave the way for effective knowledge sharing between salespeople and Product Managers, emphasis should be placed on building the relationship between the two parties. Their geographical dispersion is an obstacle, however, the growing use of computer-mediated communication and virtual teams is seen as an efficient way to combat such challenges. (Hertel, Geister and Konradt 2005) To support these virtual interactions, management might also consider sporadic face-to-face meetings (Al-Ani, Horspool and Bligh 2011), workshops and other team building exercises (social activities, for example) to foster positive exchanges and trust between the relevant staff. (Labrosse 2008)

Besides C&B’s Product Managers, Boston’s Specialists might be seen as another untapped source of specialised product knowledge.
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