The efforts made by the management companies and by the Buy Side to adapt will not revert to the way things were.
We recognise that we must add more value, both for efficiency and quality of life, which will involve developing and adapting to this model through skills training (e.g. remote communication).
The “imposition” of teleworking during the lockdown period has caused the way of relating between the buy side and the sell side to change. This period has been a brake on the acquisition of new clients since they have preferred to trust existing relationships, and they have been more reluctant to learn about new alternatives, therefore, professionals able to develop close and trustworthy relationships take on special value.
Secondly, within the commercial activity itself, we have also observed that the technical component of the sale (product) and the general technical knowledge (market) on behalf of the sales professional is something that will be decisive in the post-Covid period - even more so than it already is.
Future commercial activity will be a mix between remote and face-to-face working. Likewise, and as a critical point, it will be necessary to have professionals who are capable of developing a relationship of trust and closeness remotely, and those who can reinvent their relationship with clients to be able to achieve more impact and higher quality in other ways.
You can't flood customers with webinars!
Emiliano Sacristán
Partner, Spain
First published in the Spanish edition of Funds Society Magazine, December 2020.
