CLIENT FOCUS
The Word: What is different about wal-
let-sizing?
Watch your wallet
Rutger Schellens (RS): In the past, we
worked with clients very much on a
product-by-product basis, rather than
looking at a particular client's total
needs. If you look at the big picture,
you then combine their various needs
into one tailored solution by linking up
the underlying individual products.
This is how you become a strategie
partner to your clients.
Robin Bargmann (RB): Basically, there
is an information bottleneck between
product specialists and relationship
managers. This new approaeh will free
that bottleneck up by improving the
(R-L) Michel Tobelem of Mathias Co with Martin Klinkert - evolving the relationship strategy
The wallet sizing and account plan
ning project, facilitated by Mathias
Co., was kicked off at Floriade on 18
September. For tbree months, groups of
both product specialists and relationship
managers went through intensive training
programs and coaching sessions. The
aim of those sessions was to define,
cliënt by cliënt, a relationship develop-
ment strategy and related action plan
leading to a greater share of the client's
financial services spend. The Executive
Board (with Hans ten Cate and Rik van
Slingelandt acting as sponsors for the
training programme) gave the go-ahead
to implement the resulting approaeh in
the Netherlands. This is how the three-
phase process worked.
The first phase consisted of six wallet
sizing and account planning workshops
that took place immediately after the
kick-off on 18 September, involving in
total 250 participants (50% relationship
managers and 50% product specialists).
The whole process required a learning
curve to use the so-called wallet-sizing
and account planning toolbox effectively.
The toolbox facilitates understanding of
the relationship economics, how to build
up relationship strategies, and how to
wallet-size clients. It is a critical tooi for
aligning our balance-sheet deployment
with our role with the cliënt, relationship
development strategy and the products
needed to implement this strategy.
The second step was the preparation of
approximately 100 actual cliënt wallets
and account plans, and the elahoration
of a relationship strategy, under the guid-
ance of Michel Tobelem of Mathias
Co. This preparation required a lot of
cliënt interaction combined with desktop
ivork to understand what the cliënt
needs. It also required a lot of interaction
with the product specialists in order to
quantify each client's wallet and define
an ambitious and yet realistic relation
ship strategy.
The third step was the actual validation
of these plans effected by the product
specialists signing-up for critical account
objectives. In concrete terms, this means
that product specialists commit time and
effort to delivering specific revenue targets
within twelve months.
This is the final deliverable in the
process. The end result is that we now
have approximately 100 account plans
for 2003 reflecting revenue targets for
specific products, client-by-client.
The clients were selected by relationship
managers at Rabobank Nederland Cor-
porate Clients. A number of criteria
applied. The clients are all centrally man-
aged and form a representative sample of
the customer. Some are long-established
relationships, otbers are newer, some
have shown low returns while others
were already delivering adequate returns.
The project also included clients from a
variety of sectors, such as Food and
Agribusiness, Industry, the Public and
the Healthcare sector. Overall, it is a
strong basket, representing just about
every kind of cliënt relationship centrally
managed by RNCC in the Netherlands.
18 I The Word I
