Helping our insurance clients win, grow and manage clients

Helping our Insurance Clients
Win, Grow and Manage Clients

www.mercuri.co.uk
For more information contact:
Tel: +44 (0) 330 9000 800 Option 3 or ukfinsec@mercuri.co.uk
MERCURI
INTERNATIONAL
IN THE INSURANCE
SECTOR
Capabilities, capacity and
contribution to your business
A Mercuri International Solution Overview Page 1 (2)
The story
Mercuri International have been leading the changing
world of sales performance improvement for over 50
years. In particular we have worked closely with
insurers from Allianz to Zurich and have strong
experience in both life and non-life and across channels
including direct B2B, global accounts, agents and
independents.
Scope
The focus of Mercuri International’s work is to help
organisations and individuals “win, grow and manage
clients”. The five main areas of sales expertise that
Mercuri International brings to this sector are:
• Customer-centric selling: Skills and techniques
that deliver both significant, sustainable business
growth and sound management of commercial,
reputational and regulatory risk and achieve “fair
customer outcomes”. We work on both winning
anew business and growing existing income.
• Sales Team Leadership: We work with first line,
regional and senior sales leaders to instil the key
skills and disciplines of effective sales leadership in
this demanding and dynamic environment.
• Relationship Management: Our work with
relationship managers ranges from private clients,
through SMEs to global accounts. Our models have
been developed in partnership with The University
of St Gallen, SAMA and market leaders in other
sectors from HP, through Philips and Novartis to
Siemens.
• Relationship-based negotiating: We developed
an extremely powerful programme for financial
professionals that has proved itself in challenging
situations in insurance as well as other parts of the
financial sector.
• Standing in the customer’s shoes: This highly
interactive session has been immensely well
received. It gives client facing professionals hands-
on experience of running a business through 7
years of change and challenge.
While Mercuri has strong capabilities in other areas these
five are the ones we see as core for the financial and
professional services sector.

Winning, growing and keeping clients Page 2 (2)
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Way of working
The key elements of Mercuri’ International’s work are:
• Diagnosis: Track record and tools for diagnosing
the current sales situation.
• Design: Creating robust, effective blended learning.
• Delivery: High quality training delivery and project
management.
• Deployment: Ensuring implantation by providing
resources and ongoing support and measuring RoI.
• Durability: Change management, embedding in
Business As Usual.
Activities
We work across the sector in fields that include:
• Actuarial
• Agencies
• Asset management
• Casualty
• Claims
• Employee benefits
• Financial Institutions
• Intermediaries
• Liability
• Life assurance
• Pensions
• Personal lines
• Property
• Protection
• Reinsurance
• Risk consulting
• Underwriting
Levels
Our programmes are designed to work at three levels:
• Professional: Ensuring the core skills are in place
to grow the business and manage commercial
reputational and regulatory risks.
• High-Performance: Enable more experienced
people to take their capabilities to the next level to
drive outstanding competitive advantage.
• Master-classes: Helping the very best get even
better and adapt to future changes.
Proven track record
Our clients identify high levels of satisfaction and RoI as
shown in the following pages.
These opinions are validated by the awards and
recognition we receive.
.
To keep up to date with trends and
practical ideas on client-centric
business growth please visit
http://client-centric-financial-selling.com

www.mercuri.co.uk
CUSTOMER-
CENTRIC
FINANCIAL
SELLING
Developing people to
professionally and ethically
win and grow customers
The Challenge
A key issue facing market leaders, aspiring businesses
and boutiques is how to achieve growth while managing
commercial, reputational and regulatory risk.
Market share, share of wallet, volumes and margins are
all very important but they must be achieved in a
context of “fair customer outcomes”.
Although many businesses have had to focus more on
technical, risk and regulatory training over recent years,
individuals often say “we know this already”, while at the
same time demonstrating that they have not achieved
mastery.
And all too often pressure of time and the culture of the
business mean that the disciplines of sales
management seen in some other sectors are less
visible, making sustainable change all the more difficult.
The Mercuri Solution
Customer-Centric Selling will enable your people to
move from a product-centred transactional approach to
value-based consultative selling, driven by the
customer’s requirements.
Diagnosis
Effective diagnosis requires a clear understanding of the
areas for improvement. Our ways of working include:
• Interviews with managers, front-line staff and
subject matter experts to analyses processes and
practices.
• Observed sales meetings (where appropriate).
• Mercuri’s Online Competence BenchmarkTM to
assess the current capability of your people and
compares them to ‘best in class’.
• SCAN self-assessment surveys to measure ‘before
and after’ ability and confidence to measure the
effectiveness and impact of development.
Customer-Centric Selling will
enable your people to move from a
product-centred transactional
approach to value-based
consultative selling, driven by the
customer’s requirements.

. CONT.
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Tel: +44 (0) 330 9000 800 Option 3 ukfinsec@mercuri.co.uk
Design
We work with you to customise your solution using our
proven concepts. This ensures that the solution works
and can be implemented. The level of customisation
varies from editing a case study to integrating your
sales processes and models.
The emphasis of the content will depend on your
situation but we focus on key sales stages in a logical
sequence:
• Selecting the right opportunities to ensure the most
profitable ones, with the best chance of winning, are
pursued.
• Planning and time management to optimise
efficiency.
• Understanding buyer motivation and what makes
customers choose between different providers.
• Engaging with the customer – building rapport,
getting the meeting off to a good start, positioning of
the sales person and their organisation.
• Understanding the customer and qualifying their
requirements.
• Forming and proposing a compelling and relevant
solution.
• Handling price and other relevant commercial
aspects.
• Addressing concerns and objections.
• Getting commitment from the customer to move
forward and keeping the initiative through to
engagement.
Delivery
We use a blended learning approach to achieve
learning objectives and outcomes. Multi-media
components are used to introduce and reinforce
concepts. This means that face to face workshops are
used for experiential competence reinforcement.
Our flexible structures means workshops can run from 1
to 5 days to suit your operational needs. Our principle
formats are:
• Selling to Customer Needs: Facilitator led skills
development with punchy concepts reinforced by
frequent practice.
• IMPACTTM
projects: Focussing skills onto specific
market-driven events e.g. campaigns, market entry,
product introduction.
• Raising the Bar: “Learning by doing” simulation
which challenges participants to demonstrate their
new skills in a competitive team selling event.
Our international sector facilitation team is hand-picked
to ensure relevant experience and likely cultural fit.
Deployment
Implementation is key to success and RoI. It needs to
be designed in from the beginning. Our approaches
include:
• Coaching: Can be face-to-face, online or over the
phone. Ideally we will engage with your coaches
and sales leader so that they do the coaching but
we can and do coach direct where appropriate.
• Online learning. Standard or bespoke content
delivered through your or our Learning Management
System.
• Playbooks and toolkits. Detailed selling guides on
your or our intranet or paper-based. Tools include
objection banks, checklists, video shorts, aide-
memoires.
• Measurement. Follow up surveys or interviews to
measure changes understanding, behaviour and
result.
Durability
Development in customer-centric selling will only be
successful if there is a sustained change in behaviour; if
the processes become an embedded part of “Business
As Usual”; and if there is measurable change in result.
Implementation needs to be designed
in from the beginning

. CONT.
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Tel: +44 (0) 330 9000 800 Option 3 ukfinsec@mercuri.co.uk
In practice this means that senior management needs to
lead the change and, monitor the changes in activity
and result, support first-line leaders in making the
change happen.
Often the KPIs will need to realign with the changed
behaviours. Some processes and management
practices may need to change.
Mercuri International do not wish to create long –term
dependency so the business needs to take ownership of
the changes.
However we do not walk away from projects once the
delivery stage is complete and will want to work with
you through deployment into durability.
What does a durable customer-centric selling
programme result in?
Here are a few examples:
• Major European Life Insurer trained 2/3rds of its UK
team. The results were compared against the 1/3rd
control group by measuring year-on-year income
growth. In a very successful year and supported by
strong marketing campaigns, the control group
achieved 25% growth. But the trained group
achieved 102% growth in year-on-year income.
• A group of 41 employee benefits consultant
directors received 2+2 days’ training followed by
three months’ tele-mentoring.
The firm’s actuaries identified £1.92Mn of
incremental income in the first three months that
they attributed directly to the training.
• We trained over 500 trade & receivable finance
bankers in 24 countries.
The training was measured as reaching 92% of its
objectives.
There were 158 concrete examples of RoI such as:
“Since the training I have specifically used the
summarizing that is crucial to validate
understanding of the meeting and obtaining the
customers buy-in and commitment to next steps.
A recent meeting has resulted in winning a
guarantee portfolio business worth approx.$75K”
• A project with the wealth management team of a
bank in central Europe saw the following effect:
The two largest branches saw result against
demanding targets of 213% and 156% respectively.
Across all branches results against target ranged
from 90%-275% for standard accounts and 100%-
203% for HNW accounts.
selling please visit

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SALES
LEADERSHIP
Building capability
to multiply sales performance
The Challenge
Leading a sales team in the financial sector is neither
simple nor easy. But it is important. As well as the
challenges faced by sales leaders in other sectors,
there are issues of risk, exposure, capital utilization and
regulation to face. Then there is the relentless pressure
on time!
Mercuri International has been developing sales
managers around the world for over fifty years. The
financial sector team has applied this broad-based
expertise to the specific needs of sales leadership in the
financial sector.
Our solutions recognize the difficult balance to be struck
between achieving sustainable growth and achieving a
customer-centric approach that ensures “fair customer
outcomes”. Many of the sales management approaches
that work in other sectors need to be refined and
adapted for the financial world.
Diagnosis
areas for improvement. Our diagnostic approaches
include:
• Interviews with first-line and senior sales leaders.
Design
powerful, proven sales management concepts. This
ensures that the solution works and can be
implemented. The level of customisation varies from
editing a case study to integrating your sales processes
and models.
situation but we focus on the key elements of sales
leadership:
Leading a sales team in the
financial sector is neither simple
nor easy. But it is important.

. CONT.
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Managing the “black box” of sales through a sales
“plumbing diagram” that enables managers to map the
“critical few” elements that will turn the business plan
into a sales result.
Focus on the inter-relationship between the result, the
activities and the competence of the team. This RAC
approach is based on the recognition that “you cannot
manage the result itself. What you manage are the
activities that underpin the result”.
In practice this means concentrating on three aspects of
activities:
• Quantity: “Are we doing enough?...”
• Direction: “… of the right things with the right
people?...”
• Quality: “… in the right way?”
Once we have established the RAC concept, we help
sales managers apply motivation to their teams.
“Motivation is not something you do to people.
It is working with them so they increase their willingness
to perform”.
We then apply these concepts in three key areas of
performance management:
• One-to-ones: adapting style depending on the
individual situation.
• Joint customer visits: Getting the balance right
between being the “super sales-person” and
observation / coaching.
• Sales team meetings: making them relevant,
efficient and effective.
Delivery
Programmes usually centre on a 2-3 day workshop with
pre and post work delivered either through your or our
Learning Management System.
The workshop is highly interactive and makes use of a
very stimulating case study through which participants
apply each concept to a varied team of five sales
people.
At the end of the workshop participants rehearse a
presentation launching their chosen topic from the
programme to their team.
Short awareness sessions can be delivered to senior
sales managers. “The Sales Strategy Forum” typically
runs over a six hour period face-to-face but shorter
virtual sessions can be delivered.
Deployment
include:
Sales management playbooks: Tools to help sales
managers put the learning into practice e.g. joint visit
observation checklists, one-to-one preparation
templates. Also white papers and other resources to
act as reminders and instant “top ups”.
Coaching: Face-to-face or virtual; individual or small
group.
Durability
It is only sustaining the changed disciplines and
practices that RoI will be achieved. The new sales
management behaviours need to become part of
Business as Usual.
This often means applying new KPIs for sales
managers e.g. Monthly one-to-ones held with all team
members; accuracy of pipeline forecasts.
It also requires the engagement and ongoing
commitment of senior management.
Mercuri International is aware of the risk of creating long
–term dependency so the business needs to take
ownership of the changes.
“You cannot manage the result
itself. What you manage are the
activities that underpin the
result”

. CONT.
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What does a durable sales leadership programme
result in?
Here are a few examples:
• The sales management team of the wealth
management division of a middle-eastern bank
applied just one technique from Sales Team
Leadership. They introduced and rigorously
pursued weekly one-to-one coaching with each
team member. Here are the results they reported:
• Loans booked in 3 months following training
equal to previous 5 months’ volumes.
• Pipeline up from $200mn to $550mn.
• Fee income for quarter up by $750,000.
• “The account managers often used to visit
customers without sharing the details with
heads of teams. With weekly 1 to 1s, we can
identify problems early on, even small ones that
could have turned big in the long run. We
coach them in identifying opportunities…Now
we’re able to plan better and have improved our
sales performance.” VP Private Banking
• We worked with the branch managers of a foreign-
owned bank equipping them to support and coach
an asset-gathering campaign. The parent bank set
demanding targets but the results exceeded
expectation:
• The two largest branches saw result against
plan on investment sales of 213% and 156%
respectively.
• These two branches brought in $33Million of
new assets in the four month period.
• Across all branches the number of new
accounts opened ranged from 90% to 275% of
stretch targets for standard accounts and 100%
to 203% of target for high net worth accounts.
practical ideas on sales leadership
please visit

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RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT
Growing and managing customer
relationships from individual
customers through to strategic
account management
The Challenge
Existing customer relationships are an extremely
valuable asset. While new business acquisition is an
important part of most business growth strategies,
developing existing relationships is a critical success
factor. It is not just a question of seizing opportunities
but of managing risk.
This is a hot topic for many of Mercuri’s customers
across the sector from global market leaders to local
niche players.
Our relationship management solutions will enable your
people to apply the principles of effective, pro-active
Relationship Management. They will adopt a well -
planned and structured approach which will allow them
to maximise the return from each relationship from
individual customers to complex corporate entities.
Our solutions cover two aspects of relationship
management. They address the operational aspect -
what relationship manager and teams do. They also
address the corporate aspect – how the business
organizes itself to manage customer relationships.
Our expertise and capabilities built on three
foundations:
• The experience of our consultants.
• Project work with leading practitioners in this
demanding field – from KPMG to Siemens.
• Associations with thought leaders such as the
University of St Gallen and The Strategic Account
Management Association.
Diagnosis
areas for improvement. Our diagnostic approaches
include:
• Fit For KAM – a challenging diagnostic to assess
the business’s readiness for key account
management.
Mercuri solutions cover both
the operational and corporate
aspects of relationship
management

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• MI-CARE an online survey to measure customer
attitudes to the business (if you have existing
customer opinion data we will help analyse and
draw conclusions from existing data).
• Interviews with managers, relationship managers
and subject matter experts to analyses processes
and practices.
• Observed customer meetings (where appropriate).
Design
proven concepts. This ensures that the solution works
and can be implemented. The level of customisation
varies from editing a case study to integrating your
sales processes and models.
situation but we focus on the five dimensions of
relationship management identified in the Mercuri/St.
Gallen model:
• Strategies: Selecting the right relationships to focus
on. Understanding the customer – their world, their
business environment, their specific situation and
issues. Setting multi-level objectives and forming
an account strategy.
• Solutions: Analysing the customer’s requirements,
historic usage, future requirements and the
competitive landscape. Using tools such as heat
maps and white-space analysis to identify
opportunities. Cross selling. Managing complex
decision-making processes. Working with a wide
cross section of people.
• People: Forming and managing multi-disciplinary
customer teams. Building trust and understanding
the externally and internally.
• Managing: Organising resources to achieve the
best result with and for the customer. Forming and
executing account plans.
• Measurement: Techniques for measuring both the
below the line and above the line relationship.
Delivery
We offer a number of delivery options depending on the
requirement.
• One day senior management workshop. “Fit for
KAM?” helps the business define key account
management in your context.
Plus review trends and best practices based on
Mercuri International’s extensive experience with
market leaders and niche players in the sector and
beyond. Define the potential and the pitfalls.
There is an opportunity to take a deeper dive into
one selected dimension of KAM.
• Private customers: Two or three day module
focussed on relationship management of private
customers.
This covers: the five dimensions of relationship
management including.
Setting relationship goals and strategies, Managing
product lifecycles, Cross selling, Understanding the
psychological aspects of the relationship, Working
as a customer team, Reading and improving the
relationship. SME Relationship Management: Two
or three day module covering the five dimensions
for SMEs.
Setting account objectives and strategies, moving
from occasional transaction to strategic partnership;
managing the risks of under and over-serving.
The five dimensions of relationship
management:
1. Strategies
2. Solutions
3. People
4. Managing
5. Measurement

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Value propositions and product/relationship
lifecycles.
Cross selling; leading virtual customer teams;
organising account management; measuring the
strength of relationship and securing rebuy.
• Key or Strategic Account Management: These
three day workshops can be delivered to account
managers or account teams focussing on specific
accounts.
We follow the five dimensions working on strategies
for complex accounts; optimising the value
proposition and using white space analysis; forming
and leading virtual teams; creating and executing
account plans.
Techniques to measure strength of relationship.
Deployment
include:
• Resource library: Comprehensive account
management library available as a single e-book or
drip-fed over a period. Tools include selection
calculators, white space analyses, checklists, video
shorts, aides-memoires.
• Coaching: Particularly effective when applied to
specific relationships. Can be face-to-face, online
or over the phone.
• Online learning: Standard or bespoke content
delivered through your or our LMS.
• Measurement: Follow up surveys or interviews to
measure changes.
Durability
One of the biggest challenges in effective relationship
management is maintaining the momentum. Learning
needs to be embedded in business as usual if
sustainable, measurable RoI is to be achieved.
This means ensuring the “corporate” and “operational”
aspects of relationship management are aligned.
Mercuri International works with you to ensure practices
become part of daily business life.
The impact our customers have achieved with our
relationship management programmes include:
• “We had high expectations when we commissioned
this work but the account management competence
benchmarking worked far more smoothly and has
given us far greater insights than any of us had
expected!”
Head of Corporates, Top 10 Global Insurance Co
• “Working with Mercuri International specifically on
scoping out a key account management process
and redefining our structure has proved invaluable
in propelling our business model forward in terms of
increased sales productivity. The projects have had
a measurable impact on the business result”
Head of Sales European Financial Institution
• "When I was a pensions consultant I went on a
Mercuri International course on relationship
management. The live case study I focused on was
an intermediary which was then generating ~£1m a
year. I applied what I learned on that course and
(with a lot of hard work) we saw the £1m a year
grow into £24m a year over the next 3 years. I have
no doubt that the Mercuri course was instrumental
in helping me achieve this”
Head of Specialist Sales ideas in this field
please visit
To keep up to date with the trends
and practical ideas on relationship
management please visit

www.mercuri.co.uk
RELATIONSHIP-
BASED
NEGOTIATING
21st
Century approaches to
negotiating to build business
relationships and increase value
The Challenge
We see several issues when it comes to negotiating in
this sector.
• Negotiations often swing between aggression and
surrender.
• The stakes are getting higher. A number of
customers have recognised that significant business
value is being “left on the table”.
• Most people learn to negotiate informally. Few
have had formal development.
• Negotiations need to reflect relationship strategies
and take into account the bigger picture.
We have developed a very effective blended solution
that includes a workshop, coaching, a detailed playbook
and video resources.
While most negotiation workshops focus on the final
bargaining stages and what goes on in the negotiating
room, our approach recognises that success if often
down to reading the relationship, holding pre-deal
discussions and preparing efficiently and effectively.
The keys to the successes we have achieved with our
customers are:
• Good diagnosis of the real gaps between what’s
happening today and the desired situation. This
includes co-building the business case.
• Making the workshop and in particular the case
studies very specific to the business.
• Engaging with leaders early on to ensure their
commitment during delivery and deployment.
While most negotiation
workshops focus only on the
final bargaining stages and what
goes on in the negotiating room,
our approach recognises that
success is often down to reading
the relationship, holding pre-deal
discussions and preparing
efficiently and effectively.

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Diagnosis
areas for improvement.
Our diagnostic approaches include:
assess the current negotiating capability of your
people and compares them to ‘best in class’.
Our library of negotiating capabilities make this a
very fast and effective tool.
• Interviews with first-line and senior sales leaders.
This has proved vital in identifying the real
negotiating issues in the business, agreeing
priorities, ensuring engagement and designing case
studies.
Design
The structure of Relationship-based Negotiating is:
• Establish goals: Be clear about the current
relationship and where you are looking to take it.
Avoids “winning the battle and losing the war”.
• Create context: A powerful toolkit to assess the
situation using 21st century negotiating concepts.
Then make sure that effective and open pre-
negotiation discussions take place.
• Form the offer: Work on variables to identify “cost
to us value to them”. Agree on entry and exit points.
Prepare for the negotiation.
• Bargain and tactics: Learn to identify and counter
the most frequently encountered tactics. Use
tactics in the right way. Bargain in a way that
increases values and minimises concessions.
• Move forward: handle the end game and the vital
post-negotiation phase.
Because we are working from a proven programme
design, the design phase for Relationship-based
Negotiating is usually limited to:
• Confirm what’s in and what’s out.
• Adapt terminology and tools to the business.
• Create business-specific case studies.
Delivery
• Usually delivered as a 2 day face to face workshop
1 and 3 day options are available.
• Group size 8-16 with 2 trainers.
Can be delivered to groups of 24 with addition of 2
observer /coaches (often drawn from the business).
• Major focus on live practice sessions using
business-specific case studies.
• Ensure application by frequent action planning
sessions.
Deployment
include:
Negotiation playbook and toolkit. Rich resources
include checklists, templates, white papers, video-
shorts, aide-memoire, coaching tools.

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Coaching: Coaching can be done by the Mercuri team
but it is better if coaching is done by managers within
the business. They can be supported by virtual or face
to face coach-the coach sessions.
Durability
Negotiation training will only deliver sustained RoI if
there is a sustained change in behaviour; if the
processes become an embedded part of “Business As
Usual” there will be measurable change in result.
In practice this means that senior management needs to
lead the change and monitor the changes. Often the
KPIs will need to realign with the changed behaviours.
Some processes and management practices may need
to change.
For example one large insurer built in a rule that any
negotiation above a certain value needed to use the
preparation template we developed and needed the
involvement of the unit head in a pre-defined
preparation process.
Mercuri International is aware of the risk of creating long
–term dependency so the business needs to take
ownership of the changes.
What does a durable relationship-based negotiating
programme result in?
Here are a few examples from one banking group:
• 99% of all participants would recommend to a
colleague.
• 95% described content as highly relevant or
relevant.
• The 18% who said they were not confident
negotiating on behalf of their firm dropped to only
3%, three months after the training.
• Before the training over 70% said they found it
difficult to read the other side’s ploys. This dropped
to under 30%.
• Over 100 examples of positive changes in
behaviour after 3 months.
• Over 50 examples of RoI after 3 months e.g.
• >£1m reduced exposure from one customer.
• >2% margin improvement for another.
• Refinanced and increase income by £132k with
another.
Participants have said:
• “My preparation is much more geared to
negotiation. I listen more in meetings giving time for
the customer to express themselves. I look for
positive outcomes rather than just brick-walling with
barriers.” Bank Relationship Manager
• “I better understand the power in negotiations and
appreciate the customer objectives better than
previously. Additionally I approach negotiations
with several options where possible as opposed to
one.” Senior Risk Manager
And their leaders have said
• “I am really delighted with the response to this
programme. Without doubt it is the most appropriate
and effective programme we have delivered”
Strategy Director
• “Excellent!” Head of Professional Services Sector
Keep up to date with trends and
practical ideas on relationship-
based negotiating

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STANDING IN THE
CUSTOMER’S
SHOES
A dynamic approach to build a
client-centric mind set
The Challenge
It is hard to see things through the customer’s eyes.
When we deliver this programme to professionals we
ask “how many of you have run your own business?”
It is unusual to see even one hand raised. As financial
institutions work to achieve “fair customer outcomes”
and to be client centric it is critically important that
relationship managers develop an awareness of what
it’s like to run a business as one of their customers.
This event is all about learning by feeling and doing, not
from reading and listening. It is highly interactive and
every single participant who has experienced this event
in the last three years would definitely recommend it to
a colleague.
Standing in the Customer’s shoes will enable your
people to understand and experience the realities of
leading a business.
They will improve their business and financial acumen
and gain a deep understanding of the overall business
impact of financial decisions. They will gain confidence
in discussing these subjects with customers and
prospects in a challenging way which differentiates
them from the competition.
Diagnosis
areas for improvement. The main way diagnosis works
for Standing in the Customer’s Shoes is via a SCAN
self-assessment survey to measure ‘before and after’
ability and confidence to measure the effectiveness and
impact of development.
Other diagnostic tools may be applicable. These might
include:
• Interviews with managers, front-line staff and
subject matter experts to analyses processes and
practices.
compare them to ‘best in class’.
• Observed sales meetings (where appropriate).
Standing in the Customer’s
shoes will enable your people to
understand and experience the
realities of leading a business.

. CONT.
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Design
The programme is a table top business simulation using
a ‘game board’ to develop knowledge of key concepts
such as market share, profitability, return on capital
employed, cash flow, cost of capital, return on
investments, product life cycle and production
efficiency.
It will be designed to challenge your people to make the
right decisions at the right time to achieve the required
return.
If they are too conservative they lose market share and
go into decline. If they are too aggressive they run out
of funding.
We will encourage strategic thinking to deliver
sustainable success.
In some situations we have designed the event as a
stand-alone 2 days but often we are asked to add in
other elements. These have included:
• Input on strategy and change management from Dr.
Robert Davies Visiting Senior Lecturer, Cass
Business School.
• “The leader’s eye view” – a presentation and Q&A
from senior leaders ranging from a SME owner
manager to a FTSE100 CFO.
• “So what do I do now?” – taking the new awareness
and adding in practical tools such as question banks
and skills.
Delivery
The group being developed is sub-divided into smaller
groups which take on the identity of capital-intensive
companies competing for customers in a highly
competitive, rapidly changing marketplace.
Individual participants take on the role of the
management team comprised of finance, production,
marketing and corporate intelligence.
The simulation is flexible and multiple trading periods
are compressed to run over 2 or 3 days.
They will learn to work collaboratively to make the
strategic and operational decision required to run their
D
business. They will be required to review and present
their performance to replicate how real business work
with funders and professional advisers. The event is
facilitated by our team which is handpicked based on
relevant experience and cultural fit so that you can be
confident you are working with our best.
Deployment
be designed in from the beginning. Our approaches for
Standing in the Customer’s Shoes include:
• During the workshop: Participants complete a
workbook which becomes a permanent reference
document.
• Follow up webinars: A few weeks after the event
the participants gather online to share experiences,
identify any barriers to implementation and reform
their action plans. These can include input on
complementary topics.
• Toolkits: Tools include checklists, question banks,
aide memoires, and video-shorts.
• Measurement: Follow up surveys or interviews to
measure changes understanding, behaviour and
result.
Durability
We asked a recent group of corporate relationship
managers to describe the impact that the learning had
had on their business lives three months after the
events they had attended.
Here are some of the things they said:
• “I now know what it feels like to run a business.
The owners/directors need to wear so many hats
and juggle all the aspects of the business.
So it has taught me to empathize with my
customers and try and think of ways we can help
carry the burden of running a business”
Implementation needs to be
designed in from the beginning

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www.mercuri.co.uk
• I have “a better understanding of the multitude of
challenges our customers face on a daily basis.
(I now see) the importance of really drilling down on
these challenges through meetings, e-mails and
phone calls to really understand their business,
particularly their trade cycle.”
• “I am now… pushing the customer to give more in
depth information; not always accepting the first
answer from the customer; asking the right
questions to truly understand the customer’s future
plans.”
In addition to these anecdotal responses we have
gathered harder measurement data:
• 13% improvement in “relationship with my
customers”.
• 21% improvement in agreeing new business with
customers.
• 24% improvement in understanding how the
customer’s business works.
• 52% improvement in ability to create joint business
plans with customers.
selling please visit

www.mercuri.co.uk
It’s our pleasure
to work with you
We are proud to help our financial and professional services clients to win, grow
and manage their clients. The impact is seen in improved customer outcomes,
increased margins, volume and share of wallet. All this is done in a way that
manages commercial, reputational and regulatory risks.
Mercuri International is the world’s largest business performance consultancy,
with local offices in over 50 countries.
We have more than 50 years’ experience helping companies
implement strategies and achieve powerful results.

Helping our insurance clients win, grow and manage clients

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