ICICI Prudential AMC has embraced the spirit of transiting from a product push approach to a needs based sales approach - in a truly 360 degree manner. When we talk about 360 degrees, it should mean all three stakeholders - investors, advisors and the AMC itself. Aashish takes us through the initiatives that the company has taken to visibly encourage investors to seek good, needs based advice in a world where DIY is becoming a fashion. Equally important are its initiatives on handholding the distribution fraternity in making the transition from product push to needs based sales. Perhaps the most important piece that Aashish discusses is about how he and his team practice what they preach - about how his sales team has embraced this philosophy in its engagement with its distribution partners.

WF : Can you take us through the genesis of the Story of the Burnt Aloo Paratha?

Aashish : The first thing I would request all our advisor friends is to download this AV and store it on their computers and laptops because it tries to communicate what we all want to communicate to our investors, but in a very ordinary language.

Today while nearly everything is trending on the DO-IT-YOURSELF (DIY) wave, we often only realise in hindsight that there are a few things that are best left to an expert. And that is the genesis to the Story of the burnt Aloo Paratha. Every Indian house relishes a great aloo paratha cooked by an expert, and that expert is our mother.

We wanted to use a simple analogy to explain this insight. When we leave simple tasks to the best care of an expert, then why not trust an expert with our hard earned money as well.

While we are encouraging our investors to seek advise, we are completing the same message by informing them on "how to" identify the right advisor.

WF : In what ways are you promoting this story - which is a simple, yet powerful message about the value of seeking financial advice?

Aashish : We have used a niche selection of channels like our website and certain key IFA focussed sites to relay this message. Also since our Facebook page is visited by a large set of distributors - we have used this platform as well to leverage our message

An interesting emailer was created to disseminate the message to both investors as well as IFAs. In each such emailer to the IFA, we provided an option to download the creative for further use and relay to their investors.

While the digital platform has been integral in the dissemination of the message. To increase the spread to a wider audience we have also adapted the same message various offline formats like presentations and flipcharts.

WF : In continuation of your "Ask For More" initiative, you have now come up with another AV - SIP Exactly. What is the key message behind this AV?

Aashish : To answer this question, I will step back a bit to the ASK FOR MORE proposition. The thought for this platform was to equip our partners with the right ammunition at every stage so that "asking for more" could become easier. Just to recap ASK FOR MORE said that fixed income is the larger asset class and hence advisors need to offer fixed income products to their clients and secondly SIPs of any arbitrary value are not effective or salient in the client's financial planning so one has to ask for higher value of SIPs which can help in achievement of life goals.

Sip Exactly, is our second film in a chain of activity that is planned for them.

In our many interactions with investors and distributors we have realised that though SIPs are recommended with specific goals in mind, the amount never justifies this rationale. Most investors still have a "this is what I can spare" attitude towards SIPs.

We have once again used instances from our daily life to make a simple point "when you do simple things in a very exact and planned manner, why have such a casual attitude towards your SIP amount?".

WF : How has initial response been from the distribution fraternity to your ASK FOR MORE initiative and your innovative SIP Calculator?

Aashish : While there are many people who possibly showcase the "end", through our efforts we are trying to make the "means" to the end more reachable for our partners. We have received an overwhelming response on the "ASK FOR MORE" platform and more so on the SIP calculator.

It has been received as an instrumental aid in demonstrating the need to calculate the SIP amount. While I am not in a position to share exact numbers I am happy to say that we have seen an 80% increase in the input value and number of SIPs coming to us through IFAs as a channel of making our products available and delivering our messages to clients. We intend to continue and follow up such initiatives with many more tools for our partners.

WF : You seem to be attempting two things at the same time - promoting goal based financial planning within the distribution community and pushing investors towards such advisors. From a broader context, do you see distribution migrating completely towards advisory or do you see continued relevance of a pure retail distribution model which relies more on a product push rather than needs based selling?

Aashish : Great question. It helps me clarify questions that we get asked all the time. We believe that Mutual Funds need the support and platform of distributors; they form an integral part in the fulfilment process. Rather than saying that we are pushing investors to advisors, we are requesting investors to seek the right advice before getting into the cool and contemporary DIY belief. On your other question, product push models work well when markets are booming and the past "report card" looks good without raising too many questions. On a lighter note, even in the movies, relationships get complicated when one of the characters has a checkered "past". And then reaching a happy ending takes its own treacherous course with many complications and scores to be settled. Off late, capital markets have had a tumultuous past and hence we don't see product push working in this environment. In any case, product push leads to plugging the same product in many portfolios and that's not a healthy trend for long term sustenance of business. We service all types of distribution but we are gearing to service advice based practitioners better.

I have always said that MFs are more like prescription drugs. Sooner than later, we find ourselves in a tough spot after we get into the OTC (over-the-counter) mode. We have worked towards repositioning ourselves and it is still work in progress. Our products have a defined positioning just to ensure that the advisor knows exactly what it will deliver in the client's portfolio. Each product has a distinctive constitution and a mandate to fulfill. At ICICI Pru AMC, we are proud to say that we are probably amongst only a couple of AMCs, where our team does not go to market with a specific product in mind. We are seen to have very competitive offerings with pricing as well as performance in Ultra Short Term Funds, Short Term Funds, Accrual based debt funds, Income and Gilt Funds, SIPs, FMPs, Diversified Equity Funds (Large Cap, Value, FlexiCap et al), Gold, Real Estate portfolios, PMS, Closed Ended Debt Funds, MIPs etc. We worked hard for 1 year to ensure we have a research association with a respected name like MorningStar to offer us research on our US BlueChip Equity Fund and now we are also working to launch other international funds. We are a full service AMC and we offer the Advisor whatever he wishes to pick to fulfill his client's portfolio requirements or his own investment beliefs. A lot of our IFA friends might have views on where we are competitive and where we are not, but I hope they will agree that we are present in all categories and we are not wrong in calling ourselves a "full-service" AMC.

As a process, our sales team is never given performance weightages for specific products. It is mandatory for them be able to engage on whatever the advisor wishes to engage. We engage on a specific product only if we get to know that the advisor is looking to allocate money into a specific category and we have a product to position there. Because of this we have missed out on a sale at times and I have even been told that we are reactive, but thats fine. We do not want to catch the advisor's fancy with any one product or its pricing and then get him to allocate every client's money into that. Also now something interesting about ICICI Pru AMC; we found that preparing ourselves to go out in the market with an open mind without any product agenda - that's a tall order. The team needs to know what to talk when they go out and instead of one product note they need a load more information!!! It has been an interesting journey equipping ourselves to be able to migrate from selling a single product may it be technology funds or infrastructure funds. Now we do not give a call on any fund - no specific theme, no specific "call" on short term or income or gilt.

So how do we do this? Each one of our sales team members, has to appear for an examination on products and capital markets every month. Along with Performance Rating, we also measure Knowledge Index of each sales person in the team. Its almost intuitive and you will not be surprised to know there is 100% correlation between Knowledge Index and Performance Rating. So to answer your question directly, we practice need based selling, we invest in that belief and we hope our IFA friends do the same. We are ourselves investing in preparing IFAs to do so by way of Practice Management, Sales Skills and Technical training. Off-site conferences are on the wane and technical training in a serious class-room environment is in.