Success story · Banking · 2005–2007
Branch turnaround at GE Money Bank Austria
How 36 loss-making branches became a profitable sales network – through a system of strategy, leadership and enablement.
+60%
Branch lending volume in nine months
- ≈ ×2Life insurance production
- +50%Payment protection insurance
Measured over nine months after programme launch
Starting point
36 locations across Austria, deep in the red: GE Money Bank’s branch operations were loss-making, ROI was negative and the business model itself was in question. Sales performance had stagnated, the cross-selling rate remained weak and the branches had little appeal. Across the network there was no common sales standard, too little product knowledge, too little leadership on site and too little engagement – combined with high staff turnover. The owner, GE, expected a double-digit return on equity that had been missing for years, and this in one of the “most overbanked” markets in Europe.
Mandate & role
As Sales Task Force Leader and Deputy Head of Retail Management (2005–2007), Markus Slotta was responsible for the sales realignment of the entire branch network – from leadership and sales methodology to enabling the team. This position in the career history →
Approach
Strategy translated into execution
A change management programme anchored the new sales strategy across the network – branch teams were set up as self-responsible “companies within the company”, with clear leadership on site.
Sales Force Effectiveness
An end-to-end system of 19 coordinated instruments created a uniform, measurable sales standard for the first time – from daily team steering and digital performance cockpits to the GE Star certification programme.
Enablement, not instructions
Systematic coaching and training raised product knowledge and sales quality across the whole network – and turned inconsistent individual performance into a reproducible sales result.
Result
The figures above were achieved in the first nine months after programme launch. What lies behind them:
“Sales success in branch banking is no coincidence. It is the result of a consistently implemented system of strategy, leadership and enablement.”
There is evidence for this
The feedback from group level
At the close of the 2005 financial year, Dan O’Connor, President & CEO of GE Consumer Finance Europe, addressed the “One Winning Team” leadership conference of GE Money Bank Austria in a video message. He mentions the turnaround, the first profit after years of losses – and explicitly the introduction of the SFE instruments including STAR, which is exactly the system this page is about.
Video message · End of 2005 · “One Winning Team” leadership conference, GE Money Bank Austria · Excerpt, 3:00 of 3:18
Address in English. German subtitles are switched on by default and can be turned off in the player.
The phrase at 0:34 – “an ambitious game plan” – gave the book its title. What actually happened in those eighteen months is told in the book Der Game Plan (written in German); the foreword, chapter 0 and prologue are available as an excerpt to download.
Prefer to read on first?
Academically examined
This mandate is the only one that was not only implemented but subsequently also examined academically. Markus Slotta’s MBA master’s thesis uses the branch turnaround as an empirical case study: pilot branches with training and an advisory tool compared against a control group without either, analysed using grounded theory. The thesis was graded 50 out of 50 points.
Read the five research questions, the method and three findings from the thesis
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