The Peculiarities of Indian Finance Market

Learning Outcomes

There was a lot of learning in the training there is a lot more to learn than what was imparted during the training. Indian Finance Market is very competitive and requires learning and reading every day to know what is going on in the market and decide your next move. India offers a lot of opportunity to grow and profit as the economy develops and finance system organizes more. It doesn’t matter what field you work in, the market will always be about sales and marketing as was evident during the time training. Clients will always be first and they are the business, everything we do will be about them. They won’t be the company’s client, they will be the employee’s client and the employee’s responsibility.

No client is big or small - To explain this in detail, we should give every client equal time and energy without giving preference to any one big investor. Small portfolios are as important as big and helping the client make good decisions is most important. You never know which client may become important in the future or have a fortune later. For e.g. one of my mentor’s clients had his son selected in the merchant navy and then they came to him with a very big investment to make for guidance. Every client’s money and goals are important and it helps you become better. This is the single most important lesson learned. To always give 100% no matter what the job.

Following through with a client is very important - No deals happen in the first few contacts as clients are not aware of you and need thinking time. Money decisions take time and thinking. People need assurances and guarantees that you are for real and you need to smooth in your presentations. It takes 5 or 6 times of follow through to get a client to agree for further meeting and investment and you cannot afford to give up on clients as that will be potential money lost for the company.

Constant Touch - Similarly follow ups even after the client has invested with you are important, so they know you care about having them as a client and remember you for future investments and keep it an open option for consideration. It is important to have constant engagement and personalization of services to optimize customer experience and ensure he gets best satisfaction so he is retained with us. There is a lot of competition today from everywhere and touch with clients is important to help them know we are still competitive and their best option for investment and advice.

Networking and relationship management - Networking and relationship management is important to get new clients and bring in new investments. We get customer data from fellow companies and institutions who collect data through various means, personal databases, app data, etc. Using that data we identify potential clients and make contact. However the majority of client-base still comes from references of fellow clients. Networking is still the key to capturing new clients in this place and social media outreach is not used like others yet to capture new clients. In today’s world, data and information are key.

Growing popularity of Mutual Funds - Mutual funds are preferred as investments over indulging in market speculation, as a means to invest with reasonable safety in a market with fluctuations in almost every commodity price, stocks, bonds, gold, real estate etc. They are the most popular from of financial product we sold at Anand Rathi.

Importance of Financial Advisers - New inexperienced investors or those looking for wealth protection, so they trust in expertise of a professional fund manager who can help diversify their portfolios and provide transparency about their returns and value. Investors are most trusting of their stockbrokers and financial advisers when looking to invest in Mutual funds and other schemes.

Popularity of Equity Fund Schemes - Debt oriented schemes are still preferred although interest in Equity has increased. Investors are looking to Equity to provide capital appreciation and not just invest their funds in income-oriented schemes.

Investor preferences - Past performance and Returns are the single most important factors considered by investors. Absolute returns matter most to investors, keeping in line with their preferences to see returns and growth. They also care that their holdings outperform the market and similar schemes.

Formalities - India still lacks proper awareness and knowledge of finances and there are too many procedural hurdles re KYC, forms and formalities.

Risk - No amount of research or experience can protect you from market swings. Nobody can predict how markets will behave and how world economy and politics may affect financial assets. Some bit of prediction can be done but nobody can fully predict how exactly their investments will come to be.To sum up it was a great learning experience at Anand Rathi and there is still much to learn regarding financial analysis, markets, investments, managing customer relationship, sales, marketing and financial planning. Finance is now a Sales job at lower levels and the Indian money market has a lot of potential for growth in future and the competition is ready to fight it out for market share.

Suggestions and Conclusions

Suggestions and ConclusionsDuring the training some routine problems in the organization were encountered, most of which apply to the finance industry as a whole. While the company functions almost flawlessly when it comes to investment advice and client welfare, it encounters problems on the operational and marketing side of the business, in relation to its competitors. It can do better when it comes to handling paperwork and bringing new clients.

Better storage and cataloguing of paperwork – The number one issue employees face is finding old documents of clients which are not stored and indexed properly, which also happens due to a lack of office space. A better storage system or some form of digitalization would be a welcome change so time and energy is not wasted in search of old documents at the office and the office gets more efficient with paperwork. A digital solution would be better for the office.

Simplified prospectus and explanations for investors – The language sometimes gets complicated for the average investor to understand and many times they may miss out on important information and details which may be relevant. The company can do better with the presentation and explanation part but it is a broad problem in general with the finance industry. People tend to ignore or miss the important details in company brochures due to a complicated presentation in the financial documents.

Maintaining Client Interests as top priority - The employees put clients first, no matter how big or small the client may be everyone was given equal time and full effort. They also regularly follow up with clients and check in on them. No investment is big or small. As long as Anand Rathi maintains a competitive and experienced workforce and puts their clients’ welfare as top priority, they will be remaining on top in the ever growing competitive Indian Finance Industry where so many new players threaten them. Quality service maintenance is the key to surviving or even growing much bigger.

Update online interface and improve its functioning – Their online interface is simply not good enough and needs a lot of optimization and improvement. They face a threat from online model of business, from players like Share Khan and Zerodha who have been dominating the business online and capturing new clients through their website and marketing. This is where Anand Rathi has a lot of catching up to do if they want new younger clients. They need to start marketing and improve their online business as their current model is under threat. To survive they need to scale up their online services and advertising or they may not survive their competitors despite their superior experience and services in financial products.

Enter new developing cities and form a better knit-network using their resources - With a growing Indian economy, they should expand their presence in new cities and use their goodwill and market position to grab and expand in the new market offerings and the potential that India brings as it develops. They need to maintain their consolidation over current operations so they can build off their client base. They should ramp up their marketing efforts like their competitors and make people aware of their services and experience, which gives them an edge over the rest of the players in the country in financial industry. With better marketing and brand image, they will serve new clients.

These are some of the suggestions to the company. The company can have a great run in the future and grow by providing the best services. There is a lot of scope for growth in the finance market in India and with the right investor knowledge India can surely develop its economy better than ever before. The company already has an advantage with its better network presence and experience than other competitors and with better marketing and operational efficiency it can be capture big market share. Indian investors slowly become more knowledgeable and money conscious and the finance industry is ripe with opportunities.