The starting point

Corporate banking in Vietnam has changed significantly over the past ten years. International companies have increasingly relocated production and supply chains to Vietnam, while headquarters and central finance functions have often remained in China. For banks, this created a growing need to coordinate financing, payments and hedging across both markets.

Standard Chartered had the international network and product portfolio to support this development. However, several structural issues emerged in day-to-day sales.

Marketing, relationship management and product teams largely worked separately. In cross-border deals, this led to additional coordination loops. At the same time, it was difficult to assess the actual quality of the pipeline. Opportunities sometimes stayed in the CRM for months, even when it was unclear whether the client still had a specific need, a budget or a reliable decision-making process.

During the first two weeks, I analysed CRM data, spoke to relationship managers and senior leaders, and accompanied specific client situations.

It quickly became clear that the issue was less a lack of opportunities than their quality and manageability.

Around 40 percent of recorded pipeline volume had no documented client interaction for more than 45 days. At the same time, risk and compliance issues were reviewed relatively late in some deals. Particularly in complex cross-border structures, relationship managers invested considerable time in deals that could not subsequently be pursued internally.

Another issue was collaboration with the teams in Guangzhou. For deals involving Chinese parent companies, responsibilities and handover points were not always clear.

We reviewed every open opportunity in the CRM individually.

What had actually happened? When had someone last spoken to the client? Who was involved on the client side? What was the next concrete step?

Deals without tangible progress were closed or moved into a separate nurturing process.

In parallel, we restructured qualification for more complex opportunities. Rather than simply adopting established B2B methods such as MEDDPICC, I adapted them to the specific requirements of corporate banking.

A need alone was not enough. We also had to clarify who could actually make decisions on the client side, which fundamental regulatory and credit requirements had to be met, and whether the opportunity made economic sense across multiple product lines.

The criteria were then implemented in the CRM. We also made the time opportunities spent in each stage visible.

Weekly sales meetings no longer focused primarily on status updates. Instead, we jointly checked whether the criteria for the next step had actually been met.

A substantial part of the project involved working directly with the sales teams in Ho Chi Minh City.

In regular deal clinics, we analysed real client negotiations. We looked at where a deal was actually stuck, who was still missing on the client side, and which next steps made sense.

In parallel, I helped sales leaders manage their teams more closely around bottlenecks and metrics.

The balance between clearer sales management and local working practices was particularly important. A process that works on paper is of little use if teams do not accept it in their daily work.

Collaboration with the regional teams in Guangzhou was also restructured. Responsibilities and handover points were defined more clearly, particularly for cross-border financing structures.

Cleaning the pipeline initially had a visible effect: nominal pipeline volume fell by around 35 percent within the first month.

This required explanation. On paper, the pipeline looked smaller than before. In reality, what disappeared were mainly opportunities that had shown no reliable progress for weeks or months.

The decisive factor was therefore not the size of the pipeline, but its quality.

Earlier involvement of risk and compliance also prompted initial discussions. To avoid burdening relationship managers with extra administration, we standardised the necessary checks and reduced mandatory CRM fields to the information that genuinely mattered.

The ten weeks on site laid the foundation. Six months of follow-up ensured that the new processes were maintained in daily operations.

6.1 months

-28 % vs. baseline

Before: 8.5 months

29 %

+38 % vs. baseline

Before: 21 %

18 %

-42 % vs. baseline

Before: 31 %

12 %

-71 % vs. baseline

Before: 42 %

2.0

+43 % vs. baseline

Before: 1.4

The average sales cycle shortened by around 28 percent. The win rate rose by 8 percentage points, or 38 percent in relative terms.

At the same time, losses in late negotiation stages fell from 31 to 18 percent.

The improvement in forecast quality was particularly relevant. Average absolute deviation between planned and realised revenue fell from 42 to 12 percent.

For management, this meant one thing above all: the pipeline was smaller, but considerably more meaningful.

Relationship managers could focus more of their time on companies with genuine closing and revenue potential.

Risk and compliance issues became visible earlier. Collaboration with regional teams became more structured, and unnecessary coordination loops decreased.

Sales leadership gained a stronger foundation for forecasting and capacity planning.

A large pipeline is not automatically a good sign. Particularly in complex B2B business, a smaller, cleanly qualified pipeline can be considerably more valuable.

Sales cannot be managed through revenue figures alone. When you recognise early enough where opportunities get stuck, leadership can genuinely intervene.

Finally, global sales models do not automatically work in every market. The core principles can be standardised. But their practical application must fit local regulatory requirements, decision-making processes and working practices.