Hi,
I know that there have been several topics discussing this matter but I recently met with a senior sale associate (let's say 6 years in the business) and he was very pessimistic about the future of sales. He saw a lot of his coworkers being fired because of the crisis but also because of algo programs.
I told him that if cash equity and every vanilla products sales were really in danger I can't imagine complex credit/equity derivatives being traded on electronics platform.
He answered that now most of this products (and more and more) are traded in blackpool and that developing platform that can handle such products are all the rage now (BlackRock is trying for example).
He said that he couldn't see a future for sales and was looking for a transition to private banking.
Sales will always be necessary and in demand. The skills learned in Sales are highly relevant to senior managers. The products you may deal with may change in the next few years but in the end clients will always be happy to have an actual person catering to them to them to win their business.
This. Sales will never go away. Certain products may longer require a dedicated sales professional but clients will still like talking to a person. No computer can replace that aspect
That's good to hear, but do you see sales changing in a way that some kind of programming knowledge is required? Or will the traditional candidates continue to fill sales roles?
I understand what you're saying but don't you think that they will be maybe only sales that handle the relationship with clients and all the trading will be done through very sophisticated platforms ? It will result in MUCH fewer positions and a very different job for the lucky ones that succeed to get in.
Well if thats the case the the trader will be gone before the salesman.
yup
See my article, Why Sales & Trading Is Dead As We Knew It and the comments section, specifically from Proposition Joe for an added perspective to your post.
Thesquale - You are a monkey
Thanks for your highly relevant contribution, always appreciated.
Ok, this is starting to piss me off... for some reason this forum has a firm belief that equity sales people are useless social machines that don't have any technical knowledge and are totally replaceable.
When you think of equity sales people you think of Boiler Room. This job is not as much about "forcing some stock down the clients' throat" but actually about advising, helping PMs put things into perspective, add value through extensive experience in a certain field, provide clients with corporate access, exclusive meetings with senior government officials and so on. Its not like they are on the phone all day and just talk about last week's banter. To some extent they have to in order to bond and forge a solid social relationship. Over time sales people build up a very strong network that is not replaceable. Traders are the ones that are replaceable. Not all of them of course, but many.
Back to your statement: Blackpool is a city in the northwest of England. What your friend was referring to is a dark pool. In what way does that affect sales people? Not at all. Dark pools are a great way of sourcing liquidity in an anonymous setting. Nowadays 80% of the trading volume is done by electronic trading systems that can use several exchanges at a time and trade way more efficiently and precisely than any other trader ever could.
Why would a sales person have to know a programming language? They have all got an army of programmers located in india. In trading it is going to be necessary to be a CS major in order to break in since they need people to program trading algos, investable indexes and so on
Sales will NEVER go away.
Know the product. Know the customer. Bring buyers and sellers together under the most mutually beneficial terms.
Nothing will ever replace it.
Seems to confuse sales with sales traders (who are going away, unfortunately). It's nice to have one point of contact at a sell-side firm who is motivated to help you. If I have a question or need some work an analyst has done, a salesperson will make sure to get it for me, which is quite helpful when the analyst there is slow to respond. Not only are salespeople there to sell me on their products, but they will work for me to get the resources I need.
Having said that, they are essentially middlemen, and more often than not I will just call the analyst directly.
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