Skandia makes sales director redundant in review
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Skandia sales director Dave Chessel has been made redundant as part of a review of the service the firm gives to advisers.
Chessel was at Skandia for 15 years. Chief development officer Peter Mann will assume his role.
The insurer says the review is likely to see support for advisers increase but it could not rule out whether wider redundancies were on the cards.
The firm currently has around 100 business consultants.
A spokesman says: “We are reviewing what we currently do and it is likely we will build on the business consultants we have in the field by delivering alternative ways for advisers to work with us. What we will not be doing is getting rid of our regional support.
“At this stage it is unknown whether there will be wider redundancies as part of this review. Dave is an isolated case at the moment. When the review is completed we will clearly announce any changes.
“Although one person is leaving the actual review is about Skandia expanding the support it provides to advisers. We are IFA only and are well known for the support we provide advisers and we are not going to do anything to jeopardise that service.”
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Readers' comments (13)
David May | 22 Oct 2009 2:49 pm
Many years ago there was a City Editor at the Sunday Telegraph called Ptrick Hutber. Hutber's Law stated that progress equals deterioration. That is a reduction was presented as an improvement.
Hence the statement that 'the review is likely to see support for advisers increase but it could not rule out whether wider redundancies were on the cards'.
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Anonymous | 22 Oct 2009 3:45 pm
A good company, all the people mentioned in the article are grade A, but I feels this may be a case of "Baby and bath water............
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Anonymous | 22 Oct 2009 5:08 pm
Skandia's loss will no doubt be another's gain.
The tragedy is Skandia will be the poorer for it.
A sad departure for a hugely loyal and talented individual who lived and breathed Skandia.
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Anonymous | 22 Oct 2009 6:03 pm
Skandia have the best broker consultant support in the industry with technical knowledge " head and shoulders" above the traditional insurers and real consultants who add value with experience and knowledge, not like the newbie platforms that are only intrested in faceless number gathering.
The best of both worlds. Lets hope the Skandia board remember not to mess up the very thing it has great, compared to its peers in any cost review.
Very few broker consultants are of value
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roger holloway | 22 Oct 2009 6:20 pm
Additional support, well that is a joke, since the last Consultant left and a new one took over I get no support from the sales team what so ever.
That lack of support is from the manager in Birmingham, who does not care, downwards and the new consultant who has been with Skandia for 18 months does nothing. So we do our business elsewhere
In inside staff are totally supportive to us both in the branch and head office
SHAME!!!
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Anonymous | 22 Oct 2009 7:36 pm
I am responding to the blog that stated "very few consultants add value". Do you really think that 300k plus pa for Skanida's better producing consultants is value, in excess of 100k for their average consultants. The reason Dave has gone is because he was responsible for a highly paid salesforce that was writing unprofitable business.
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Anonymous | 23 Oct 2009 1:29 pm
Sounds to me like Skandia are setting up an office based sales team like many of their competitors and (possibly) reducing the numbers of the men and women they have on the ground.
I very much doubt they'll play around with the relationships of their key accounts so it sounds like a smart move to me and I've no doubt it will be the cost effective route.
The new generation of advisers I work with don't get their CII papers in a knot about the thought of dealing with someone over the phone and the 'old school' (who would balk at the thought of doing business with a company that didn't send the rep round to pick up the apps) in many cases won't be trading in a few years anyway.
And in response to the blog saying that 'very few broker consultants add value' well I'm afraid the same level of cynicism could be directed at significant segments of the IFA market. Perhaps the same segment of the IFA market that has been largely responsible for the current focus on TCF and RDR.
Out with the old and in with the new......
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Anonymous | 23 Oct 2009 1:49 pm
Finding people with that level of loyalty to one company is getting tougher. Skandia's loss for sure.
It would be difficult for anyone to write profitable business while looking over their shoulder. This sales review of Skandia's has gone on too long.
The only winners are the people conducting the review.....the longer they draw it out, the more secure their jobs are and that's more to be said of the sales team.
Whoever snaps up Dave, will be the real winner.
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Anonymous | 23 Oct 2009 4:25 pm
Finding people with that level of loyalty to one company is getting tougher. Skandia's loss for sure.
It would be difficult for anyone to write profitable business while looking over their shoulder. This sales review of Skandia's has gone on too long.
The only winners are the people conducting the review.....the longer they draw it out, the more secure their jobs are and that's more to be said of the sales team.
Whoever snaps up Dave, will be the real winner.
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Anonymous | 23 Oct 2009 10:16 pm
Their seems to be a lot of things happening behind closed doors at Skanida, with the recent departure of Jamie Macleod and now this, I am concerned Skandia feels it can get rid of good people, just because they are now taking in MILLIONS on a daily basis on their SIS Platform.
I agree Skandia have the best broker consultant's in the industry, but NOT all of them are great. We had two reasonable consultants and then got a Very good consultant, unfortunately he has recently left to join Friends Provident Int in Dubai, so now we wait to see who we get.
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