Area Sales Manager - Chennai

Role summary

This role is responsible for driving sales growth and business expansion across a city or branch location in partnership with the Zonal Sales Manager. The position focuses on meeting agreed targets through team execution, maintaining strong sales discipline, and ensuring that all activities follow defined processes and guidelines. It also supports cross-selling of Aditya Birla Capital products and solutions based on regional plans and customer needs.

The role works closely with Risk, Operations, and Sales Governance teams to maintain portfolio quality, improve business outcomes, and address bottlenecks that may affect achievement of targets. It also involves stepping in for complex cases, supporting team members, and helping improve overall sales performance and profitability.

Organization context

ABC Digital was formed in 2023 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Aditya Birla Capital to distribute the company’s products and provide customer services, including digital services, e-commerce, payments, and related activities.

The business is building an omni-channel direct-to-customer platform through website and app channels to acquire and serve customers smoothly. It also uses inbound and outbound calling for virtual engagement and cross-sells products to walk-in branch customers.

The lending portfolio includes housing finance for homebuyers, loans against property, commercial property purchase, lease rental discounting, and construction finance for builders. Because the business is largely retail-led, performance depends heavily on people, process, and organizational efficiency, along with strong product quality, channel management, customer relationships, and risk control.

The main business measures are loan book size, profitability, and low delinquency. Higher funding costs affect both margins and the competitiveness of lending rates, while identifying customer needs accurately and serving them efficiently is critical for sustainable growth.

Key challenges

The role requires building a practical sales plan with the team while considering local market conditions such as competitor activity, existing relationships, and new business opportunities.

It involves expanding market share for a relatively new brand in a competitive environment and creating the required branch or city-level book size.

The position also calls for continuous improvement in financial and operational knowledge, negotiation, relationship management, and efficient loan processing to support customer retention, portfolio health, and profitability.

Another major requirement is maintaining a strong sourcing funnel so that conversion, sanction, and utilization levels remain healthy, along with effective pre-screening and credit-quality control to limit non-performing assets.

Key responsibilities

• Partner with the Zonal Sales Manager to prepare the branch or city sales plan and execution approach, then communicate it to the team.
• Monitor market developments and guide the team on emerging opportunities.
• Oversee daily branch operations and administrative activities.
• Prepare, review, and share periodic MIS reports covering disbursements, profitability, NPAs, and market expansion with the ZSM and team.
• Set clear sales goals for team members and explain business objectives, role expectations, product features, and key differentiators.
• Track complaints and escalations, coordinating with stakeholders until issues are resolved.
• Implement customer satisfaction and NPS-based actions in consultation with the ZSM.
• Recommend and roll out approved schemes and solutions that improve sales and profitability while balancing growth and cost efficiency.
• Act as an escalation point for customer grievances, especially for important relationships.
• Improve process efficiency and turnaround times by coordinating with Risk, Operations, and Sales Governance teams.
• Strengthen team performance through active monitoring of sales productivity, client engagement, and business growth metrics.
• Drive process improvements and best practices to enhance operational effectiveness and overall business impact.
• Execute the cross-sell strategy agreed with the ZSM across ABC products.
• Support team alignment with cross-selling through communication, training, and guidance.
• Coach and develop team members so they can improve acquisition, engagement, and overall performance.
• Work with Risk, Operations, and Sales Governance teams to ensure proper risk controls are followed.
• Support the credit approval flow and review sanction, disbursement, and documentation processes to keep operations controlled.
• Review branch or city-level financial risk using MIS and data analytics reports.

Requirements

• A postgraduate qualification is required.
• Overall sales experience of 6 to 8 years in the banking or NBFC sector is needed.
• At least 3 to 4 years of recent experience must be in HFC or lending sales.
• Strong business and commercial understanding is essential.
• Proven ability to manage teams and communicate effectively is required.
• Execution capability, product-market awareness, and operational coordination skills are important.
• Experience in negotiation, relationship building, and efficient loan processing is expected.
• The candidate should be comfortable working in a performance-driven environment with close attention to portfolio quality and profitability.

Additional information

ABC Digital operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Aditya Birla Capital and focuses on product distribution, customer service, digital commerce, and payments-related activities.

This position requires close coordination across sales, risk, operations, and governance functions to maintain compliance, improve turnaround time, and support profitable growth.

The job is based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, and is structured as a full-time onsite role.

No stipend or salary details were provided in the source.