Part 07 — People & Org

Front Office Roles

Front office is where growth, mis-selling and credit selection all begin. In SME lending, the relationship manager (RM) is not just a lead generator. The RM decides which borrower gets attention, which documents are asked for, how turnover is explained, whether a direct selling agent (DSA) is trusted, and whether the customer hears “indicative eligibility” or an unauthorised promise. That is why sales design has to be tied to early delinquency, complaint and fraud metrics, not only monthly disbursement.

Role Ladder

The common sales ladder in an Indian bank or non-banking financial company (NBFC) SME vertical is:

Layer	Real titles	Primary work
Field individual contributor	Relationship Officer, Sales Officer, RM, Business Development Executive, Sales Manager	Source cases, meet promoters, collect documents, explain product, maintain funnel.
Branch/area manager	Branch Sales Manager, Area Sales Manager (ASM), DSA Manager	Run sales team, activate DSAs/connectors, manage local market, coordinate with credit and operations.
Regional/zonal	Regional Sales Manager (RSM), Zonal Sales Manager (ZSM), Circle Head, Cluster Business Head	Portfolio growth, geography P&L, channel quality, early delinquency by source.
National	National Sales Head - MSME, Product Business Head, Business Head - LAP/Business Loans	Product strategy, pricing, channel mix, incentive design, portfolio targets.

Public job descriptions make the hierarchy visible. Aditya Birla Capital’s Area Sales Manager - Business Loans posting describes an ASM driving SME and business-loan sourcing through sales managers and referral partners, with a stated team span of 7-10 sales managers and metrics including sourcing, disbursement, partner activation, portfolio quality and non-performing assets (NPAs) (Aditya Birla Capital careers). Electronica Finance, a machinery finance NBFC, lists an Area Sales Manager for machinery loans reporting to RSM/ZSM and managing sales managers, with experience in banking/NBFC asset finance and SME finance (Electronica Finance careers).

RM Duties

An RM’s job changes by product. For an unsecured business loan, the RM is judged by lead-to-login conversion, document completeness, bureau consent and disbursement. For working capital, the RM must understand current account flows, stock statements, drawing power, collateral and cross-sell. For loan against property (LAP), the RM also manages property-paper collection, technical/legal coordination and borrower expectation on loan-to-value (LTV).

Core duties:

Identify target borrowers by pincode, industry, turnover, vintage and banking behaviour.
Capture consent for bureau, bank statement, GST, Udyam and other data pulls before pre-screening.
Explain indicative product, rate range, fees, collateral need and turnaround time (TAT), without promising sanction.
Collect constitution-specific documents for application and documents.
Prepare the business story: ownership, customers, supplier concentration, seasonality, expansion need and repayment source.
Coordinate personal discussion, field investigation, legal/technical visits and conditions precedent.
Handover cleanly after disbursement so the customer knows repayment date, mandate, service channels and foreclosure rules.

In business banking at larger private banks, the RM also owns deposits, cash management, trade finance, forex and ecosystem income. ICICI Bank’s business-banking RM description says the role covers Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), mid-size corporates, deposits and loan-book growth, 360-degree banking solutions and quick turnaround with internal teams (ICICI Bank job listing via Foundit).

DSA And Connector Management

A DSA manager is a sales-control role. The work is not only recruiting agents. It includes onboarding checks, territory allocation, product training, payout communication, complaint management, source-code discipline and clawback enforcement. Weak DSA governance shows up later as forged bank statements, duplicate leads, inflated turnover, borrower complaints about fees, and first-payment default.

Good DSA controls:

Control	Practical rule
Empanelment	PAN, GST if applicable, bank account, address, references, litigation/blacklist checks, code-of-conduct acceptance.
Source lock	Source code cannot be changed after login or bureau pull without sales-governance approval.
Payout grid	Payout tied to product, net disbursal, pricing, channel and clawback period.
Information access	DSA sees coarse status only; no bureau scorecards, RCU remarks or credit notes.
Clawback	Apply for cancellation, first EMI bounce, forged document, mis-sale, duplicate case or customer fee complaint.

RBI’s Digital Lending Directions, 2025 matter even for sales: lending service providers (LSPs) cannot become hidden lenders, regulated entities remain responsible for outsourced acts, and digital offers must disclose the lender and Key Facts Statement (KFS) requirements. The same principle should be applied to offline DSAs.

Telecalling And Inside Sales

Telecalling is useful for lead qualification, document follow-up and renewal/top-up campaigns. It is dangerous when callers are paid only for login and allowed to overstate approval probability. A strong tele-sales script captures business name, constitution, PAN/GSTIN, turnover, vintage, existing obligations, requested amount, consent and preferred language. It should also record “not interested”, “do not call”, complaint and duplicate lead outcomes.

For renewal/top-up, inside sales should check live account behaviour before pitching. A customer at 12 days past due (DPD) with two recent cheque bounces should not receive a pre-approved top-up message merely because the original loan is old enough.

KPIs That Work

Sales key performance indicators (KPIs) should have a growth block, quality block and conduct block:

Role	Good KPIs	Bad KPI design
RM / Sales Manager	Qualified logins, approval rate, disbursement, document-first-time-right, first EMI clearance, 0-30 DPD vintage, customer complaints	Pure disbursement value; pays the same for clean and dirty sourcing.
ASM	Team productivity, DSA activation, channel mix, sanction pull-through, early delinquency by source, ageing of document pendency	Pushing every case to credit to inflate login count.
DSA Manager	Active DSA count, payout productivity, clawback rate, DSA-wise bounce/fraud/complaint rate	Paying for gross leads or customer-paid “processing help”.
Telecaller	Contactability, valid-consent rate, appointment conversion, call-quality score, complaint rate	Number of calls regardless of consent, outcome or promise quality.

For incentives, a mature design might pay 50%-70% on disbursement, 10%-20% on pricing/yield or cross-sell, 10%-20% after first/third EMI clearance, and hold back or claw back for early delinquency, confirmed RCU negative, customer complaint, wrong source code or cancelled disbursement. Senior sales incentives should include geography gross NPA (GNPA), first-payment default, audit exceptions and attrition. RBI’s SBR framework expects NBFCs to use compensation policies with malus/clawback principles for relevant senior management in non-base-layer NBFCs (RBI SBR Directions).

Nuances From The Field

The best SME RMs are local credit sensors. They know if a textile cluster’s receivables are delayed, if a mandi has shifted to cash, if a promoter’s new GSTIN is a family split or a stress disguise, and whether a DSA is recycling rejected borrowers across lenders. The worst RMs outsource judgement to connectors and treat credit as an obstacle.

Sales should challenge policy with evidence, but cannot own exceptions. When a borrower deserves a deviation, the RM’s note should be specific: confirmed buyer orders, bank credits despite low filed income, collateral liquidity, promoter net worth, or seasonality. Vague phrases such as “good profile” and “market reputation” do not belong in a credit appraisal memorandum (CAM).