WHEN Mr Gerard Francis joined Bloomberg's Singapore office in 1996, it had only 35 employees.
"Everyone knew one another, which made for an exciting work environment," he says. The working hours were long but fulfilling.
He was then 26 years old and it was his third job. He had previously worked in equity sales in Mumbai, India.
New Bloomberg recruits with less than five years of financial sales experience are assigned to the analytics desk to learn what the company considers fundamental - the Bloomberg Professional service, a financial information network that provides customer help 24 hours a day.
The company employs a highly trained, multilingual team of more than 9,000 people worldwide to provide the service. Assistance is provided by phone at the analytics desk, and rapid-response engineers are at hand to resolve issues in the field.
Mr Francis says: "It is at analytics that we practise discipline and acquire the skills to handle an irate client. It is an excellent way of learning about both the financial markets and the Bloomberg product."
Over the years, the Singapore office has burgeoned into a global team of more than 300 employees.
"Most salespeople enter through the entry-level financial sales programme. They start their careers in global customer support before moving on to the analytics desk. During this time, they undergo coaching from their team leaders and classroom training," says Mr Francis.
"We try to keep the organisational structure flat. The fewer managers we have, the more people are empowered to do their jobs."
In a company where new staff are given opportunities to shine very early in their careers, Mr Francis helped to acquire the licence for Bloomberg's India office in the first year of his job.
Food for thought
The flat organisational structure extends literally to Bloomberg's open concept office space. Mr Francis says: "When I visited the New York office, Mike (Bloomberg) himself sits on the same floor as everyone else. There are no executive offices or cubicles.
"The atmosphere encourages informal discussion on problems. When problems bubble fast, they get solved fast."
The set-up is similar in the sales offices around the world, including the oft-mentioned well-stocked Bloomberg pantry and fish tanks.
He says: "We've always had food and drink available for our staff and clients.
"The pantry forms a natural meeting place for people where they get to know one another and interact. Often, this results in people from different parts of Bloomberg and our clients discussing problems and finding creative solutions."
Regional relationships
With degrees in computer science and economics, Mr Francis worked in different departments including content gathering, electronic trading and trading systems.
His initial focus was on South-east Asia. Between 2000 and 2005, he spent a year each in Bloomberg's Tokyo and Hong Kong offices.
Today, as the regional sales manager, he looks after the sales force in the Asia-Pacific region.
The sales team leader holds weekly one-to-one sessions with his members, while each sales staff member looks after a set of financial institutions and corporations. The sales manager oversees specific pockets of sales in terms of countries or types of products.
He explains that the sales staff build and maintain the business relationships with key individuals.
"They ensure our clients know how to use the multiple products on Bloomberg, be it analytics, electronic trading, trading systems or data," he says.
"They focus on expanding the number of clients who can benefit from these products. Above all, they give our clients great customer service."
To Mr Francis, the feeling of success supersedes things such as compensation benefits or the job title.
He says: "At the end of the day, you are only as successful as the people you work with and the people you work for.
"Here at Bloomberg, it's a wonderful feeling to be pushed to excel and to solve a problem creatively. It is very fulfilling to be dealing with clients who are extremely bright and demanding.
"Bloomberg is a provider of services and products that enable people in the finance sector to do their job faster.
"When what seems like a small gesture on my part brings about improvements of apparently life-changing proportion for my clients, you can say it feels like an excellent bull run every time."
