Drivers of key performance indicators achievement and its mediating effect on salesforce intention to retain in the banking industry

Personal selling has become a core strategy of banks’ competitiveness.The key success of personal selling is the imperative role of the salesforce in delivering quality sales of banking products and services and achieving individual Key Performance Indicator (KPI). KPI is a new performance measurement adopted in modern banking. Hence, this was a maiden study to identify the drivers for KPI achievement in Malaysian banks, namely individual competencies (performance orientation, affiliate interest, job quality, commitment to work, agility, adaptive selling, planning, communication and learning) and perceived organizational factors (articulate visionary leader, high performance culture and teamwork). Malaysian banks face great challenges to retain the salesforce in sales job. Hence, this study also examined the impact of individual competencies and the organizational factors to retain the salesforce. The novelty of this study was the investigation of the mediating effects of KPI achievement on the relationship between individual competencies, organizational factors, and salesforce retention. Data was obtained through questionnaires to 190 members of the salesforce who were attached to eight domestic banks in three regions. Multiple regression results show performance orientation, agility flexibility and teamwork have significant impacts on KPI achievement. Meanwhile, performance orientation, affiliate interest, commitment to work and all organizational factors significantly influenced the salesforce’s intention to retain. The results support the Herzberg Motivation Theory that the ability to perform well and the synergy of teamwork in banks increase the salesforce’s KPI achievement and the intention to retain. The result of the hierarchical regression analysis shows that KPI achievement fully mediates the relationship between performance orientation, teamwork and intention to retain, which supports the Expectancy Theory. The findings of this study provide statistical evidence of KPI drivers and the important role of KPI and the intention to retain. The findings also indicate practical, theoretical and policy implications to relevant parties