Sign Of The Times: Quotron Dissolves Its National Retail Sales Team

Quotron did away with its national retail sales group two weeks ago, laying off Paul Savage, vice president of national retail sales, along with one of the national account managers. Remaining national account managers will now be included in Quotron's national institutional and regional sales groups.

Coming in response to the loss of several of its largest national retail customers, the removal of a sales head dedicated to winning national retail business is a signal that Quotron will stop pursuing what has long been the core of its business, some observers suggest.

"We've lost some business and as a result we are eliminating some positions," says Quotron's spokesperson. "We're just consolidating."

"We'll be handling our national accounts in a different way," the spokesperson says. "We've absorbed the existing national sales force into our other groups."

Under the new configuration of its sales organization, Quotron's lone committed national retail account, PaineWebber Inc., will retain its current account manager, Michael Donnelly. Donnelly will report to Ed Berlin, vice president, institutional sales and marketing.

Responsibility for departing customers Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co., Kidder Peabody & Co. and Dean Witter Reynolds Inc. has been assigned to Quotron director Jay Fuchs, reporting to Tony Sepp, vice president of sales, northeast region.

The move will save Quotron some salary expenses. But Quotron posted a loss of $12 million during the second quarter, narrowing from a $15 million loss in the first, according to a Citicorp spokesperson.

Quotron's trend toward the black is positive, and would have the vendor profitable in one year, if allowed to continue. These figures, however, don't reflect the loss of revenue that Quotron will incur as it removes systems from Smith Barney (IMD, Dec. 9, 1991), Kidder Peabody (IMD, June 8) and Dean Witter (IMD, June 22), all of which have recently announced plans to use other market data services.

Revenue from these three accounts are an estimated $22 million annually, a stream that will continue to flow to some extent until replacement systems are installed, a process that could take years to complete.

Quotron's national customers contacted were divided as to the impact of the dissolution of the national retail sales group.

"For us, the impact thus far has been negligible. They've assigned us a new [sales]person," says a top systems executive at one of Quotron's departing customers. "But we continue to open branches and we are concerned about Quotron's ability to deliver systems fast enough."

"It's too early to tell what this will affect," this executive adds. "But they've been talking to us about starting to charge for development CPUs." Sources say that under this firm's contract with Quotron, negotiated late last year, the vendor didn't commit to provide free CPUs. Typically, Quotron provides development systems free of charge for use by its largest customers.

A systems executive at another of Quotron's soon-to-be ex- national accounts indicates that no such charges have been levied against it. "We've seen no degradation of service level," says this executive.