The number one job that sales and distribution chiefs plan to add next year is "sales analytics."

Patrick Newcomb Fuse Research Network Director of Benchmark Research

60 percent of mutual fund distribution chiefs say they plan to add sales analytics jobs in the next 12 months, according to the latest edition of the "Sales Management" report in Fuse Research Network's BenchMark series. That's more than any other job type and the only one agreed on by more than half of all fundsters polled.

Pat Newcomb, director of BenchMark research at Fuse, says that fundsters are looking to sales analytics specialist "to segment advisors".

"It's totally natural that that's the kind of a role that's going to see headcount added in the coming year," Newcomb tells MFWire.

Other popular hiring areas for 2019, according to the Fuse report, will be: investment specialists and client portfolio managers (46 percent of distribution chiefs plan to add jobs here, up from 40 percent last year); market intelligence specialists (36 percent); hybrid wholesalers (36 percent); client relationship management and sales reporting specialists (33 percent); and internal wholesalers (32 percent, down from more than half last year). Those trends highlight the importance fundsters are placing on "helping the wholesaler deepen the relationship" with FAs, Newcomb says.

In contrast, fewer than one in five distribution chiefs (18 percent) plan to add external wholesalers, down from 35 percent a year ago. Only nine percent plan to add due diligence or research support specialists, and seven percent plan to add DC I-O specialists. 

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