ASB-bg
My Purpose
Boosting Sales Professionals' confidence & happiness by supporting Intent generation, simplifying adoption
of new practices & enhancing their capability for Shopper-Based Value Creation.
What helps the Purpose come to life
for the benefit of Sales Professionals
How to easily adopt new practices and
derive benefit and happiness
View BlogsView BlogsView PodcastsView PodcastsView Programs

About Ankur (ASB)

ASB

Ankur Shiv Bhandari

“I enable capability development by harnessing Intent and Relevance and through Shopper Based Value Creation”

Ankur is dedicated to building the capability of individuals and organisations by developing and harnessing Intent & Relevance with a special focus on Sales Capability development through “Shopper Based Value Creation” and resulting Commercial Excellence.

Ankur’s dedication is brought to life through two concepts that are the brainchild of ASB which are “Route to Shopper®” and “Intentonomics”.

ASB started his sales career at the grassroots level in India and over the past more than two decades, while mostly based out of the United Kingdom, has worked in and supported sales and marketing organisations at all levels of the sales hierarchy in every commercially active continent in the world.

During his experience spanning more than 50 countries, Ankur has been an employee and an advisor to global organisations such as Procter & Gamble, Castrol, Samsung, ICI Paints (AkzoNobel), LG, Unilever, Accenture, WPP, Panasonic, Philips, Kellogg’s/Kellanova, Coca-Cola, Hemas, Maliban, Dabur, GSK, Mattel, Abbott etc. Ankur is the founder of The Asbiverse Group (www.asbiversegroup.com) which focuses on delivering Commercial Excellence with Shopper Intent.

Ankur also dedicates a big portion of his time to public and community service and he is the first-ever Asian-origin Councillor to have been elected to Bracknell Forest Borough Council and also the first person of Indian-origin to be elected Mayor of the Borough in United Kingdom.

During his experience, Ankur has focused on the development of “Right Intent” in individuals and organisations to achieve their goals. It has been achieved through Ankur’s involvement in various challenges towards enabling and developing capability across Leadership, Sales, Shopper (Customer/Trade) Marketing, Technology adoption, Analytics & Public service.

Work Profile

Business Roles

Asbiverse-Group-V2

Founder

Asbiverse Group

Based: Bracknell South, Berkshire, United Kingdom

 – Present 

Outline

Asbiverse Group drives Commercial Excellence for organisations. Asbiverse Group does it through its 6 business units which also work independently and come together under the Asbiverse Group umbrella to support organisations realise Pockets of Value by focusing on Revenue Growth and Trading Profit.

One of the key and unique ingredients of Asbiverse Group’s approach is the focus on “Intent”. It looks at the drivers of intent of both internal and external stakeholders, especially “Shopper Intent” and how that can be influenced which can be a fundamental difference on the identification and realisation of Pockets of Value.

Six business units of Asbiverse Group:

Kantar-Consulting

Managing Director

Kantar Consulting

– Dec

Led Kantar Retail’s growth and delivered projects in parts of South East Asia, Europe, Middle East & Africa. Translated Kantar Retail’s global capability offer into what was relevant for the regions. Won new clients and managed existing global relationships.

Key achievements

• Projects won and delivered for Castrol, Lenovo, Friesland Campina,Coca-Cola, Tetra Pak, Abbott, Carlsberg etc
• Biggest success was winning Castrol’s majority training business across India for 2 years. Multiple training programs were developed and delivered for different levels of sales & management hierarchies

Accenture

Management Consultant (Consumer Goods)

Accenture

–

Sales Transformation consultant for Consumer Goods Industries. Focus on Sales Strategy & CRM.

Consulting project roles:

09/2009- 05/2010— SAB Miller Plc
Sales Integration Lead- Global Front office transformation

• Led Business Process design & integration for SAB Miller to deliver a combined business solution for total sales based on global best practice. Focus of integration was within the four functions of sales and between sales and other workstreams such as finance, demand, supply, marketing etc. The four functions of sales were Trade Promotions Management ( included key account management and Trade funds & claims management), Field sales planning & effectiveness, Telesales and sales back office.

07/2008- 09/2009 — Diageo Plc
Global Design Director/Commercial Processes Lead

• Led Re-design of key components of the Global sales/commercial strategy across multiple brands (Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Bells etc.) and markets with best practice input. Areas of Focus include Integrated Business Planning, Customer Management, Trade Investment strategy inc. Trade Promotions Management and Sales coverage/effectiveness strategy.
• Focus was also on building sales function capability to execute the new strategy and processes

10/2007- 06/2008 — Procter & Gamble
Global Transformation & Transition Lead

• Led Business Transformation/Transition to a new Global growth model for P&G. Led the definition of this model, this is an industry’s first custom built model which provides sales/profit increase and cost reductions at the same time on a global scale. The Project involved a business of more than $75 Billion and is being worked on across six continents
• Led the deployment of the solution to the 5 Pilot markets in Asia

08/2007-10/2007—Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Subject Matter Expert

P&G

Various Roles

Procter & Gamble

Market Strategy & Planning Manager

May 2005 – June 2007

• Managed the national business across more than 10 European customers on core categories for the business
• Setting strategic and commercial direction for National account managers and implementing initiatives in National Accounts
• Owner of National budgets for the channel
• Consultant to the trade on category management including optimization of consumer insight converted to sales in-store
• Owner of selected western European initiatives by managing test market in UK

Business Development Manager

May 2002 – May 2005

• Managed a national business worth approx. £15 million+($28 million) with record share levels
• Profile included Strategy setting, turnover responsibility, budgets, supply chain co-ordination, category management, managing brand priorities on brands such as Ariel, Daz, Fairy, Flash etc
• The business handled was UK’s biggest national chain of cash & carries servicing the retail convenience, CTN and forecourt sector and also included a national retail chain with more than 700 retail stores
• Jury member of industry leading awards for 2 consecutive years
• Previous experience in P&G of managing the away from home sector which served industries such as travel, hotels ,Nhs, events, workplace, pubs, restaurants and quick service retailers directly as well as via distributors
• Training and coaching responsibilities

Campus Recruitment Team Leader

–

Note: This was in addition to Ankur’s commercial responsibilities

• Headed a multi-functional team on one of the top ten campuses in UK
• Involved in interviewing & selection of future talent for P&G
• Experienced trainer on sales colleges

dulux

Area Head (ICI Paints now Akzo Nobel)

AkzoNobel

–

Profile:

Profile included depot management, new market development, dead market revivals, product launches (Dulux), channel management, devising marketing and sales promotion strategies

• Turnover increased by approx. 20%
• Debtor days decreased from 72 to 18
• Network growth of approx. 300%
• Increase in Brand Recall
• Managed a team of sales representatives

Perfect

Senior Marketing Executive

PERFECT BREAD PRIVATE LIMITED

–

This was a new company dealing in bakery products (Perfect Bread) and Ankur developed the market for this company in five states of India including Delhi and National Capital region Delhi making it the leader in three states and a strong competitor in two. Ankur headed the total sales force in these areas for the start-up enterprise. It possesses a strong market presence now.

Academic Roles

SMU

Senior Lecturer- International Business ( P/T)

St Mary’s University, Twickenham

Based: London, United Kingdom

 –

Outline

In line with Ankur’s focus on Capability Development of Individuals and organisations, he was presented with this fantastic opportunity to support Academic research & teaching at St Mary’s University (Part-Time), which he was delighted to accept. This provided an excellent opportunity to realise strong synergies between the latest Research thinking in Academia and professional capability development.

Key Responsibilities

  • Supported Post Graduate Business programs in the university including “International Strategic Management”, “International Marketing” and “Digital Marketing.”
  • Ensured that the thinking on the latest industry requirements was always current and various management approaches could be regularly challenged and refreshed.
  • Created a connection between Industry and academia at this professional level as there were strong synergies.

Community Roles

BFC

Mayor of Bracknell Forest

Bracknell Forest Council

Based: Bracknell

–

Representing the Borough of Bracknell Forest as its First Citizen. First-person of Indian origin and also the first person of Colour to be elected to this role.

Borough Councillor- Local Government

Bracknell Forest Council

Based: Bracknell

–

Elected as the first ever Asian origin Borough Councillor to Bracknell Forest Borough Council in May 2019 Council elections. This was Ankur’s opportunity to give back to the society and he served the communities in the Bracknell Borough by:

• Addressing any community needs in his ward
• Being part of the Economic Skills Development Partnership – focused on ensuring his residents had the right workplace skills that could aid their economic development
• Being part of the Planning Committee- overseeing planning applications in the Borough delegated to the committee
• Being involved in multiple other community projects focused on improving the experiences of his residents

WCM

Liveryman and Chairman of Membership

The Worshipful Company of Marketors

Based: London

January 2020 – November 2022

Ankur was proud to be enclothed as a Liveryman of the Worshipful company of Marketors ( Livery company). As part of this role, he focused on the development of the Marketing profession.

Follow Ankur

© Copyright - Ankur Shiv Bhandari