Global training program deployment: balancing cohesion and customization.
With such a large, diverse company, operating across numerous industries, the primary challenge was as follows: how to deploy a training program that was globally coherent and comprehensive while respecting the differences in each region and specific industry segment?
The client says:
“Mercuri always brings the guaranteed B2B sales credibility and challenge ABB requires to help raise our solution and Value Based Selling skills to world-class, be it in Bangalore or Beijing, Coventry or Cairo.”
Allan Mitchell, Head ABB
“We tended to see ourselves as the expert in the room, but actually customers also want us to demonstrate that we understand their world – that we can listen to their challenges.”
Allan Mitchell, Head ABB
The challenge
Training, of any kind, is a balancing act. ABB’s sales teams were experienced, hugely knowledgeable product experts but the existing sales approach was fairly traditional and linear, focusing very much on technical aspects of the products, acquiring as many leads as possible and then pushing the portfolio.
The solution
Mercuri proposed a seven-month certification course for ABB’s sales specialists, a program carefully designed to work around the sales teams’ workload, taking care to minimize the amount of time that they’d be taken away from their primary purpose – that of engaging with customers.
The result
Mercuri’s training program provided ABB with engaging and practical skills that aligned with the recipients’ real-world roles, generating a genuine sense of progress and accomplishment. Sales teams could actively see and feel the benefit of the new skills they were acquiring, which kept them coming back for more.
Conclusion
Indeed, the VBS training that ABB has initiated for sales and
marketing teams has proved so popular and successful that
there are plans to roll out the program to other areas of the
company, with sales support staff the next to benefit. ABB’s
Allan Mitchell has noticed that the program has had a much
more profound impact than he’d initially anticipated.
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