Sales Training – Improving Startups and Scaleups

19Jan

Subaru Training Academy

About the company

Subaru is the automotive division of Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. (FHI), a multifaceted transport equipment manufacturer active on the global stage under three key pillars: Subaru Automobile Business; Aerospace Company; Industrial Products company Since the Subaru 360 was released in 1958, Subaru has been consistently aiming to produce vehicles that offer high safety in all road conditions, excellent driving performance, and intelligent packaging. This concept is applied to each and every vehicle that Subaru produces. Subaru’s symmetrical All Wheel Drive (AWD) was developed as an extension of this concept. And the power train has been designed to be perfectly symmetrical left and right with the compact, low center of gravity Horizontally-Opposed Engine (SUBARU BOXER) at its heart. Subaru believes that these technologies enable owners to control their vehicles exactly as they intend to, and it is this level of ideal performance that Subaru is striving for. And this is backed with reliable driving performance in any weather and road conditions. Driving safety is also fine-tuned to exceptional levels together with crash safety and prevention safety.

Subaru Norway is one of the pioneers of Norwegian car industry and was founded 9 April 1940, now representing Subaru in Norway. Located at Skytta just outside Oslo, Norway, delivering superior services to 40+ Dealers along our country.

Project & results

“This is to verify that ResultatPartner AS & Improve Systems and Ronny A. Nilsen has been the Head Trainer for Subaru Academy starting beginning of 2014 until 2019.

The Academy was customized towards our specific needs based on pre-work-training with some chosen Dealers as well as participants from HQ.

The Academy is an intense program covering all levels at Dealership, 3 months duration, 6 days Trainings, around 20 hours per participant doing pre- and postmarks related to the topics and own KPI`s and Trainings committed in an individual Training Plan, measuring and tracking performance, results, skills and knowledge by Improve Systems; a web-based performance management systems and an exam at the end focusing on measurable effects and value.

Participant and target groups has been top-/middle management from sales and service as well as all sales representatives and service-advisors throughout our 40+ Dealerships in Norway.

Results

Results so far has been astonishing with 91% average score and Gold level!

These results tells us we have succeeded well in our investment and so far around 170 people has attended. We will continue investing in our Dealership knowledge, skills and performance. Ronny is a structured, enthusiastic and result-oriented person who brings high quality, value and commitment into our Trainings.

We can highly recommend ResultatPartner and Improve Systems managed by Ronny in such trainings.

Respectfully yours,
Jan-Kare Holmedal (CEO),
Stian Thrane (Information Director),
Torbjorn Lie (Sales Director Sales)
Tore Laskerud (Director Aftersales)

19Jan

BMW Training Academy

The BMW Group

The BMW Group sets trends in production technology and sustainability as an innovation leader with an intelligent material mix, a technological shift towards digitalization and resource-efficient production. At the same time, flexibility and continuous optimization of value chains ensure competitiveness.

Project & results

“Ronny A Nilsen, Managing Director of ResultatPartner AS and Improve Performance International AS, has been hired as responsible for sales- service and management training at the BMW Training Academy in Norway since 2007.

In general, this training consists of intensive training during 10 days for managers and 8 days for sales and aftersales consultants focusing on improving performance throughout the dealer network.

In 2007, BMW was ranked as #7 in the Norwegian Customer Satisfaction Index among all companies and industries. In 2009, BMW was ranked #1. There is no doubt that our focus on process based training has played an important role in achieving this goal. In 2010, 2011 and 2013 we still ranked as # 1 among all car brands in Norway.

During this 5 year contract with ResultatPartner we became #1 on Customer Satisfaction Index 4 times!

Our own internal staff at BMW Group Norway has also attended relevant training courses, and we acknowledge that a large part of the content can easily be forgotten unless it is tailor made for each function, followed up systematically and measured continually.

ResultatPartner’s company brand statement is “Measureable results through Partnership”, and this is not just a typical consultancy buzz-word statement without any real substance. This becomes clear when we see how the training progressively changes people’s mind sets and teaches them to focus on the inner motivators that drive individual performance.

This is achieved by the inspired personality of the trainer in combination with high quality training content, preparation work before each session, homework assignments after each session and detailed reports after each training module.

Improve Performance & Training Systems

And aided by the web based performance measurement system, Improve Performance Systems, our training participants have been well prepared for the formal certification after the final training module. We plan to continue to use ResultatPartner for the training and certification of all BMW and MINI managers and front line staff in Norway.

Ronny A Nilsen has an outstanding rapport with participants at all organizational levels, from owners and directors of our dealerships to junior sales persons and new employees. He is highly respected as the Head Coach, and he is both respected and well liked for his deep understanding of human behavior. We personally recommend ResultatPartner for training and development processes which have an aim to make people excel”. Best regards BMW Management Group.

“I have had the privilege of working closely with Ronny over several years during my tenure as Aftersales Director at BMW Group Norway, and I have developed the highest respect for Ronny as a very professional trainer and coach. He relates easily with people at all levels, has an acute ability to adapt his training and coaching directly to each individual’s personal and professional needs, and he is a great motivator. Using Ronny as a sales and management trainer both at BMW Group Norway and throughout the dealership organization has no doubt been an important contributing factor to BMW Group’s recent success in Norway: Record high sales and consistently high levels of customer satisfaction. I warmly recommend Ronny’s services to anyone who is serious about sustained organizational improvement”.

– John Parrington Hansen. Aftersales Director. Lars Aamodt, Salesdirector.

19Jan

Vizada – Training Academy

About the company

Vizada is a worldwide satellite communications services provider which operates land earth stations that connect satellite communications to terrestrial telecommunications and IP networks. Vizada provides both mobile and fixed satellite telecommunications to a wide array of markets including merchant shipping, defense and government, fishing and yachting, oil & gas, mining, and non-governmental organizations. The product offering covers maritime, land and aeronautical services. In 2011, the Vizada Group was acquired by EADS, to be integrated as a subsidiary of Astrium.Project & results:

Project

In 2012, Vizada Networks was looking for a professional Sales Training course, who could tailor the training course to meet our needs.

Results

ResultatPartner developed the Training content from scratch and in order to gain sustainable, measurable results; we used Improve Performance and Training Systems (IPTS) providing us a personal Sales Skills Profile with individual Training Plan and KPI`s as well as Knowledge Tests after each Training sessions. During the 5 months sales training course, Ronny conducted an excellent training for the entire sales team. Ronny was very inspiring giving examples from real life, as he understood the challenges we were facing within our business. Through his deep understanding of the sales cycle, we received excellent feedback and he and motivated and challenged us to think out of the box with focus on our competitive advantages. I enjoyed the training session and I strongly recommend him in any future sales training program.

Best regards, Stein Bexrud Director Sales & Marketing

19Jan

ATEA Training Academy

About the company

Atea, previously Merkantildata, later Eterra and Ementor, is a Nordic IT infrastructure company. It is headquartered in Oslo, Norway. The company sells, installs, and supports products from Citrix, VMware, Apple, Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Lenovo, IBM and others. As of October 2013, the company employs about 6,666 people and operates in 73 cities in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. From January 1, 2009, the company was named Atea.

Project

The company invested heavily in management buy-outs during (around 150) during the 5 years program of Training challenging employees as well as Partners. This in addition to challenges in the market and distribution channels; former Management Group with current CEO of the Company, Steinar Sønsteby, asked for help in providing a customized Training Academy.ResultatPartner was hired to develop and run Merkantildata Training Academy; a fully customized Training Academy for all leaders and managers in sales and service as well as sales consultants. The Training Program incorporated Partners like HP, Compaq, Ingram Micro.Around 400 people attended in this 6 months Training Period.

Results

Measurable effect and improved results was established on growth and revenue, an increase in sales and customer satisfaction as well as development of improvement in leadership-, sales- and service-skills. Improve Systems was the Training Management Software system used to structure process and secure progress on vital KPI`s and actions.

19Jan

Cisco Training Academy

Cisco Systems

About the company

Cisco is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. At Cisco customers come first and an integral part of our DNA is creating long-lasting customer partnerships and working with them to identify their needs and provide solutions that support their success.The concept of solutions being driven to address specific customer challenges has been with Cisco since its inception. Husband and wife Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, both working for Stanford University, wanted to email each other from their respective offices located in different buildings but were unable to due to technological shortcomings. A technology had to be invented to deal with disparate local area protocols; and as a result of solving their challenge – the multi-protocol router was born.

Project & results

1. Assignment

In early 2003, the business is not as it should be. Order intake in Norway was slightly declining, and customer and employee – satisfaction was lower in Norway than in other countries in Northern Europe. The management group was relatively new and had a need to get better acquainted with each other. We also needed to create a common vision and strategy for operations in Norway, built on common values – to create new engagement and bring business back to growth. We committed ResultatPartner to assist us with the process of developing the management team and strategy for the company. ResultatPartner talked us through the process and they managed to challenge us.

2. Results

Based on a new and thorough SWOT analysis , a new leadership definition and new team values established an ambition to double the order intake during the three years and to reach the highest customer satisfaction and the highest employee satisfaction for Cisco in Northern Europe. We established goals and action plans for the Norwegian organization. We broke down the goals of the individual departments and individual employees. In this way, each employee’s contributions and responsibilities was crystal clear to everyone. Our values; Open communication, Respect and Responsibility, were our tools to work our way forward towards our new goals. The results were that we more than doubled new orders during the first three years. In addition, we achieved our targets for both customer and employee satisfaction. Cisco Norway was the best country in northern Europe on both customer and employee satisfaction, and we achieved the highest productivity and profitability in Northern Europe.

3. Success factors – why it succeeded

There were several reasons for our success. The timing was good for the market. We quickly got a strong and very well coordinated team with a high degree of internal confidence. This was evident in surveys of employee satisfaction, and in 360 degree evaluations of our leaders. We managed to involve and engage employees to help us solve the challenges, for example in turning employee satisfaction among women from being lower to be higher than among men. We moved all the leaders out of their offices and into the office landscape. This created more open communication and accessibility. We work continuously with clear internal and external communication. In addition, we chose to remove the limitations of course budgets of our system engineers, and rather run with slightly lower staffing. To allow our outstanding specialists to accelerate the development of their market-leading expertise proved to our one redeeming power – which sparked engagement both internally and externally.

We chose ResultatPartner because their CEO, Ronny Nilsen challenged us from the first meeting – and all the way on. He challenged us to reflect, and he challenged us to deliver. It is precisely this ability to challenge that makes me recommend ResultatPartner”. Jørgen Myrland. CEO.