THE CHALLENGE
100 MARKETS – ONE CHALLENGE
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?
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. For Sales to evolve, teams needed to be trained to think from an entirely different perspective.
“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, Global Head ABB
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
For a training program to be successful it has to be engaging – it has to inspire trainees with practical skills that keep them coming back, eager to learn. By providing content that was exactly aligned with the recipients’ real-world roles, Mercuri helped ABB to generate a genuine sense of progress and accomplishment – sales teams could actively see and feel the benefit of the new skills they were acquiring.
“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, Global Head ABB
