Creating better results through better culture
Our client and their needs
The client is one of the major international manufacturers of products and systems for building coatings. Its business focuses first and foremost on external wall insulation systems, a sector in which the company occupies a leading position. Included in the facade systems product group are render and paint systems for external applications.
We were contacted by the manager of North Europe division (including Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). The company is financially solid and has yielded a profit every year. However, the results still failed to reflect the potential in the market. The new manager of the region was implementing a new strategy and sought a partner who could help to improve the culture for change within the company.
Our design and delivery
All change and culture starts with management. We held a workshop with the top management team to see how the new strategy should be implemented in the organisation. Based on the results of this session, we decided to run a management training with Insights Discovery. We started with a pilot group in the region’s main country and subsequently rolled out the management training in all of the remaining countries in the region.
The focus of the management training sessions was to create a culture of praise and have the courage to challenge each other. We wanted to make heroes!
The next step was to train the sales team. Within the company, there were two different sales approaches: one team selling projects and the other meeting the customers in company’s shops all over the region. In light of this, we carried out project sales training for the whole region and sales training for all the sales staff working in the shops.
Up until now all sales staff concentrated on the product and its technical features. Like with the management training, the objective of the sales training was to change the focus to make heroes. To see the customer as a human being, listen to them and focus on their needs and how we can meet them.
Our results and their impact
The results were immediately noticeable in many ways. Even during the pilot roll-out in the region’s major country, we already saw a change in culture within the management group, and the rest of the countries followed suit.
This was an important success criteria when the sales and project sales training courses were rolled out.
The financial results also started to improve before we had even rolled out the sales training. This once again proves the effect that culture can have within management groups.
After the roll-out of the sales training, other regional branches of the company have their gaze firmly fixed northwards!
Austria
