Increased Sales Effectiveness at COLT Telecom
Background
The telecommunications industry is undergoing rapid and far reaching change. The importance of traditional voice products and services has been superceded by the demand for increased data lines and the management of data.
As there are many telecommunications companies that can offer ‘increased bandwidth’ to support data transmission, so the market has quickly become commoditised.
The challenge
Competing on price alone was not an option for COLT Telecom. Instead the company has sought to develop new value-adding data solutions as well as leveraging its position as a provider of managed services. To support this positioning, the company has strengthened its customer relationships and taken a more strategic approach to sales. This has created the challenge of moving the international sales teams from a transactional to a consultative selling style.
“Our clients are facing increasingly demanding and complex market circumstances. It is key that our sales staff recognise these challenges and can support our clients to gain true competitive advantage through the use of our services”. Terry Quigley, Head of Sector Marketing, COLT Telecom
Morgan Clarke’s approach
Morgan Clarke designed a bespoke business simulation to allow the COLT Telecom sales teams to explore and understand the challenges and issues faced by their clients.
For the group servicing the Banking and Financial sector we designed a business simulation that gave participants:
- an introduction to key banking and finance sector concepts and terminology;
- an insight in to how COLT Telecom’s data products offer differential advantage within the finance sector; and
- a hands-on competitive and fun experience of making strategic decisions that affected their company’s performance.
Achievements
As well as building the bespoke business simulation, Morgan Clarke ran active learning workshops to reinforce the behavioural changes needed in the sales teams.
“The Morgan Clarke approach has energised and engaged our staff in the behaviours that will support our move to consultative selling. The approach is quite unlike any of our other training sessions; the highly hands-on and competitive nature of the simulation is really appreciated by our staff”. Terry Quigley, Head of Sector Marketing, COLT Telecom
As an additional benefit, Morgan Clarke will train the client’s trainers to run the business simulation and deliver the workshops for their sales teams, thereby transferring knowledge to the client. The client’s feedback also included a recognition of the following benefits:
- Evidence of participants using their new knowledge with their customers.
- Move from transactional to a more consultative selling style.
- Standardisation of the sales process required to communicate with the Financial Services market.
If you face a similar challenge, contact Mark Burley on + 44 (0)1306 621600 or email him at mark.burley@morgan-clarke.co.uk