MCI is one of the world’s largest, truly global, telecommunications providers offering services/products within three families - Voice, Data and IP. They are currently undertaking a major transformation in the way that they work and refocusing the skills of their retail sales force is one of their key objectives. To gain a clear understanding of the existing skills of their sales teams they chose to run a programme of development centres across Europe with a view to identifying strengths and potential skill gaps of their new and existing sales people. SHL has supported MCI with the design and implementation of this programme through job analysis, centre design (including bespoke exercises), translation of the assessor manuals into 8 European languages, assessor training for MCI managers and delivery of centres (including report writing).
The background
MCI is the emerging company rising from the ashes of Worldcom who were in “Chapter 11” on the verge of bankruptcy. MCI needed to drastically refocus and re-energise their sales force in order to maintain and increase customer confidence. Their business required a new approach – solutions selling and relationship management, not transactional product sales.
Existing staff needed to develop their skills set from those used to selling simple business telephony services to learning how to help solve complex business challenges using data and IP communications solutions. They needed to learn how to talk the language of their customer’s business and propose a more rounded solution to meet the needs of these customers.
The solution
MCI approached SHL to find out what applications they could use to best effect within a structured assessment solution that could be used across the world. SHL helped to design a diagnostic development centre for use across 10 countries across Western Europe. The project involved SHL support in each of these countries and the entire project was completed successfully in just 5 months.
SHL recommended a step-by-step approach:
Step 1
First of all, SHL and MCI worked together to identify the skills and competencies needed for the future sales process.
Step 2
Then we designed a one-day diagnostic development centre for Sales Managers and Account Managers to include:
The development centres were designed exclusively for MCI, taking into account the specific requirements for the new-style sales person.
Step 3
Finally, we managed the cascade of the development centres in 10 countries – first directors went through, then Sales managers, then account managers – and we helped to train MCI assessors to help manage the centres. In total, SHL and MCI, working together, managed 10 centres for 85 Sales Leaders and 47 centres for 505 participants in 10 countries (UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Denmark and The Netherlands).
Afterwards SHL managed the feedback stage and put in a structure for monitoring performance against the competencies we had defined.
The results
In just 5 months, MCI had established a framework for selecting sales people equipped with the right skills to support MCI’s new business model.
- They now have a clear handle on strengths and weaknesses at an individual level and each has a personal development plan
- The development plans and competency improvement are now tracked via an on-line competency tool
- At an organisation level – by country and by line of business – they have a good map of development needs
- A skills and knowledge toolkit is now in place to support the individual and in-country development plans. The delivery mechanism is a combination of Classroom training, coaching, net conferences and a Learning Resource Library is in development.
- Some Sales Directors are now going through a program of Executive Coaching
- They now have the tools to manage exits and new recruitment cost effectively and speedily.
We were also able to validate assessment centre results with job performance and we found a good correlation, so MCI is using the centre activities to help selection for future hires.
“It was the biggest, single, pan-European Training and Development programme we had ever undertaken at MCI”, said Clive Curtis, Director of EMEA Sales Programmes and Development at MCI. “We asked SHL to work with ‘outrageous urgency’ and they did it.”
The bottom line
This project was a wholesale transformation program for MCI. In just 5 months they had given every single retail salesperson in Europe a better understanding of their own abilities and an action plan that would enable them to transform themselves into a more powerful, skilled workforce capable of better understanding customer business issues and working in an environment of converged voice and data technologies. And they now have a robust and flexible system for identifying skills and structuring development for MCI sales professionals that could be used anywhere in the world.