Volvo CE selects TopClass for e-Learning

Dateline: 1 July 2003

WBT Systems, one of the leading providers of Enterprise e-Learning solutions, today announced that Volvo Construction Equipment (CE), one of the largest providers of construction equipment in the world, has selected TopClass as their global e-Learning solution, to provide sales, service and product training to their worldwide dealer network. Volvo CE chose TopClass as their preferred e-Learning solution following a successful pilot during which over 10,000 training courses were delivered to 1,000 learners around the world.

The initial results from the programme are very impressive, showing dealers who received training on TopClass as well as a hands-on session increased their market share by over 30%. In addition, the response to TopClass has been exceedingly positive from the dealer network, with learners giving the solution 89% for ease of understanding and 91% for relevancy to their job. Over 60% of students gave TopClass 100% for relevancy. In the US, all new sales people and approximately 70% of the total retail sales staff are currently taking the training, which lasts on average six months. In addition to the dealer network, the new system is also being rolled out internally within Volvo CE to over 400 sales and marketing staff for regular sales and marketing product training.

“Sales training has always been a key priority for Volvo CE and our objective was to get the training to the right people and radically reduce the cost of training a new sales person. Using TopClass we were able to do this,” said George Lilly, VP Marketing, Volvo CE. “In addition, the relevancy and ease of understanding scores have really impressed us – 100% relevancy from 60% of the learners is something I had never seen before. But the most important statistic is the 30% increase in market share for the dealers who received the web-based and hands-on training. By providing the dealers with relevant, easy to understand training, we have increased their knowledge of our product range and freed up their time to spend more time selling – making a material impact on their market share.”

Volvo CE had found that it was becoming increasingly difficult to get the right people to attend training in central locations due to time and cost constraints. An important driver was to consolidate product training into one system, providing a uniform learning solution. The solution, called QuickTrack, targeted new sales training and the objective was to quickly get new hires comfortable with selling by using 30 hours of on-line training. Using TopClass, Volvo CE, was able to reduce introductory training time from a three-day instructor led training course to a three-hour online course for each of their seven product lines.

“The results speak for themselves, we are delighted with the impact that TopClass has had on Volvo CE’s business, enabling them to deliver training in a way that saves dealers time and money, while increasing their knowledge of the product lines,” said Declan Kelly, CEO, WBT Systems. “Our proven bottom-up implementation approach, which was part of Volvo CE’s pilot, is based on a phased investment plan that initially focuses on key hot spots where we can deliver substantial value and implement a solution quickly for maximum impact within the organisation.”

Using TopClass, Volvo CE is in the process of developing localised versions of the QuickTrack training in German, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, and French. In addition, they are developing ProTrack, a series of training modules targeted for existing sales people, including a short introduction course to the product range and advanced training (including technical details, negotiating skills and sales training).

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