Essay MGMT3002: Konica Minolta Sales Training – Management Assignment Help

Assignment Task:

The company is Konica Minolta Business Solutions. The project is to deliver credible, scalable sales training for employees. The employees have quite varied levels of experience and are also at different levels of responsibility within the organisation. They operate in different states and sell into different markets. The training will be developed and implemented by an HR team who are not salespeople. 

Brief Introduction to the Company.

Konica Minolta is a technology company in the process of transformation from a traditional hardware and service business to a hardware, service and professional services business. The company has around 500 full time employees as well as contract and temporary staff. It is primarily a professional workforce made of up a sales force, service technicians and support functions. Support functions include IT, HRM and marketing teams. In Australia, the business has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth.

Background to the Project

Konica Minolta, like many businesses, as had a dedicated learning and development function within the business at various times. Learning and Development was managed out of the HR team with a dedicated resource as well as through the employment of external trainers on a contract basis. Around 2-3 years ago, a decision was made to realign learning and development so that the responsibility was held by line managers.

Over time, and particularly within the sales teams, learning and development has become somewhat fragmented and inconsistent across the business. Sales managers are responsible for training and developing their teams, with mixed results.

As a result, the decision has been made to re-establish a dedicated L & D resource within the HR team. The desired outcome is to apply a consistent, targeted and outcome-oriented sales training program across the business to set our account managers up for success. The program will be distinct from other L & D programs in the business which are predominately conducted outside the HR team and on an ad hoc basis.

Your project brief is to advice Konica Minolta on the design of this Training Program for sales staff.

Your recommendations should include an idea of the content. In terms of this, the program should be underpinned by a sales methodology and reasons given why your group would support teaching a particular sales methodology, or it could be a combination of methodologies

Students should consider the method of delivery for a regionally diverse and time poor workforce, and, most importantly, how the program establishes credibility to ensure adoption and engagement. The course would be run at any time but at least twice a year. 

L & D staff can travel to different offices but must be mindful of expenditure. Sales managers should be particularly comfortable with the content of the program so they are able to reinforce learning among their staff on an ongoing basis. 

It is envisioned that the course would be face-to-face delivery supported by a scalable component that supports the main content. This could include online learning, train-the-trainer type delivery, or coaching or etc. The HR staff have access to an online learning system. In addition to reasonable travel constraints for HR staff, another resource constraint is that the program must be designed for in-house delivery by HR staff.