CUSTOMER-ORIENTED EMPLOYEES - A LONG-TERM INVESTMENT
09 January 2001 - NNE A/S

Development, challenge and training. Three keywords which link the consultancy firm NNE with Time/system & Innovator. The experienced consultant must learn to sell, and Time/system & Innovator helps private companies with development and training. The two parties have therefore come together in a constructive cooperation under the title 'The Customer-oriented Employee'.

'Many companies make the mistake of not training their staff to meet new demands. The reason is often that they are too busy or they don't have the money.' Like everyone else, Jan Torben Christensen, who is responsible for marketing at Novo Nordisk Engineering A/S, is all too familiar with this business problem. However, he prioritizes training above time and money.

Within the next 3-5 years, the firm will optimize its external customer sales and, busy though the employees may be, it is of paramount importance to equip them for future challenges. A realization which quickly permeated the otherwise extremely experienced consultancy firm, because in future the employees will be going out and selling their expertise to firms in the biotechnological and pharmaceutical industry other than Novo Nordisk A/S, both Danish and foreign. This will make new demands and require new skills.

Novo Nordisk Engineering A/S has 75 years experience as an in-house engineering consultant to Novo Nordisk A/S. In 1991 the firm converted to an independent subsidiary and, although the consultancy firm will continue to be an important part of the Group, its vision for the future is to sell its services outside Novo. It is here that Time/system & Innovator comes into the picture. As the sparring partner, it will prepare employees to sell to customers with profiles other than those they have known for 75 years. The training is also an essential tool which can optimize the sales process by improving the employees' ability to understand a sales situation and gear its communication to the customer, the very core of the investment.

The choice of Time/system & Innovator is not chance. Novo Nordisk Engineering A/S was well aware of the type of training partner which should and could be its sparring partner in the training process. The decisive argument for choosing Innovator was that they could offer a company-tailored course which differentiates follow-up training at various levels in the organization.

Initially, Innovator focused on the fact that this was not about turning highly-trained engineers into sellers, but rather equipping them to present their expertise with new force and certainty. Hence it was also crucial that no one in the organization was forgotten. The development and the challenges which the firm will face require that the department management's attitude and behaviour towards new customer relations rub off on its staff. And the new sales situation requires that all employees, from administrative to academic staff, must think differently about customers.

All employees have therefore undergone, or are in the process of undergoing, a tailored course based on their position and working needs. The course itself addresses three different target groups. The first is the engineers with responsibility for customers, who must have the tools to understand and conduct themselves in negotiating and presentation situations and have insight into the psychological side of sales work. These are tools which can be crucial in winning out over competitors. The second group is the department managers. Their most important task is to ensure that employees are successful in their daily work, which requires that the managers are able to train their staff to have a more customer-oriented behaviour and attitude.

The final group is the largest, the general staff. The employee course has been given the title 'Kick Off', where the word 'KICK' stands for: Kunder [customers], Indsats [contribution] and Kvalitet [quality]; the C stands for the managers' daily training [coaching]. This course emphasizes voice training, body language and questioning and listening techniques, which are important tools because together they help to create trust between seller and customer.

Charlotte Enghave, a specialist with Novo Nordisk Engineering A/S, is responsible for the cooperation with Innovator and she is in no doubt about the success criteria for the sales training: thorough and purposeful planning. Both firms have taken time to assess what the courses should include to make them relevant for all employees, an investment which has certainly needed resources, but which is already reaping rewards in the form of positive feedback from a 'well-equipped' staff.

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