Smith & Nephew Orthopaedics in Switzerland rethought its sales process in 2009 following the introduction of the flat rate per case in Germany. In addition to product training for sales staff, commercial training was now also to be offered. The current HR interim manager was in charge of this project as part of a permanent position. She was tasked with designing this commercial academy and implementing it in collaboration with the American parent company.
The work focused primarily on the following strategic elements:
- Defining the required commercial competencies
- Translating the competencies into learning content
- Designing and implementing a commercial curriculum in cooperation with America
Initiating cultural change
The particular challenge was to introduce the concept of selling to the employees in charge of sales, as their self-definition was more that of an operations wizard. As a result, a cultural change had to be initiated, whereby employees had to be picked up by their values in order to dedicate themselves to the process of selling with the same enthusiasm as that of assisting.
The result was a fully implemented Sales Academy in Europe, coordinated with the Sales Academy in America, which had also been redesigned. The current interim manager ensured that the potential synergies were fully exploited. At the same time, she ensured that the necessary differences were retained. This is because sales in Europe are different to those in America due to the extremely different healthcare systems.
