Winterthur Life meets market challenge head‐on: Award‐winning training helps company to achieve record levels of business

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of the paper is to describe the award‐winning training that Winterthur Life provided for its business‐development managers and outline the performance improvements that the training has brought about.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on information provided by the company's sales and regulatory training manager. The paper describes the background to the training initiative, how it was designed and delivered and the results it helped to achieve.

Findings

The paper shows that, historically, training for business‐development managers has tended to be “one off” selling‐skills events delivered by external training providers. These tended to be expensive, with little evaluated outcome. As a result of systematic training‐needs analysis and the implementation of individual development plans, Winterthur Life now has a highly successful group of motivated and business‐mature business‐development managers whose skills are aligned to market needs.

Originality/value

The paper demonstrates that the training was a collaborative effort between training and sales management. Common goals were translated into training objectives and then to changes in behavior.

Citation

(2006), "Winterthur Life meets market challenge head‐on: Award‐winning training helps company to achieve record levels of business", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 5-7. https://doi.org/10.1108/09670730610656833