Elearning! August - September

2013

Elearning! Magazine: Building Smarter Companies via Learning & Workplace Technologies.

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only on training impact and needs, but on specific competencies and their impact on sales performance. This stuff gets pretty addictive. Results We've seen a myriad of benefts from datadriven decision-making. First, learning is clearly linked to business goals. Sales Ops, managers and Cloud Talent Success had all used diferent metrics to measure success and guide skills development eforts. Our analytics helped all teams to collaboratively focus on one set of metrics. Learning is tied to key performance indicators (KPIs). Data analysis identifying lead indicators of sales success drove development of KPIs and, in turn, learning initiatives. Second, the business results are irrefutable. Course-specifc metrics and beforeand-afer sales performance tracking have proven learning efectiveness over four quarters, Q2 2012 to Q2 2013. Ofen dramatically, we've increased all critical KPIs, including deal size, number of opportunities, number of deals won, and win ratio. Attendees of "Sales Coaching for Managers" helped their teams improve value of opportunities created by 69% and value of deals won by 107%. Significant onboarding improvements were noted. Thanks to both new and revamped learning programs based on data and analysis, our 275 new hires in 2012 significantly out-performed 2011 peers in pipeline quantity and quality and nearly halved time to quota. Attrition dropped 80%. MORE FUNDING, MORE CLOUT Extraordinary business impact results for our clients is the best possible outcome, but more funding, resources, scope and clout are very nice, too. As a result of our frstyear eforts, we saw: • Improved Training Participation and Compliance: Training time ofen loses out to feld time. Measurable business impact has helped reverse attitudes and increase compliance scores. • Increased Learning Frequency: When analysis indicated that completing "Sales New Hire Boot Camp" within 30 days of hire improves opportunity Pictured: Jenny Dearborn and the Cloud Talent Success team Shifing the conversation from execution to advisory is hard and requires all hands on deck. creation and closure, course frequency was increased from quarterly (to drive economies of scale) to monthly (to ensure sales success), yielding a significantly higher financial return over one year: millions more in revenue versus $80,000 in additional costs. • Budgets Protected: Business impact analysis helped persuade Sales Department leaders to continue U.S. and global training allocations despite a Q4 2012 company-wide travel freeze. TRUE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP Our team stepped up as strategic advisors by presenting undisputable data analysis on the top sales success drivers, top capability gaps by geography and segment, and what initiatives could close the gaps. As a result, Cloud Talent Success has developed a roadmap for the entire sales enablement community, and Sales Department leadership has assigned a business operations program manager to actualize these recommendations. Attitudes toward training throughout the company have shifed. EVERYONE ON BOARD Shifing the conversation as a learning staf from execution to advisory is hard and requires all hands on deck. Everyone on the team has to get oriented to having business partner conversations. I empower my team by delegating authority early and ofen, so they can build credibility through their business client relationships. I need everybody to be engaged and contributing to our success, and I have the best team in the world doing just that. —Jenny Dearborn is chief learning ofcer and vice president of Cloud Talent Success, SuccessFactors, an SAP Company. Tis is her third company in the chief learning offcer role. Follow her on Twitter: @DearbornJenny or visit her learning blog at the URL: http://bit.ly/JennysTravels. Elearning! August / September 2013 17

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