With the difficulty of achieving sustainable growth in challenging market conditions set to continue for the foreseeable future, FMCG suppliers are being urged to remain committed to the training and development of their commercial teams and to ensure they embed and leverage the capabilities learnt to deliver impact on their bottom line.
Bridgethorne Training Academy, which delivers Key Account Management, Category and Shopper capability development programmes, cites research that more than half of organisations fail to measure the impact of their training investment and less than one in 14 measure the commercial or wider business results of training. Combine this with recent Nielsen research that showed volume growth in the UK grocery sector remaining weak as potential reasons why investment in training and development is under pressure.
“We’re living in challenging economic times at the moment and every pound spent has to deliver for businesses and this includes training and development budgets that have to work as hard as possible,” explains Paul Weiss, Bridgethorne Training Academy’s Director of Capability Development.
“Companies should look to adopt a more joined-up approach to training and development that addresses the specific needs of their business. Most companies are doing some form of training: some of it is good, some of it less so. But more often than not the individual elements of the training and development are generic, and frequently delivered in silo activities and not part of a co-ordinated company-specific approach for success.”
Mr Weiss adds, if companies fail to create and action a specific plan to embed it and leverage the target skills across the company, including a process for measuring improved competence and return on investment, then capability development will, understandably be considered a cost rather than an investment. Despite this being the biggest challenge in capability development, very few businesses set tangible goals and actively track against them.
“Embedding and leveraging the capability is where the real return is for businesses. Great training must convert to behavioural change to impact on the bottom line,” he continues.
“Senior Leaders and Line Managers must be aligned to the objectives of any capability development programme, and be fully engaged in their critical roles to embed and leverage targeted capability. Similarly, participants need support and direction to ensure that what they have learnt is applied successfully for the benefit of the business as well as themselves.”
Bridgethorne Training Academy delivers interactive, practical training and development based on real-life scenarios, run using proven techniques by experienced practitioners and trainers, which can be applied immediately in a business, to build both individual and organisational capability.