Co-Sourced Training delivered in partnership

The Prudential set highly ambitious objectives in its strategy. Meeting the targets would require changes throughout the company. Learning and Development senior managers recognised that to change performance sufficiently would require a bold approach.

^“Having started the course as a non-believer, I have put [the learnings] into practice… and have seen the results.^”

The strategy called for the highest level of sales expertise to create a unified sales philosophy across all the company’s divisions and channels to market. Prudential wanted to set the standard for their sector and that meant learning from other industries.

A sales training partner was sought And following a comprehensive tender process, Blue Sky were selected as the consultancy that would offer the highest level of expertise and experience as the sales training partner. In addition, Blue Sky stood out “because they showed that they genuinely cared.”

The cost of training has reduced from £11 million to £6.2 million.

The key to the success of the partnership has centred around the relationships built between the Prudential and Blue Sky team. The brief was to become ‘part of the Learning and Development team’, maintaining and raising the profile of the function. Initially there was a lot to prove: the business was comfortable with the personalities and approaches they knew and Blue Sky needed to build credibility both for themselves and the training partnership concept.

Building on the success of the early projects, the demand from the business has grown significantly. Tom Lyttle, the Resource and Planning Manager for the Prudential has been a key figure in managing the relationship and feels strongly that the decision to appoint Blue Sky was the right one: “the standard of consultant has been fantastic and the service levels and response times have been superb”.

Three years on, and Blue Sky has now delivered over 80 projects for the Prudential across all channels, encompassing over 2000 diagnostic, design and training days including induction training, regulatory upskilling, a ‘Customer Empathy’ programme delivered in Mumbai, India, and developing senior management in the B2B sales force in Key Account Management strategies and Sales Management skills.

Changes in performance have been highly positive across the board – one New Schemes Sales Manager stated that: “Having started the course as a non-believer, I have put [the learnings] into practice …. and have seen the results.” Taking a business-led approach, Blue Sky have not only been training partners, but have influenced new strategies and management processes.

As Blue Sky continue to deliver programmes across the business and the group in the UK and overseas, the benefits of this investment to Prudential are clear.

This partnership approach to training has delivered benefits in a number of ways:

1. Reducing costs – The cost of training has reduced from £11m to £6.2m (a 47% cost saving).
2. Increasing performance – There has been significant performance improvements in a number of different business areas. For example, one project focusing on customer retention and lead generation achieved a £24 million saving.
3. The business is receiving targeted expertise and experience in an on-demand manner
4. The Learning & Development team at Prudential retain control and visibility of ‘who, what and how much’. This allows them to focus on the things that so often don’t get done.

The demonstrable results and continuous improvement that the team can now proactively deliver is testament to the courage of their investment and the success that a true partnership approach can achieve.