Oriflame started an internal management development programme “Oriflame Academy” for all of its managers in 2006 with a first phase called “Oriflame Way”. The Oriflame Way is a training concept to support and strengthen Oriflame’s culture, values and principles. Krauthammer was chosen by Oriflame as partner for the Academy Step II named “Team Leadership training” aiming at supporting Oriflame’s objective to deepen the top 450 managers’ skills in the field of management, leadership, coaching/feedback and the core business processes.
Core statement
As a coaching, consulting and training company, we respond to client needs worldwide where strategic changes or operational improvements demand behaviour change at individual, team and corporate levels.
It is easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way to a new way of acting.
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Manufacturing
Improve sales effectiveness with a common language and renewed confidence
In order to drive profitable growth and succeed, developing the Nestlé Professional’s sales force was seen as the key in reaching that goal. Sales effectiveness has become ever more challenging due to an increasingly competitive environment with unfavourable market conditions. The need to raise the game to meet those challenges, and also to address some shortcomings identified in a number of reviews, prompted the Nestlé Professional organisation in the Netherlands to launch a development programme to revitalise the necessary capabilities to win in the market, and to restore the pride and self-confidence of the sales force.
Global training programme's in more than a dozen languages and locations
In response to strong international growth, SFS intec wanted to change the behaviour of its people and improve the effectiveness of its international sales staff. After inviting two companies to bid, Krauthammer was awarded the opportunity to develop a truly global training programme. Its global network of offices and local trainers was an important winning factor.
Krauthammer designed a two-day programme on effective communication and presentation skills and, working with a team of 16 trainers, delivered the programme in 14 locations. The training generated so much buzz that colleagues from other divisions were soon invited to join. Ultimately, some 850 staff were trained over a two-year period.
From pumps to people in a unified culture
ERIKS Germany approached Krauthammer with a request to help create a sense of unity. ERIKS owned 12 companies of between 25 and 250 staff, mainly former family-run businesses in Germany. After being acquired, each business retained its own brand, corporate culture and organizational structure. An initial dialogue with the two board members explored the pitfalls and benefits of the existing brand structure and cultures. This led ERIKS to formulate the desire to define a single company culture based on clear, actionable values and principles. Krauthammer proposed a top-down approach that would achieve this goal in three to five years.
(Self-) Leadership for Crucial Customer Service Reps
Mondi Business Paper became aware of the need to help its Customer Service Department deal more effectively with internal and external clients. Based on the company's previous experience with Krauthammer in the Netherlands, Mondi hired the company for this important, Europe-wide project.
Customer Service (CS) staff faced two challenges. Firstly, they mainly deal with customer complaints, which have a major impact on repeat business. Secondly, they are part of the Logistics Department – which deals with deliveries – and not the Sales Department, which makes arrangements that the complaints often relate to.
Consultative selling for professionals
DSM Elastomers decided to invest in the sales skills of its account managers and technical support people, who are a vital link between clients and production. Krauthammer was invited to design and deliver a training programme. The training consisted of three components: the sales process and the ability of individuals to influence it; preparing and managing an effective sales meeting; and consultative account management.
Helping saving DSM Purchasing €2 million a year
DSM launched its Strategic Sourcing Method (SSM), a new approach to purchasing that was designed to help purchasing staff realize additional savings of €2 million per year. Krauthammer was asked to support the implementation of SSM. Seeing the complementarity of Krauthammer's training-consulting approach, DSM opted for a programme which taught both negotiation and project management skills. Krauthammer subsequently developed a behaviour-based negotiation training, while Krauthammer Consulting created a knowledge-based project management training.
Personal effectiveness for challenging DSM experts
DSM decided to invest in the personal effectiveness of its SHE&M staff and invited Krauthammer to do the job. Krauthammer quickly realised it faced two challenges to its ability to deliver an effective training.
The first challenge was that the participants were very critical to the training. They were respected experts in their field, often working as high-level consultants or university lecturers. Many had attended several behavioural training programmes and felt weary after a number of reorganisations.
A second challenge was that two groups of participants were involved, one from DSM corporate headquarters and one from the office in Delft, which was acquired from a different company a few years ago. There were clear cultural differences between the two groups.
Walk the Talk
For a global company to have all individuals pulling and even pushing the same way, it takes common values. How else can employees know how to behave in critical situations? However, to be successful in values-driven leadership requires that these values are more than the management team’s ambitions printed on a sheet of paper. In order for the values to have a practical relevance in StoraEnso, it was seen critical that all senior managers develop their own leadership style in line with the Values. The project to secure this was named Walk-the-Talk, thereby underling the importance of senior managers also practicing what they preach, thus being role models for the defined company culture.
Building a Sales Academy at a global wood products leader
As part of wider efforts to create a more performance-oriented culture, StoraEnso decided to improve the sales capabilities of StoraEnso Timber, a wood products division with sales of around €1.5 billion. Krauthammer was brought on board, after it had successfully delivered training programmes for StoraEnso in the past. Krauthammer began to design what would be known as the StoraEnso Sales Academy. The Academy intended to provide training programmes to Sales Managers and Market Area Directors worldwide. These programmes would create a common sales language, improve sales capabilities and offer valuable development opportunities.
Changing processes through people
An IT company, which was on one of the world’s largest software providers for network environment, had recently acquired a string of niche players to complement the services portfolio. While these smaller companies held strong positions in their individual market segments, it now required a transition for all the sales employees not only to sell from a broader portfolio, but also to reposition themselves from product seller, to solution providers.
Improving sales performance
Known for its superior quality and service, our client was used to make enough profit just by reacting on the clients’ demand. With the competition’s quality rapidly closing in, the distinctive character of its products and service diminished, while price became increasingly important. No longer did it have the luxury of clients calling them. This, in combination with the economic crisis, placed a serious strain on the profitability.
To create a turnaround, our client needed to create a more progressive sales culture and develop best practices.
Lifting the effectiveness of a forklift business
Our client specialises in the sales, repair and maintenance of forklift trucks. The company operates in Belgium and the Netherlands. Our client enjoyed remarkable sales growth, outperforming both the market and its competitors. However, the bottom line financial results didn’t improve accordingly. Therefore, the challenge for the sales department was to further increase the number of trucks sold per year, and at the same time increase the profit per truck sold. To stimulate uniformity between the Dutch and Belgian offices, Krauthammer established two cross-country action teams (Service and Sales).
Sales excellence at Pitney Bowes Management Services
Located at various sites throughout the UK, Scotland and the republic of Ireland, Pitney Bowes Management Services (PBMS) are specialists in the entire document management lifecycle. For the past three years, PBMS has been faced with declining revenues and rising costs. Although PBMS initiated a number of successful cost saving initiatives, these have been insufficient to counter the decline in revenue, due largely to a lack of net new clients. Krauthammer worked with PBMS on two major themes...
Developing a sustainable direct selling model
Our client is one of Europe’s leading providers of cosmetics to the end consumer market, focusing on the use of natural products in their recipe bases. The business has grown dramatically over the past few years. As is traditional in these markets the selling method is through direct selling, utilising the networks of each of the employees. Despite impressive growth, the management team believed that fundamental questions needed to be answered in order to understand how they could foster an enduring sales process.
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