Sales Force Training Case Study: Manulife & Viettel
Sales Force Training Case Study: Manulife & Viettel
DANANG
CONTENTS
1.2.2 Growth..................................................................................................................................3
1.3.1 Definition..............................................................................................................................4
1.3.2 Classification........................................................................................................................5
1.6.6 Technology...........................................................................................................................9
COMPANY........................................................................................................................................10
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2.2.1 Overview............................................................................................................................10
2.2.4 Solutions.............................................................................................................................19
2.3.1 Company.............................................................................................................................22
2.3.4 Solutions.............................................................................................................................29
2.4 CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................31
REFERENCES....................................................................................................................................32
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- Sale is a transaction between two or more parties, usually a buyer and a seller, in
- In financial markets, sale is an agreement between a buyer and a seller for the price of
a security and delivery of the security to the buyer in exchange for an agreed amount
of compensation
- If the item or service in question is delivered by one party to the other party without
The sales department can be seen as the backbone of an organization. This is because the
sales department helps to bridge the gap between a business, brand, product or service and
their customers or customers. Realistically speaking, sales people generate revenue when
they sell a product or service. That allows a company to pay a lot of expenses and keep
growing. As it grows, it can attract more talent, reach new markets and generate even more
revenue thanks to its sales team. That's exactly why sales are key. If you put sales out of the
equation, it's pretty safe to say that everything else will fall apart. In any organization, the
sales department plays a pivotal role in the success of the business. The unique and important
role of sales is to bridge the gap between a prospect's needs and the products/services the
organization offers that can meet their needs. Here are some of the key ways sales impact an
organization's success
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As mentioned before, salespeople close the gap between customer needs and needs. and
products/services that meet that need. Typically, salespeople are dealing with potential
customers who already have an awareness of the company through marketing and advertising
efforts, and it is the salesperson's job to close the deal with a sales pitch. how to introduce
Take, for example, car sales. You usually go to a car dealership knowing that you are looking
for a car. The car salesperson will often ask you questions about your personal life including
family size, typical daily routine, etc. to get a clear idea of what you will be using the car for.
They can then provide information on the various vehicles in the dealer's range that suit your
needs and guide you to make an informed decision about which vehicle is right for you.
Because salespeople interact directly with potential customers, they have the advantage of
being able to gather personal knowledge that will assist them in delivering pitches and
tailoring services accordingly. suitable for their audience. This is often an attractive aspect for
customers, as they can see the salesperson as an expert, which builds credibility and therefore
trust.
1.2.2 Growth
BusinessSales plays an important role in building loyalty and trust between customers and
businesses. Trust and loyalty are the main reasons why customers choose to recommend your
company to a friend or family member or write a great review of your product or service
online.
Recommendations and reviews are always valued by potential customers and customers
because they come from a third party and the perception that reviews and recommendations
are independent of the seller and therefore more reputable. In the digital age, they are
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extremely influential, due to the reach and power of social networks and online media. In
sales interactions, encouraging customers to refer friends or give positive feedback can have
Sales is a personal interaction between one person and another, a powerful one. Never
underestimate the personal connection between the two and its potential impact on your
brand reputation.
Excellent salespeople are the ones who not only make a sale but make a lasting impact on the
One of the keys to retaining customers through sales is implementing sales tracking activities.
Setting up after-sales calls or meetings is a great way to maintain and build a positive
experience with the product or service. If a customer has a complaint or problem, it can be
resolved quickly and professionally. Usually, unhappy customers won't complain, they'll
simply transfer their customization to another provider and won't recommend your service or
product to anyone else. Retaining customers is more cost-effective than winning new ones, so
→ In summary, the power of sales for the continued success of an organization cannot be
underestimated. Leverage the impact sales can have, not only on revenue but also on brand
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1.3.1 Definition
Sales force training is the process of helping the sales force understand its rights and
obligations, adapt to the working environment, and be equipped with about the knowledge
and skills required for the position and sales job they hold.
Sales force training plays an important role in sales management activities in general. Not
only to increase knowledge/skills for sales staff, but also to help develop the ability to work
as well as build a positive working attitude of sales staff. This is a way to help customers'
employees adapt to the working environment and be equipped with the ability to work to
bring income for themselves, benefits for customers and profits for the business.
1.3.2 Classification
Sales force training programs can be divided into two categories, according to the object of
training: newly recruited salespeople and existing sales staff of the enterprise.
- For the training program for new sales staff, which is usually carried out right after
the selection, to equip them with basic knowledge and skills as well as to form their
positive attitude towards sales work, familiarize yourself with the environment,
colleagues and company, clearly define the duties and powers of sales staff in the
business.
- For the training program for the existing sales force of the enterprise, it is carried out
when:
● There are changes from the customer side such as purchasing characteristics,
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● Due to the deterioration of sales staff, sales staff have bad sales habits, follow
● When entering a new market, establishing a sales area, a new sales branch…
The
A well-trained sales team is the lifeblood of the company and the bridge to customers. Sales
complete the sales goals and plans of the business. In addition, when the working efficiency
of employees is not high or does not meet the requirements of the enterprise, it is also
necessary to conduct retraining. The training content includes product knowledge, sales
The long-term goals of sales training: find effective ways to plan, sell, and serve customers;
Increase profits.
The better trained your salespeople are, the stronger the business will be. Sales force training
is very important in the business because it brings the following long-term benefits: (Long-
Equip them with skills ability to anticipate market changes and customer needs, and they will
seize opportunities. Sales training provides a way to improve skill sets and learn new
strategies and technologies – and all of this can be transferred to the customer base. Training
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can enable a sales team to become a trusted security advisor to a customer - and that can
It is true that about 40% of employees with poor job training leave their positions within the
first year when they cite the lack of training and skills development as the main reason for
leaving their positions, leave the business. For this reason, properly training the sales team
should be a top priority. Every employee needs to be equipped with the skills and tools
needed to succeed if the business wants them to feel confident in their position and increase
sales.
Training helps sales staff to have more skills in communication, closing orders and
Sales training helps the sales force work better, bring more orders or in other words increase
5. Prepare Trainees
6. Trainees motivate
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7. Reinforce Training
8. Evaluate Training
Product Knowledge Not only does it involve knowing the details and information of their
company's products, but customers also often want to know how competitive products are in
terms of price, function, and performance. An important goal in product knowledge training
is to enable salespeople to provide potential customers with the information they need to
make sound decisions. Some benefits for employees when receiving product knowledge
training such as: Proud and confident in product quality, Confident in product technical
diagnose equipment problems, etc. These help improve interaction between salespeople and
customers.
Sales training in the marketplace - industry orientation includes broad and specific elements.
From a broad perspective, employees need to know how their particular industry fits into the
economy and its implications. From a hep point of view, salespeople must have detailed
knowledge of current customers such as their purchasing policies, patterns and preferences as
Salespeople need to learn about company policies that affect their sales. Most companies
have different pricing policies, product adjustments, fast delivery, different credit terms, and
employees need to know the company's direction to handle situations with customers.
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Many companies today take ethics as their business. focus on resource-intensive training to
make sure everyone in the organization understands the organization's ethical values
1.6.6 Technology
Companies recognize that the right use of technology is allowing sales staff to spend more
time with customers. It also helps salespeople respond to customers faster, anytime,
anywhere.
Many companies find training most effective when it's specialized to each individual's job
functions. individual.
Sales training challenges for businesses are distinguished based on two factors of cultural
similarity and cultural experience. With different levels of these two factors, businesses will
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specialized training.
train their sales force with the necessary knowledge of the local culture.
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VIETTEL COMPANY.
With the rapid development of current service types, the sales staff training process is
extremely important because salespeople are the ones who directly contact customers - the
company representative brings product information to customers and helps the company
increase profits. But for each type of goods, each company will have separate sales methods.
For passive goods, it is necessary to train professional staff with in-depth knowledge to
promote sales. As for conventional goods, the training of staff will go in a different direction.
Therefore, our group chose this topic to focus on analyzing and clarifying the similarities and
differences between training sales staff for passive goods and ordinary goods. Specifically,
here our team will analyze the sales methods of two companies, Manulife and Viettel.
2.2.1 Overview
Manulife Financial Group was established in 1887 in Toronto, Canada. After more
than 125 years of operation and development, Manulife has become a leading financial group
in the world. Manulife is currently operating strongly in 23 countries and territories around
the world. And has been present in Asia for more than 110 years since (1897). During more
than 125 years, Manulife financial group has always been recognized assessed as a
be the first foreign life insurance company in Vietnam since June 1999 and owns its own
headquarters building with investment value. more than 10 million USD. With a wealth of
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experience and global reputation, Manulife aims to become the most professional life
retirement, etc. to customers of more than 430,000 contracts through a strong and
professional team of sales and agents in 36 offices in 28 provinces. into the whole country.
For training organization, the basic process of Manulife Co., Ltd. consists of 5 main step:
Image 1: Organizing the training of sales staff of Manulife Vietnam Co, Ltd.
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Identifying training needs in which department, start training at what time, what skills are
being trained, and how many people are needed to carry out the training process. From there,
the training plan and implementation of the next steps are simpler. Training needs are
determined based on the analysis of human resource needs of the branch in Vietnam, the
requirements of knowledge and skills necessary for the implementation, analysis of the
existing knowledge and skills of the branch in Vietnam. The training object is new sales staff.
Normally, at the beginning of the year, the branch leadership will have a meeting to discuss
and agree on the quantity target as well as the training content. Capturing the requirements of
each department head for employees in order to improve or enhance the employee's
qualifications, combined with the employee's aspirations. The person in charge of each
department will comment and give opinions on which skills his employees need to improve
or improve.
The company has identified its training needs for employees, including the following factors
in order:
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In order to enhance the competitiveness of companies with similar businesses and maximize
efficiency, build brand reputation, and motivate individual workers to express their full
potential to contribute to companies as well as giving them the opportunity to develop their
careers in the life insurance industry. Including 4 types of training for the training audience is
new sales staff, business managers. The goal of training sales staff is to develop the system of
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Advanced training assessed after each course. Meet 100% of the set
requirements.
Sales staff training programs include basic training courses on life insurance, company
culture, company products, exchange sessions combined with motivational programs for
employees. staff, skills training courses, such as calling skills, customer care, sales skills,
presentation skills, team management skills, meeting and seminar organization skills
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Managers Managers
Department
Ensure that training courses Selecting and recruiting Review, approve Approving
plan set plan. The training the training course heads to plan and
training
Branch using many different training forms and are divided into 2 forms: in-branch training
specializing in training courses suitable to the work of branch employees. With this form, the
branch's personnel will learn new knowledge, be truly professional in the international
Branch training: The branch directly organizes classes Training courses that the branch has
planned and implemented due to the branch's staff training needs are submitted to the branch
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1. Training Product
2. Training Skills
A specific example of Financial and insurance product consulting skills training Life:
training course has provided useful contents such as: Modern pedagogy and teaching skills .
Lesson planning skills according to active learning methods. Skills to integrate teaching
methods, group discussions, practice applying lectures to specific work situations. The course
has equipped lecturers with teaching methods and skills in both theory and practice.
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After each Chapter/ Section, the trainer will organize for students to take tests right in
the classroom to assess the level of acquisition and the students have the opportunity to adjust
if necessary. needed and a more in-depth approach to help students have the opportunity to
practice skills to take the graduation exam of the Ministry of Finance more effectively.
Responding to the reality of learners may not have collided with exams for a long time (the
multiple-choice questions are prepared by the lecturer to suit the actual situation of each
course).
After collecting opinions through questionnaires for those participating in training at the
branch, the company will collect opinions at different levels of employees when participating
in training courses.
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a. Advantages
- Carrying out training in the process from identifying needs, to training content, steps
- Thorough analysis of training subjects such as level, age, to plan what training
content, how to train for each object contributes to increasing the success after each
training session. training. Helping trainees after being trained can confidently perform
their assigned tasks, take initiative as well as maximize their own capacity.
- Unlimited income the business is dynamic and fully active in terms of working time,
giving students more flexibility in participating in training classes. Along with that,
professional managers. From there, learn, strengthen, and improve their own skills
b. Difficulty
- The qualifications, skills and ages of employees are not uniform. In which, the
qualification of sales staff who graduated from high school accounted for 20%.
Graduated from high school and college 32%, graduated from university 38%, the rest
are at university. The exact selection of training subjects is not good, leading to low
quality of training, improving the quality of job evaluation. The training program is
not flexible enough to prevent employees from fully participating, leading to a lack of
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knowledge. The selection of training methods is still general and not specific to each
employee.
- The workforce working for the insurance industry is often short-lived, so businesses
- The insurance business will face many problems in dealing with situations for
- Most sales training materials created for managers have no effect on salespeople. The
training is intended to give employees the strength and confidence to do their jobs
well and stay motivated. However, it takes more than just training for someone to
- During the complicated development of the Covid epidemic, face-to-face training was
2.2.4 Solutions
- Currently, the company's program contents are few and not really diverse, not
imposition of the content of the training program on learners, the learning materials
content:
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- The company should develop a set of textbooks that include all of them. Basic
- The content of skills training courses should be also made a specific set of instructions
for each skill, so that learners don't waste time taking notes. Since class time is
limited, students can use that time to practice the skills they have just learned in class.
And the trainer will immediately correct the shortcomings in applying the trained
- With the training courses at the company, the company usually organizes in the form
training classes in just under 1 week to 1 month. . With such a training course, it is
possible to save costs, not affect the work much, but if the time is too short, it is not
- Each job and each subject is retrained for different requirements, so classifying the
training subjects and clearly identifying the requirements of each job type will help
training is focused and effective when appropriate forms and methods of training are
the target audience from the beginning of the training, during and after the training.
that the work efficiency that employee contributes to the company is maximum. After
training for a short period of one to three months, employees will be able to apply
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- Incentives can be through rewarding at the end of the course with individuals with
excellent performance, good morale and academic results, maybe even organizing
opportunity to entertain, talk and exchange many things, understand each other better,
- Develop policies to encourage employees to exceed business targets such as: Giving a
trip for two, Rewarding, rewarding with material and business honors.... individuals
- With many departments in the company, the organization competes with both
- The company should promote more, organize more scientifically with the annual
- Timely adjust the financial remuneration with the remuneration for invited lecturers in
line with the normal value so that good lecturers, including foreign ones, can be
- Balance there are incentive policies so that employees can rest assured to go to
training, after training, they can rest assured to serve the company such as: Salary
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- To be successful and have a professional staff that can create a competitive advantage
for the company, first, there must be good managers in the field of education.
Training and developing human resources for the branch is a very important thing.
This is a large and long-term investment for the company's business strategy that
requires a steady and ongoing expense for this activity. Therefore, the perception of
branch.
helps managers better understand the impact of training on the development of the
2.3.1 Company
Main business lines: Providing telecommunications and internet products and services;
Value-added services on the internet and mobile phones; Messaging services, data,
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enterprise has the largest customer base in Vietnam with more than 70 million customers and
● Ranked 28th in the top 150 most valuable carriers in the world, with a brand value of
5.8 billion USD, ranked 1st in Southeast Asia and 9th in Asia
● Silver award for the best new telecommunications product of the International
● Supplier Service of the Year in Developing Markets in 2009 and Best Mobile Data
● Silver Award for "New Customer Service of the Year" in the award system
, besides, Viettel is also the first unit to evaluate digital maturity in Vietnam. The criteria for
assessing the level of digital maturity are also constantly updated according to the technology
in the world. Not only pioneering to be the first unit in Vietnam to deploy digital maturity
assessment, Viettel also applies the latest international assessment standards according to the
widely accepted by many companies. Currently, Viettel Networks and Viettel Telecom are
the two leading units of the Group in terms of digital maturity, after the first evaluation in
2021.
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Viettel Telecom's training process covers 4 training contents, including training needs
Monthly conduct analysis, determine training needs according to the development plan, make
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In addition to training new products and services, sales staff also need to know more about
product features, target customers, specific sales methods... However, it is clear that there is
still a sizable gap in other knowledge that employees have to fill, but The needs assessment,
although given the initiative by the company to propose to direct production units, is still not
- The assessment of training needs is still largely based on emotional factors. of unit
managers, up to 67% of unit managers believe that giving training needs to the unit is
mainly based on their own experience without using tools and statistics. design as a
basis.
- Training is not really linked to the long-term human resource development plan.
Brooding heavily on training and professional services business of the product / service of the
company.
Training method:
Viettel Telecom's training plans are divided into 3 types in order of time:
● Annual training plan: overall training plan for the whole year
● Training plan quarterly training: training content, subjects to be trained & expected
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● training plan: detailed information (cost, time, location, list trainers,), this is a
Training implementation at Viettel Telecom is done quite well, from preparation to training
Regarding the preparation, the contents are divided into 2 focal points: the Training
Department and the Product Managers are responsible for developing training content about
the products and services of their units. The Training Department is not only responsible for
censoring the training content, but also has a staff member in charge of ensuring logistics
issues and notifying each employee on the training list so that they can arrange work and
participate in training. create. Meanwhile, the work of the lecturer directly in the class will
During the training process, the staff of the training department regularly have checking
documents,...
After each training course, all employees are allowed to participate in the assessment of
learning results and have sanctions for unsatisfactory cases such as lowering the monthly
evaluation coefficient, reporting the results to the unit, requesting compensation for training
fees. .
At Viettel Telecom, training evaluation is being carried out with 2 contents: assessing the
learning outcomes of sales staff after training and evaluating the training organization in
general.
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Regarding the assessment of trainee results after training, the company focuses on assessing
learning results, acquiring knowledge after each course, which is for employees to take a
direct test right after training and get the results. measure the effectiveness of training. The
assessment is usually based on the form of multiple-choice questions and answers on the
Regarding the evaluation of the training itself, after each training program, the Training
Department has a report to evaluate the results, learn from the points achieved and the
a. Advantages
computers. and even the students' own mobile phones, helping to access knowledge
- The enterprise has good financial capacity, has a pro-training stance, and has strong
policies for training activities, including a policy that requires employees to have
training activities.
- The company has a specialized apparatus to carry out training and has built a process
needs, developing training plans, developing training and evaluation. Accordingly, the
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company has a "reverse" process for business units to proactively identify and
- The qualifications of the staff in charge of training are experienced, improve training
- The company's training plan is built on an annual basis and distributed quarterly, then
activities.
b. Difficulties
- Training content also focuses on product, service, and professional training while
sales skills training is rarely implemented. If training plan focuses on theory will be
- The evaluation of new training focus only assesses the results of training to acquire
knowledge but While evaluating the performance of the trained person, there is still
employee's production and business results has not been evaluated yet. sales after
training
- The company has not built a database system of employees oriented to training, so
tracking performance after each training course is still limited. The very fragmented
- Although employees have registered to participate in the training course, they are not
enthusiastic and do not cooperate. The reason may be that the training program is not
practical or appropriate for individual needs. Courses often focus only on general
topics.
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weekends plus the policy requires employees to have training activities, and then
employees may be too busy, and do not have time to participate in training (for
reasons of personal lifetime). Using such a method of coercion can bring positive
2.3.4 Solutions
participation of all employees. Short, simple, and practical courses will often attract
often apply when organizing employee development programs: 70% of the training
staff (including training personnel and lecturers). These personnel need to be trained
training. ..
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● Rotate training staff to work directly at grassroots units to grasp the reality of the
training subjects
● Research and recruit training personnel - people with qualifications and practical
can be acquired.
- The database for training only stops at the list and the employee's horizontal resume
with basic contents such as: With the development of modern information technology,
the database system needed for training activities is increasingly expanded, requiring
employees to do the job. training need more data related to sales force such as special
skills, training to participate, actual sales results, ... to be able to make decisions more
accurately
- Party Besides, thanks to modern achievements such as Big Data, AI,... the database
system can also build an analysis function to suggest training courses to be applied to
Training combined with the use of additional human resource training software in the
enterprise
- During the process of introducing and training the sales force with knowledge and
skills, it often requires a lot of paperwork to track and evaluate price. Human
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resources, training staff as well as trainers also spend a lot of time and effort to ensure
that the trainees are provided with the necessary documents to complete the training
● Standardize lecture content: Store all company training materials in one online
repository
software Provide discussion board option so staff can easily contact instructors
● Reduce training costs: minimize travel time for trainers when training
2.4 CONCLUSION
Through the study, the difference in sales training methods between different stores has been
shown. different chemistry. Each company has its own sales training programs, but in
general, the process is similar in 4 steps (Determine Needs, Plan, Implement, and Evaluate).
We can see that for each type of product, the sales training method is different. In addition,
the study also shows us the importance of sales training for the development of each business.
Giving employees new skills or knowledge not only helps them get the job done faster and
more efficiently, but also improves their job satisfaction and motivates them to increase their
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own performance. Employees are taught to do their jobs well, they will have a confident
attitude, work more independently and proactively, and bring more benefits to the business.
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REFERENCES
1. https://manulife.edu.vn/#mo-ta-cong-viec
2. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sale.asp
3. https://vietteltelecom.vn/gioi-thieu-viettel
4. https://myvt.net/tin-tuc/viettel-la-don-vi-dau-tien-danh-gia-truong-thanh-so-tai-viet-nam/
5. https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-role-of-sales-in-an-
organization.html#:~:text=Sales%20or%20the%20sales%20department,an%20action
%20a%20company%20desires.&text=Increase%20customer%20retention%20with
%20their%20customer%20service%20skills.
6. https://blog.oxfordcollegeofmarketing.com/2014/10/17/the-important-role-of-sales-in-an-
organisation/
8. Nguyen Thuy Linh (2015) Improving the quality of training for sales staff of Manulife
9. Powerpoint presentation prepared by Dr. Rajiv Mehta New Jersey Insitute of Technology
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