Features

Published December 2009

Learning in Practice Awards: Practitioners

Chief Learning Officer Staff

Continued

mselves.

“When you think of innovation, it usually brings to mind a new technology,” Olsen said “Also, when you think about nurses, you picture someone who is very empathic and caring. However, nursing is really a task-based profession, and nurses can become so focused on task and timing that they forget about patient needs and feelings. What I feel is most innovative about this program is that we had very little technology and went back to the basics.”

Business Impact — Division 1 — Gold

Dan Braunm, Vice President of Global Learning, CA Inc.

Negotiation training is a key component for success at global IT management software company CA Inc. The company’s sales professionals work in a complex, extremely competitive environment, and effective negotiation skills equal better customer relationships and long-term business partnerships, as well as the potential difference between hitting and missing the company’s revenue goals.

As a result of its employee development initiative to enhance negotiation skills, CA has brought in some $42 million in top-line revenue. And that’s only from April 2008 through March 2009 — last fiscal year’s deployment.

“That’s the return after we paid for the program and our delivery,” said Dan Braunm, vice president of global learning at CA. “That came because the program was executed a little differently than negotiation skills had been delivered in the past. [In the past], we had used lots of vendors and courses that talked about winning negotiations as you get to the table. We didn’t sit down with executives and talk to them about business objectives in terms of expanding the deal.”

Braunm said negotiation starts from the moment the sales professional says hello, the moment the software is installed and successful. His mission was to get people to think differently about that to promote give and take, and to always consider how to expand the size of each deal being made without giving away unnecessary concessions. Further, these actions should be standard, a part of the salesperson’s DNA, not an activity performed at a certain point in the deal.

“That’s what made this program a little different,” he explained. “There were great measures against business objectives established upfront. We looked at a baseline: Here’s how many points we’re giving away currently, and here’s the average size of our deal now. We explain that to folks as they go through the class. There are no slides, just four simulated negotiations, and you understand from the beginning how you need to interact differently with customers to ensure this is going to be successful.”

Further, there is a series of post-workshop follow-up activities for managers as well as sales professionals, including coaching to ensure the new skills and behaviors remain active throughout the life cycle of a sale. There is also post-measurement to examine deals made and how they might be improved, along with how negotiation contributed to their success.

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Executive Search

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