ERIKS delivers customer savings through training

Article Type: Notes and news From: Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume 43, Issue 1

ERIKS Integrated Solutions runs store management and procurement for some of Britain’s biggest companies. The company’s clients include BAe Systems, Heinz, Kellogg and Weetabix.

ERIKS establishes service centres on its customers’ premises. These are run by service-centre managers, known as SCMs, who act as “the window our customers look through that forms the perception of our organization”.

In the last eight years, the business has grown tenfold, from £8 million turnover to £80 million.

The company’s SCMs used to get most of their training on the job. However, when it looked into the situation, ERIKS found gaps in the skills and knowledge of these key managers. Both external and internal candidates for the SCM position needed to be trained away from the customer, to make sure that they could start their roles in a professional way.

The company therefore came up with the business-management development scheme. The plan was to train 82 SCMs to a set standard, through a series of five-day residential-training programmes.

The trainees who were chosen had a wide range of abilities. ERIKS anticipated that getting them up to a consistent level would have a major effect on their customers’ happiness, a key factor in retaining contracts. The company also hoped that the training would help it to keep staff for longer.

The company built its own dedicated training facility, which included a“dummy” store wired up with the company’s IT systems and a classroom. The design allowed the training environment to feel as much as possible like the real job.

The business management development scheme operated on a pass/fail system. If any modules were failed, remedial training was given. The trainees had to commit to a 100-day action plan, applying the practices they learned on the course on a real job. Training was delivered by “module champions” –managers with the experience and aptitude to pass on their knowledge. ERIKS appointed a training manager to run the program overall.

Training everyone took seven months, with groups of between eight and ten at a time taking the course. All ERIKS’ trainees have successfully completed the program, which won a large-employer prize in the latest National Training Awards. One had to resit the course after failing on the first attempt. Costs included £12,000 for the training facility, £5,000 for training materials and around £50,000 for accommodation. All trainers were ERIKS staff and there was no external funding.

The results were positive all round. Most trainees have been able to apply the lessons learned at their service centres, and turnover of SCMs has improved. Sales percentages jumped, and the company managed to save its customers £2.5 million with various engineering initiatives. All the company’s up-for-renewal business was successfully renewed, accounting for just under half of ERIKS’ annual turnover.

“The business-management development scheme has surpassed my expectations”, said managing director Paul Jenno. “I have approved extra courses for potential SCMs and a new program for office managers aimed at improving further the focus on service and the continual improvement of customer satisfaction.”