SECTION I: Solve any 2 Case Studies:
CASE – 1 Toyota Motor Company’s Toyota Technical Training Institute in India
In August 2007, one of the world’s leading automobile manufacturers, Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC), announced that its joint venture in India, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Private Limited (TKM) had set up a technical school called Toyota Technical Training Institute (TTTI), on the outskirts of Bangalore, India. The company said………….
, ulterior motive was ensuring labor loyalty. For the past five years, Toyota India has suffered a series of strikes and a lockout, with labor unions protesting in support of better wages and against the dismissal of two of their members. Training youth in-house helps build loyalty for Toyota on the assembly line.
Questions
1. Describe the probable reasons for the setting up of the TTTI in India. Describe the direct and indirect benefits accruing to TKM by running the TTTI. What, according to you, are the short-term and long-term benefits to the company?
2. The TTTI trainees were not under any compulsion to join the company (TKM) once they had completed the training program. What are the possible advantage(s) and disadvantage(s) of such a policy?
3. In your opinion, will similar training initiative be successful in the service sector? Explain in the context of a few service industries that you are familiar with.
CASE – 2 Dealer Training Programs – A New Trend
In India, the corporate training market was pegged at Rs 25 billion (by the end of 2004) and was growing at a rate of 30% annually. Though sales training was not new concept in Indian industry, the trend of extending sales training initiatives to business partners was slowly catching up. The automobile companies were among the first to implement dealership training programs. For example, when Maruti Udyog Limited (Maruti) got the highest rank in customer satisfaction in the JD Power Asia Pacific India customer satisfaction index (CSI) study in 2000, it launched ‘Project Hat Trick’ in consultation with NIS Sparta, a leading training and consulting organization. The project aimed at creating excitement among the ………..
to get a better focus of the market with a suitable sales strategy. It also helped the participants in managing markets for profits and growth.
Questions
1. Indian companies, which used to focus mainly on sales training programs for their own sales force, are now extending these initiatives to their business partners. What are the major reasons behind the increasing prominence of such initiatives among Indian companies? Also throw light on the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing the training activities to third parties.
2. Behind every successful dealer is a smiling and efficient dealer salesperson. Explain the relative importance of dealers in the consumer durables industry over and above those in the FMCG industry. How have consumer durable players improved the performance of their dealers through training?
CASE – 3 Enhancing the Credibility of the Training Function: Involving Line Managers in Sales Training
“Rakesh let me make it clear to you that I can’t allocate any more money for training. I can understand why you want to conduct a training program on coaching skills for the line managers, but I can’t help you in this regard. Not for another year at the very least. In fact, I may have to curtail your training budget for next year as we are going through a lean phase,” said Sanjay Shah (Shah), the CEO of Dirc2U, a direct sales company that dealt in a range of consumer appliances. From his tone, it was clear that he would not entertain any further discussion on this topic.
Rakesh Sharma (Sharma) had been working as the training manager (TM) in Dirc2U for the past three years. During this period he had single-handedly taken care of all the training and development (T&D) activities of the company. Of late, he felt that despite a contemporary training program, the sales force was unable to internalize the training due to lack of support from the line managers in the field. Sharma, who had ample experience in sales and sales force management before getting into the training function, understood the significance of the role of line managers in reinforcing the class room training. His repeated proposals to conduct a training program on coaching for the line managers had fallen on deaf ears. But Sharma knew that he could not let the situation drift any longer. The company had failed to achieve its revenue targets in the previous year. This year too, it was struggling to reach 75 percent of the projections. Since it was difficult to measure the return on investment (ROI) of training, the training budget tended to get the chop during tough times. In such a situation, Sharma could expect some cuts in his budget for the next year. Yet he knew that in tough times there was a greater need for T&D interventions. He also knew that if things got even tougher, and the company decided to cut costs even more, the job of the TM would be one of the first to go.
Sharma was almost certain that he would convince Shah regarding the importance of this specific T&D plan for the line managers. But no amount of persuasion could budge Shah. Sharma’s hope of involving the line managers in making sales training more effective seemed unlikely, at least in the short term. Now he had to find dome other way to make the sales training more effective. He also decided to look at ways to project the importance of training to the top management.
……………Sharma believed that after another three months he would be in a position to put forward a strong case for a training program for managers in front of Shah.
Questions
1. Discuss the importance of line managers in reinforcing initial classroom training. What are the issues and challenges faced by training managers in partnering with the line managers? How can these be overcome? In your opinion, how did Sharma succeed in forging a partnership with the line managers?
2. Training is viewed as a cost. Although experts opine that training is needed the most when a company is going through tough times, it is in such situations that training budgets are most likely to be slashed. What are the problems in ascertaining the ROI of training? How can training link training to bottom-line results?
SECTION II: Solve any 4 questions.
1. If you were going to use online technology to identify training needs for customer service representatives for a web-based clothing company, what steps would you take to ensure that the technology was not threatening to employees?
2. What could be done to increase the likelihood of transfer of training if the work environment conditions are unfavorable and cannot be changed?
3. Why would a company use a combination of face-to-face instruction and Web-based training?
4. What does “managing diversity” mean to you? Assume you are in charge of developing a diversity training program. Who would be involved? What would you include as the content of the program?
5. Why should companies be interested in helping employees plan their careers? What benefits can companies gain? What are the risks?
6. Discuss how new technologies are likely to impact training in the future
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