When it came to switching to a cloud-based CRM solution from Veeva Systems, Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) chose SYCOR mbs GmbH as their European training partner. Sycor mbs developed a modular training concept for Lilly’s sales force in Germany, UK, Italy and Spain. Services included the localization and creation of material, conducting the training all the way to a temporary CRM support for the end users.
Altogether more than 35 training managers, senior trainers, test designers, and media developers from Sycor mbs have been involved in the successful Veeva rollout in Germany, UK, Italy, and Spain. The timeframe for preparation, delivery, and hyper-care phase was 8 months. The kick-off took place in Lilly’s European headquarter in Basingstoke, UK. There, during a global train-the-trainer session all training managers got to know the new CRM implementation and received the core training materials. Subsequently, manuals, trainer guides and presentations as well as quick reference cards for the Veeva solutions iRep and Veeva online were localized and translated according to the countries’ specifics.
With these localized materials the training managers were able to prepare the national trainer teams in train-the-trainer sessions. “When a new CRM system is implemented, a number of work flows and business processes are changed. Our job was to communicate these innovations and to bring the employees up to speed on the use of the Veeva solution,” says Jessika Steckenborn, Sales Director at SYCOR mbs GmbH. For this task Sycor mbs with 28 trainers delivered almost a hundred days of training for Lilly pilot users, end users and district sales managers in four countries and four languages.
For Lilly’s locations in Germany and the UK, Sycor mbs provided a full service package: from developing training concepts and conducting the training sessions to producing media and all the way to post-rollout support. “Within the scope of this European project, it was important to us to offer each country the opportunity to train their employees in their own country-specific way. On the basis of a European framework agreement we were able to provide our services for each country under the same conditions,” Jessika Steckenborn explains. The training approach was localized for Italy and Spain: Spain chose a train-the-trainer strategy involving its district sales managers, and Italy employed the experienced, Italian CRM trainers from Sycor mbs in addition to its own resources.
With more than 38,000 employees worldwide and affiliates in 125 countries, Lilly is among the largest life sciences companies in the world. In order to enable the company to react more quickly and flexibly to changes in the pharmaceutical market, Lilly wanted to integrate its CRM landscape and replace its old system with a user-friendly solution tailored specifically to the needs of the life sciences industry. They opted for a cloud-based CRM system from Veeva. “We needed to find a lean CRM system that allowed us to carry out our processes more effectively,” says Wilfried Posegga, Customer Operations Manager for Germany at Lilly. In addition to the challenges related to the technical changeover, the training for the company’s sales force was an important factor for the success of the CRM rollout. For this training project, Lilly again turned to the training expert Sycor mbs. “We chose Sycor mbs for this project because they have already been training our staff and have been service partner for Lilly for many years. In addition they have broad experience with Veeva solutions,” explains Posegga.