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Most popular Business
Companies turn to business trainers to improve bottom-line
September 04, 2008 at 00:02 | Yulia GolubBeliakova has more than 10 years of training experience. She started her career with the U.S. Peace Corps in Ukraine as a training director in 1997, moving on as training manager at CocaCola Ukraine in 2003. In 2005, she joined Pulse, a fullcycle advertising agency, heading the training department, which merged with the DOOR network in 2007.
In her interview with the Kyiv Post, Beliakova said her main challenge often lies in convincing companies that business training can help improve their bottomline.
KP: What are the major trends in Ukraine’s business training market today?
AB: It has been growing rapidly. The number of companies operating on the market doubled in two years and the range of instruction has diversified.
KP: Has the business training market expanded out from Kyiv to the regions?
AB: Yes, compared to five years ago, we see many companies have opened representative offices in cities other than Kyiv. Today, every big city in Ukraine has its own business training company.
KP: How does business training benefit local companies? Do you have an example?
AB: We had a client from a national retail chain. Their top management came to us with a problem. Sales were down. Theybelieved the reason was poor customer service skillsby shop assistants and wanted us to train them.First, we went to the client's outlets and analyzed the problem areas using the undercover“mystery shopper” technique(a market research tool which shows the true level of service quality). We also had a close look at the shops' management structure.
We discovered that focusing the training on the shop assistants, as the client initially wanted, wouldn't be the most effective solution in the long run. Instead we suggested training the line managers of the shop assistants. The line managers supervised the work of the shop assistants, and would ensure that the proper customer service standard was met on a daytoday basis. The client agreed with our assessment. We tailored thetraining program to his particular needs, delivered the training and the salesshot up again.
KP: What is the most difficult part of your work?
AB: I would say convincing companies that business training is effective – that it helps solve their problems and improves their bottom line.
KP: How well is the training market regulated in Ukraine?
AB: In Ukraine, the business training market is chaotic. The government does not [regulate it appropriately] or get involved. To operate in other countries, even Russia, training companies need to be certified by the government.
KP: So basically, Ukraine does not have training standards.
AB: Right. Each company that enters the market works out its own methodology and standards. Often, people who open up new companies come from established market players. So, basically, they use internationallyrecognized standards adapted to Ukraine’s environment.
KP: Do clients stick with one training company or do they shop around?
AB: There is a period of time in each company when they experiment with different training firms. But I have noticed that big companies prefer to have one or two training providers. Global companies want to have one worldwide training provider. Our company can offer that, as we have offices in 60 countries. It benefits the client in many ways. They get the same philosophy and training services worldwide.
KP: What is your forecast for the near future?
AB: A forecast always depends on a country’s economic situation. When the situation is unstable, the first thing companies cut out of their budgets are training expenses. With our unstable economy, I would say that more and more companies will start their own internal training programs and market growth will slow. Over the next couple of years, few new companies will enter the market, while established companies will strengthen their market positions.
Yulia Golub can be reached at golub@kpmedia.ua