AB Agri Case Study | Building Advantage Through Service Excellence

The Brief

AB Agri is one of the UK's largest and most successful agri-food businesses. NKD Learning was appointed to implement a two year change management programme, focused on differentiation through service excellence. The aims of the programme were to increase the service orientation of the company's five divisions, enhance AB Agri's strategic selling capabilities, improve leadership and performance management skills, and build in-house capability to communicate this programme to the business.
 

The Solution

Education and communication at all levels of the 1000-strong company were identified as the keys to successful change.

NKD kicked off the two year project with senior management workshops in order to align the Commercial Board with the overall aims and objectives of the programme. This was followed by three-day leadership courses on "Leading and Managing Change", to engage the wider management team with the pending corporate changes and improved their understanding of service-orientated businesses.

A further three-day programme of Strategic Account Management was designed to help account teams move from an operational sales approach to a strategic selling mindset on the company’s most profitable accounts. NKD rounded off the first year with skills development courses which enabled key employees to run training, communications events and focus groups which supported the transformation to a service-centred organisation.

In year two, the programme will feature more emphasis on "Leading and Managing Change" to help AB Agri's managers drive high performance throughout the organization. Communication will also continue to be central to the change management programme, with a company-wide "Customer Service Foundations" course, taking key messages about the importance of the customer and bringing these to life for all front-line employees. This emphasis on experiential learning, using practical, real-life examples is a hallmark of NKD's work.
 

The Results

Though the programme is on-going, already the feedback from employees and leaders alike has been extremely positive.

• AB Agri now boasts a competent team of facilitators/training experts who are able to support many aspects of their own business change programme
• The experiential nature of the programmes has helped AB Agri to discover priorities and resolve resistance to change
• The programme has provided clarity on company direction and strategy across the organisation
• Due to the success of this programme, AB Agri has decided to bring the leadership team together by making Leadership Forums a regular feature on their business calendar