Group Talent Development & Organizational Capability - Retail Sales Leader
Gulf Marketing Group
Total years of experience :23 years, 4 Months
Established in 1978, by the Baker family who still own and manage the company today, Gulf Marketing Group (http://www.gmg.com) is one of the Middle East’s leading, family owned companies. Operating across the GCC, Gulf Marketing Group is a dynamic group boasting a diverse portfolio of retail outlets, brands and consumer and B2B services across key sectors such as healthcare and pharmaceuticals, sports and fitness, real estate, education and technology.
In the recent capacity of Group Talent Development & Organizational Capability - Retail Sales Leader.
- Created a Retail Sales Academy to support business goals and key objectives in order to drive revenues considering the challenging market situation.
- Created and conducted “Bringing Nike to Life” & “Business on Fast-track” workshop for Nike and SSS retail which saw an increase of an average of 6% in UPT and 8% in conversion.
- Formulated E-learning module through MOODLE and rolled-out the “Selling with customer service” workshop for all new joiners to set standards across GMG.
- Collected learning & development needs analysis, behavioural and technical skills requirements and accordingly developed Centres of Excellence products and services for GMG Retail Sales businesses.
- Conducted diagnostic analytics, develops blended solutions that are efficiently project managed to deliver organizational and commercial outcomes.
- Developed and designed best practice and innovative retail sales course material including facilitator guides, learner tools/guides, business aids, materials and technologies to enable performance.
- Measured effectiveness of programs, made improvements and follows up with managers and colleagues in regards to feedback and ROI.
- Kept abreast of latest Retail Sales industry trends & techniques to ensure updates of material and content continuously.
- Build relationships across GMG Retail Sales communities leveraging expertise to create synergies and economies of scale.
- Defined goals and key performance indicators for each member of the team and ensures effective implementation of the GMG’s performance management process.
- Developed talent within the team by providing guidance, mentoring and coaching to achieve the defined goals and a high performance team.
- Driven a culture of feedback and coaching in the Business Unit/ Department by providing feedback on an ongoing basis, identifying development needs and coaching the employees on the areas of improvement.
ACHIEVEMENTS
- Developed customer experience workshop which increased the walk-in by 10% on a average across all the stores in UAE.
- The Customer experience was well received and appreciated by the NIKE management.
In the recent capacity of Independent Learning and Development Consultant & Trainer,
- Created learning solutions for various corporate houses.
- Empanelled with TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) through OSHO learning centre for facilitating their PG courses.
- Content Development for corporate clients.
- Corporate Inductions, Sales Trainings, Sales enhancement workshops, Soft skills Training, Leadership development workshops, Customer service trainings, Retail workshops.
- Business development through BPT (Business Technology Partner) across India, Middle-east and Singapore.
Established in 2008 as a member of the Landmark Gulf Group, Citymax Hotels (http://www.citymaxhotels.com/en) is a high-tech revolution in business hospitality. Citymax Hotels - 1306 rooms (Bur Dubai - 691 rooms, Al Barsha - 376 rooms, Sharjah - 239 rooms) is a member of the well-known Landmark Group, which is one of the largest and most successful retail and hospitality groups in the Middle East and India. It is set to be the preferred choice among travelers for its premium service offers at affordable prices. Citymax hotels also runs well known specialty, multi-cuisine restaurants & bars Claypot, SizzlingWok, Huddle sports bar, Maxx Bar and grill.
As a Corporate - Learning and Development manager I have led the department in
- Creating competency based training programs by assessing current and future Learning and Development needs for the organization through a 360 degree TNA for all the 3 hotels and the Corporate.
- Developed & delivered programs for Associates, Supervisors and Managers using ADDIE model.
- Created an extensive on-boarding program in order to sync into the culture of the organization and country.
- Preparing an Annual Learning and Development Plan and executing 90% of the planned L&D interventions.
- Executing "Reverse Engineering" project (Employee and Guest Experiential Workshop) for Citymax Hotels which resulted in bringing up the average customer satisfaction from 3.2 to 4.1 across all major travel related online platforms (Booking.com, Trip advisor.com, Hotel.com, Agoda.com, Expedia.com), Mystery shopping scores & Internal hotel feedback scores. The Employee Engagement survey conducted by Gallup also brought up the organization scores from 3.35 to 4.20.
- Introduced mentorship programs to create a sense of ownership towards guest complaints by co-ordinating with functional heads to identify areas of opportunities and challenges faced thereby reducing the guest complaints by 10%.
- Conducting surprise audits for functional training's and standardizing modules across all the 3 hotels.
- Ensuring all mandatory training's are conducted and that we as Citymax hotels are compliant as per Dubai and Sharjah municipality guidelines / UAE government authorities.
- Evaluating the effectiveness of training delivery by Asst. Manager, Training Executive & HACCP officer.
- Ensuring HACCP certification for all the 3 hotels.
- Identifying top 20 leading hi-potential performing talents across the organization in co-ordination with HR and laid down a 1 year career path for all Hi-potential talents of which 5 employees have already taken up higher responsibilities and got promoted within the first 6 months of the roll-out.
- Identifying internal trainers and facilitating “Train the Trainer” workshops for departmental trainers.
- Generating daily, weekly, monthly & yearly MIS to be submitted to the management.
- Delivering Leadership Modules for the leadership team and High Potential employees.
ACHIEVEMENTS
- Successfully conducted Landmark Hospitality training's for other concepts (Foodmark, Max Burger, Carluccio's, Zafran) spread across in Dubai, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.
- Successfully rolled out “Reverse Engineering” project.
- Received “Certificate of Appreciation” for successfully conducting workshop for Leadership Pathway 2015 for Landmark Hospitality.
- Received “A” grade twice for Citymax Bur Dubai property during surprise audit conducted by Food inspectors of Dubai Municipality.
- All 3 hotels have achieved HACCP certification.
Panoramic Holidays Ltd, a Hospitality arm of Panoramic Universal Ltd. (http://www.panoramicuniversal.com/) is involved in various businesses Of Resorts, Hotels, IT, Clubs & Entertainment. Panoramic Universal Ltd is 1500 + Cr turnover company since last 15 years.
As a Corporate Head - Learning and Development
- Managing a team of 25 learning and development professionals comprising of Training Managers, Assistant Managers and Sr. Trainers & Trainers spread across India & Dubai.
- Formulated “One Sales Process” for the sales workforce which saw an upward trend in the sales turnover across the organization from 65 crores to 98 crores sales business in 2013 - 2014
- Formulated and rolled out the complete talent development framework for 1250 on-roll employees.
- Partnered with business heads to align talent needs within the business.
- Revamped the entire “Reservations process” and “Collections process” that resulted in 15% increase in the average collections as compared to last year.
- Closely worked with the customer acquisition and customer service leaders to ensure quality of acquisition and service.
- Formulated content for E-Learning application.
- Improved the content on various modules based on market dynamics and practical study.
- Conducted Train the Trainer certifications and evaluated trainers
- Planned Training budget for the company.
- Designed the leadership development pathway and identified subject matter experts to deliver the same.
- Executed Certification & Re-Certification of 1250 employees (only including Sales force, Customer Service, Tele-marketing, Promoters).
- Developed and maintained database of internal trainers and assessed their effectiveness.
- Measured training effectiveness through various training models.
- Drive efficiency in the new hire training cycle.
- Leadership Development, planning and execution of MDP programs.
- Prepared a comprehensive company’s training calendar which included workshop for front liners, Supervisors, Manager’s & Heads of various departments.
- Driving employee engagement activities.
ACHIEVEMENTS
- Successfully designed & implemented new sales training process, tele-marketing training process and marketing training process.
- Productivity increased in the tenured employees by 13% on an average and attrition percentage reduced from 50% to 18%.
- New initiatives like “XPEDITIONZ”, “I AM A LIVING PROOF” & “TORCHBEARERS” well accepted & appreciated by the TOP management & Directors.
MHRIL is a part of the Infrastructure Sector of the Mahindra Group. Started in 1996, the company’s flagship brand ‘Club Mahindra Holidays’, (http://www.clubmahindra.com) today has a fast growing customer base of over 2, 50, 000 members and 45 beautiful Resorts at some of the most exotic spots
April 2012 - March 2013: Zonal Manager - Learning & Development.
April 2008 - March 2012: Senior Manager - Learning & Development.
April 2006 - March 2008: Manager - Learning & Development.
As a Zonal Manager - Learning and Development
Led L&D Dept. constituting 2 Training Managers & 2 Trainers of West Zone and
- Brought in the culture of customer ownership by attending customer escalations from MD’s office related to the zone.
- Implemented mentors program which resulted in ease of handling customer escalations & challenges.
- Maintained a performance & productivity matrix for training & measuring the ROI of the department.
- Goal setting with respect to sales targets & plan of action (for training of Sales force) along with the other department heads / BUH’s.
- Mentoring & coaching Team Managers, Driving Campus Recruitments for MHSET Program.
- Successfully planned supervised, analysed reports & executed the Performance Improvement plan along with the other Senior Managers.
- Reviewed / aligned training modules to meet business goals, employee development & organizational profitability.
- Conducted train the trainer, coaching & counselling sessions for in-house trainers.
- Identified training & development needs with inputs from assessment centres, customer feedbacks, feedbacks from their immediate supervisors / managers.
- Vendor Management - evaluated & identified external vendors for training.
- Successfully planned & executed Management Development Programs, Soft Skills Development Programs.
- Ensured Training Audits are conducted and feedback is implemented.
- Coordinated with business heads & department heads of the zone to review progress, analyze and troubleshoot issues.
- Analyzed training effectiveness and implement measures to improve effectiveness.
- Identified training needs and conducted training for new joiners, tele-marketing, member relations & collections department
- Measured training effectiveness, conducted performance analysis, identified areas of improvements and provided constructive feedback to holiday consultants / management trainees, adapted training programs to meet training / organizational objectives.
- Conducted team building activities to create synergies within teams.
ACHIEVEMENTS
- The only Sr. Manager - L & D nominated among 10 learning and development professional for representing at the annual Top Management meet conference held at Srilanka in the month April 2011.
- Recognized for the “Outstanding performance” in Jaipur branch for the year 2010 - 11 at the West Sales Conference.
- Recognized & Awarded for “Exhibiting Creativity” towards the West Zone at the Zonal Sales conference held on August 2009.
- Winner of “Share the Spark” contest organized among all the training managers across PAN India for the best Sales performance in the year 2008-09
- Recognized as the “BEST ZONE” for the year 2008 - 09 at the All India Sales Conference.
- Awarded for “Outstanding contribution” towards the success of West zone for the year 2008-09
- Awarded “Best PAN India Trainer” across India for year 2007-08 at All India Training Manager’s meet.
- Awarded “Best Training Manager” for the year 2007 - 08 at the Annual Sales Conference held at Goa.
- Recognized as the “BEST ZONE” for year 2007 - 08 and 2006 - 07 at the All India Sales Conference.
- Awarded for “Outstanding contribution” towards the success of West - I for the year 2006-07
- Successfully planned & executed “Fish philosophy” in the West zone for which it was nationally recognized.
- Awarded for making Club Mahindra “Work place more fun loving” at an Annual Sales Conference held at Goa in April 2008 & April 2007.
GTL Limited (http://www.gtllimited.com/ind/index.aspx), a Global Group enterprise (MNC), is a leading Network Services company, offering services and solutions to address the Network Life Cycle requirements of Telecom Carriers and Technology providers (OEMs)
Sep 2003 - April 2006: Senior Product & Process Trainer & Product & Process Trainer
Washington Mutual Bank, one of the largest Credit Card issuers in the U.S., had partnered with GTL to execute their Credit Card inbound sales, outbound sales & membership programs.
In the above roles
- Prepared training calendar / agenda in accordance with the client requirement.
- Supervised the training conducted by junior trainers.
- Developed training modules and imparted training to Program managers, Assistant mangers, Client response executives.
- Conducted induction training (Soft Skills, Selling Skills, Product Training, Process Training & Systems training) to new recruits.
- Interacted with the counterparts in US for new training methodologies and feedback.
- Conducted sales verification exercises to understand various scenarios.
- Participated in calibration sessions to understand quality parameters.
- Coordinated in the launch of new campaigns within the process.
- Conducted on-the job training and performance enhancement programs and generated reports.
Jan 2001 - Aug 2003: Senior Client Response Executive & Client Response Executive
ALICO (American Life Insurance Company - Part of AIG - American International Group) is among the largest international life insurance companies in the world had engaged GTL Ltd to execute their marketing & sale of insurance to U.K citizens.
- Managed a team of 12 Client Response Executives; handled challenging sales calls, generated reports.
- Monitored and analyzed the performance of team members using reports and statistical tools and providing them feedback.
- Promotion of Insurance policies to U.K customer base.
- Maintained the quality of calls / good conversion rate, achieving the sales target.
ACHIEVEMENTS
- Awarded Certificate of Excellence for Outstanding Performance at the 3rd Anniversary of the Project in Oct 04 as a Product & Process Trainer.
- Awarded “Passion for Action” award for Providian Training Team in Oct 03.
- Recognized as a Top performer for achieving the “Fastest 1000 Quality sales” in ALICO
- Top performer in contact conversion & sale of Insurance policies with lowest percentage of cancellations as a Client response executive.
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