News
11 May 2010 New white paper - 'Trust Flutters'
Global Sales Study
Is your sales force world class? How do your salespeople compare to other companies in your segment?
Sales Effectiveness
Rate the sales effectiveness of your own organisation.
Download free audit tool.
Why Imparta
When founder Richard Barkey started Imparta in 1997, the goal was to provide an antidote to an industry that was – and remains – focused on delivering events rather than results.
Expert Coaching
Reinforce learning at work through expert coaching.
Business Impact
What clients say about our impact on their business.
Abbey National
The Challenge
Abbey National wanted to create a senior management development programme for two groups of people: the first were on a “fast track” path to senior management positions within 5 years; the second group had gained appointed to senior positions as a result of excellent functional skills but they lacked formal training in the business skills needed for their new roles.
Abbey National (now part of Santandar) was one of the UK's leading financial services companies employing some 30,000 staff. Its retail banking activities offer a comprehensive range of financial services to businesses and consumers.
The Client needs and the Solution
The company wanted a programme which would give participants both a solid grounding in the theory and principles of business strategy, plus the chance to develop skills by applying those principles in a 'safe environment'.
To do this, a training partnership was formed between Henley Management College and Imparta to deliver this programme.Henley Management College is one of the UK’s top international business schools, among the top 30 globally, and operates the world’s largest part-time MBA programme, Henley also provides executive education programmes customised for individual companies.
Working to a specification provided by Abbey National, Henley Management College developed a one week programme to focus on strategic thinking and decision-making skills, and areas of management such as finance, marketing and organisational behaviour.
The course was delivered in two parts, to overcome work difficulties caused by managers being absent from their office for too long at one time. The first part consisted mainly of knowledge-building via classroom tuition and exercises.
For the second part, participants entered a workshop environment and the experience of Imparta's Strategy CoPilot® simulation where they 'worked' as strategists for a virtual company, Acme Bottle. This allowed them to put into action the strategic and management concepts they had learned previously and gain real-time feedback on the impact of their decisions. The learning from the sessions was extended as participants were required to identify potential areas of competitive advantage for their own company and how they might be exploited.
To help embed the learning into their real working world, participants maintained access to the course materials, for reminders of theory and the ability to use templates and tools in to their day-to-day work.
The Outcome
Tim Barnett, Management Development Consultant, for Abbey National stated: "The Senior Manager Development Programme run by Henley Management College has proved to be both beneficial and popular with our senior managers and the feedback has been consistently excellent. Henley were our preferred choice of supplier because they had the knowledge, experience and teaching skills to meet the needs of our audience and also because they offered a solution which fully integrated with the exceptional Imparta Strategy Co-Pilot® simulation."
Roger Martin Fagg, Client Director at Henley Management College, remarked: "Strategy CoPilot® uses the best strategy tools and gives a human context for their application. It shows the user how important it is to ask the right questions, and understand that people make the difference. It provides a memorable learning experience, which integrates the soft and hard aspects of Strategy. Imparta shares our philosophy on how to create value for participants; it is a pleasure working with them."
Copyright © Imparta 1997-2010
