Automation and Standardization of Training Process across Dealer Network

Challenges

A leading two-wheeler manufacturer, Royal Enfield, captures a sizable chunk in the premium category two-wheeler market in India. With approximately 2000+ Royal Enfield dealerships operating in India as of May 2021, their training mechanism for these dealerships had to be fool proof. Our analysis of the requirement and the nature of the industry, led to identifying the following challenges.

Distributed Network of Employee

With the dealership workforces being third party resources, the major challenge for the company is the lack of consolidated view of the workforce base that needs training and also their on-the-job performance. For Royal Enfield, their dealer network is spread across 31 states and 1000+ cities in India while they are headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Additional to this unstructured, multi-organizational arrangement, the challenge of lack of information on actual manpower in each dealership resulted in superfluous admin cost.

Data Scattered Across Multiple Systems

To optimize training, it is vital to track data that helps detect the problem areas which in case of an auto dealership would be customer satisfaction, first time resolution, satisfactory test drive, on time delivery etc. However, this data is scattered across multiple systems which hinders training need analysis. With the data scattered over several systems there is no data continuity from which the leadership can track the individual learning levels of the dealership workforce.

Major Concerns

• No tracking of individual learning levels
• Redundancy of process incurring cost
• Classroom training module is cost intensive
• Lack of centralized platform for training standardization
• No centralized mechanism to manage dealer network spread across 31 states and 1000+ cities in India
• Dealership personnel are neither on Company’s payroll, nor trackable
• Data scattered over several systems with no data continuity

No Tracking of Training Resource or Training Delivery

As training in auto industry happens zone wise with multiple dealerships sending representatives for classroom training sessions. While the trainers have to travel extensively and coordinating with the dealerships to ensure maximum training becomes quite unmanageable when done
manually. It is not possible to track the training that is happening in the dealerships or sub-dealerships in the manual process. The lack of data tracking for training also resulted in redundancy in the process which incurred cost.

Data Scattered Across Multiple Systems

The lack of a centralized learning platform was costing the company exorbitant amount of money to bring this dispersed workforce together. Circulating training material for every new training was also another tedious job which not only was cost intensive but inappropriately time consuming. There was also no standardization of training because the leaders at the head office had no idea how much of the training material was actually getting distributed at the dealership.

Solutions

Tenneo (formerly G-Cube LMS) collaborated with Royal Enfield to create a technology in clined modern learning management system that was aligned with the specific training needs of their extended workforce.

As dealership workforce has to work from different locations, it was essential to provide a robust platform which is easily accessible and has an intuitive user interface. We enabled seamless integration with the multiple, existing data management systems Royal Enfield for faster onboarding. Pre-configured workflows for training automation resulted in more effective training. Additionally, the intelligent business reports made the solution fool-proof by helping in identifying gaps and enable the leadership to plan the necessary measures. We discuss the solutions in detail here after.

Increased Efficiency with eLearning Module

With the implementation of the LMS which digitized the entire training mechanism at Royal Enfield, logistical cost for classroom training, training material distribution and repeat trainings went down drastically. Time taken to disseminate new courses and also conduct assessments
reduced as it was now being done through the LMS and the whole process became real-time. With eLearning content being available on the LMS all the time, workforces could refer to the training whenever they required or wanted to, which saved the cost of repeat training. Other than bringing a standardization in the training process, this accessibility increased training adoption as a whole.

Consolidating Employee Data

As a primary customization to consolidate the workforce data to bring a structure to the distributed dealership network the LMS has been integrated with the dealer management system which pulls 3 kinds of data. The dealer workforce data, the company workforce data and also the
branch master data. This integration helps to segregate the dealer workforce data according to the branches and compiles it in a structured manner. This in turn helps the Area Sales Manager, who is again identified automatically from the company workforce data, can manage the training of the dealership networks in his/her zone. With the automation of this process, the system makes the training assignment and tracking efficient and free of manual error.

Automated Training Assignment & Tracking

The LMS is also integrated with the CRM which pulls the data related to customer satisfaction, first time resolution etc. Based on the workforce’s or the dealership’s performance as per the CRM data, the system recommends training on a rule-engine basis, and this is triggered
automatically. So, imagine if a service engineer was supposed to deliver a bike by 4 PM but has delivered it at 8 PM, the system will track the inadequacy in his/her performance and trigger training accordingly. The automation of training assignment and tracking also helps in identifying workforces who have performed well with timely training, and they are assigned to groups – Basic, Expert and Guru, according to their level expertise. As all auto sector players, have the skill contest and reward their star performers, this mechanism makes the identification an unbiased process and also helps the workforce keep a track of their own performance which motivates to do better.

Training Resource Optimization

With DMS and CRM integration, the LMS had the capability to conduct automatic training need analysis. It also gives a view of the training schedule to the ASM who in turn can allocate vILT trainings or even classroom sessions, if needed, in a much more organized and cost-effective
manner. With more than 22000 licenses being used regularly at Royal Enfield which includes their workforce base and dealership network, the volume of training went up drastically which had a positive impact on sales and services alike.

Impact

Tenneo LMS achieved positive impact on the dealership network’s sales and service departments alike, of Royal Enfield. The results achieved were as follows.

• LMS provided information on-the-go which became point-of-sale support
• 98% repair quality maintained at the dealerships with standardized training
• 19000 workforces were trained regularly without any hiccups
• Identification of skill-gap became timely and uncomplicated leading to faster resolution
• 19% annual cost reduction on training logistics with eLearning module
• 1880 courses assigned; 3550 programs launched, and 5750 events were conducted across all dealerships