In 2004, Volkswagen UK made a strategic decision: to sell more cars we must invest in our people.

The Volkswagen Group National Learning Centre is a unique facility which opened in early 2005. The centre, located near Volkswagen’s head office in Milton Keynes, serves multiple dealers and multiple brands – Volkswagen passenger cars, Volkswagen commercial vehicles, Audi, Skoda and SEAT, providing technical and non technical training for the entire UK operation.

Before the new centre opened, Volkswagen had only six technical training rooms and had to book into nearby hotels to conduct non-technical training. With the prospect of 32 training rooms in the new facility, as well as a large atrium to be used for events, the project team chose Rendezvous, the next generation browser-based meeting room, conference and catering solution from NFS Hospitality.

Nicola Sheehan, Room Bookings Manager, explains that the new centre’s two buildings contain 16 training rooms for technical training while another 16 are for non-technical training in subjects such as management or marketing. The technical training rooms are located near workshops that are fully equipped as garages – accommodating three cars at once.

According to Nicola, Rendezvous has the power and flexibility to help her manage as many as 400 delegates a day, including the company’s retailers (dealers) and managerial staff. “We book the training rooms and input all details about each training session into Rendezvous. That way the facilities staff, the catering staff and our Meet & Greet people can print off the day reports and see exactly what is needed,” she says. For example, the facilities staff will know that a certain training room will have ten people and need two flipcharts. Day reports let the catering department will know that a buffet lunch is to be served. Nicola also uses Rendezvous to at equipment is needed, such as flip charts, as well as day reports for the catering department. She also uses a specially designed interface to import visitor names and produce delegate badges.

Delegate badges are not the only indication that the centre is run like a conference venue. A new dress code requires all delegates, even those on technical training, to wear business attire. “Before this centre opened, delegates often arrived in jeans and trainers,” she says. “But we wanted to raise the tone.”

Another reason for a powerful booking solution: the centre is designed with total flexibility. Not only can the workshops be separately booked but any unused training rooms can be booked for meetings by head office people. Also, four large rooms can be split in half or opened up to seat 120 theatre-style. In addition, the atrium has become unexpectedly busy, Nicola says.

“The atrium is used when we have a new product, such as the recent launch of the new Passat, with up to 120 people arriving per day to learn about the new model,” she says. “ But we have been surprised that the atrium is also in demand for events – like Skoda’s centenary celebration. The atrium is so large that they were able to show off all the models from 100 years ago through this year.”

Book and brand

The various departments at the centre, which access Rendezvous on a read-only basis, often have to act very quickly: for example, when one brand such as Audi or Skoda is “hosting” a training session, then the facilities department must be sure to put up the appropriate Audi or Skoda brand posters in the allocated rooms. The public areas are all “brand-neutral”.

With a new centre and a new system to get up and running, Nicola needed good technical support from NFS. “Our man there is helpful and reliable,” she says.

In Volkswagen’s view, high quality training is the key to developing high-level staff, and Nicola believes that Rendezvous’ powerful functionality has enabled the centre to transform the training process, even with the challenge of heavy delegate volume.

“This system is helping us to achieve our vision of this centre: to inspire our retailers to deliver an excellent customer experience,” she says. “When they visit this center, we view them as our customers, so of course their own experience in training has to be of the highest quality. Training is a competitive driver in the market and we rely on Rendezvous to streamline the entire process."