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Volkswagen Books Rendezvous into new National Learning Center
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In 2004, Volkswagen UK
made a strategic decision: 'To sell more cars we
must invest in our people'.
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New Learning Center Requires
New Solution
The Volkswagen Group National Learning Centre is a
unique facility which opened in early 2005. The center,
located near Volkswagen's head office in Milton Keynes,
serves multiple dealers and multiple brands, such as
Volkswagen passenger cars and commercial vehicles, Audi, Skoda, and SEAT; providing technical and non-technical
training for the entire UK operation. Such a national
center is unprecedented in the auto industry.
 Before the new center 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 center'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.
The Power of Rendezvous
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 know that a buffet lunch is to be served. Nicola uses Rendezvous to see what catering and equipment is required for each session, and also uses a specially designed interface to import visitor names and produce delegate badges.
Delegate badges are not the only indication that the
center is run like a conference venue. A new dress code
requires all delegates, even those on technical
training, to wear business attire. "Before this
center opened, delegates often arrived in jeans and
trainers," she says. "But we wanted to raise the
tone."
Another reason for a powerful booking solution is that
the center 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, theater style. In addition, the
atrium has become unexpectedly busy, according to
Nicola.
"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 comments. "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 center, 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. Public
areas are all brand-neutral.
Rendezvous Streamlines Entire Training and Events Programme
With a new center 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 center to transform the training process, even with the challenge of heavy delegate volume.
"This system is helping us to achieve our vision of
this center: to inspire our retailers to deliver an
excellent customer experience," notes Nicola.
"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."
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