Telstra  was faced with an unprecedented challenge when the Australian government mandated the transition of all wholesale fixed-broadband services to a nationalized wholesale broadband network. For Telstra, the writing was on the wall: adapt quickly or suffer severely. 

Telstra’s Learning and Development took on the radical challenge of transforming their organization’s learning culture almost overnight.

The Challenge

Previously, the learning material was a conglomeration of generic and disparate programs, consisting of PowerPoints, WebEx sessions and ad-hoc videos. This disparate mass of content presented roadblocks to both those distributing the learning materials and the learners who needed to get it.

Telstra now needed a comprehensive digital learning program that could enable rapid and efficient distribution of global capability programs with thorough reporting to validate the efforts. The sales organization in particular needed to be more effective and move faster to compete in the new competitive environment. Telstra also wanted to implement a new sales training methodology—the “Telstra Way”— based on programs from the famous sales enablement training company Miller Heiman. The desire was to wrap all the knowledge and skill-building on a single platform for both new and existing salespeople. 

The Solution

Telstra’s leadership quickly created the Telstra Enterprise Academy on the Intrepid platform. The Academy was designed to serve as an innovative learning hub for all Telstra Enterprise employees to access training, knowledge, and capability programs. The Academy was built with comprehensive learning tracks and timeline expectations for the development of key capabilities across 12 Enterprise role-types, from induction and onboarding all the way up to advanced professional & technical skills.

Telstra’s Capability and Growth team, a six-person team, was able to hit the ground running, launching the first program within 8 weeks of the initial “hackathon” design session with Intrepid. The new rebranded layout on the Intrepid platform delivered immediate access to all Strategic and Conceptual Selling modules, with the added context of empowering sales to be more collaborative, agile and effective. 

The Results

The Telstra-integrated Miller Heiman programs brought their Strategic and Conceptual Selling certification program to 1400 enterprise sales employees worldwide (to date). The Telstra Way quickly provided a common framework, toolset, language, and way of thinking that allowed them to boost customer service and overall productivity.

The results of the new Telstra Way were very positive:

• Telstra implemented Strategic and Conceptual Selling on platform – certifying 1400 enterprise sales while saving two days and over $2.8 million in payroll initially with additional programs in progress
• Launched their first program with a six-person team within eight weeks of the initial design session
• Within six months of launching on Intrepid, Telstra doubled the volume of enterprise original content on platform with a lean, agile in-house team
• Integrated the Telstra Way methodology on platform, consolidating all sales modules into a single, accessible tool with transparent reporting of user activity
• Telstra created visibility into learner proficiency against professional capability and technical knowledge to drive accountability