London Business School rings the changes at Telenor
London Business School is ringing the changes with Norwegian telecoms giant Telenor, after receiving outstanding customer feedback on its custom-made programmes.
A recent survey by independent pollsters, Gallup, ranked Telenor employees’ satisfaction with their custom-made London Business School executive education programme among the top 5% of the global customer satisfaction average on the TRIM index, which measures customer retention levels.
Following a decision to invest in its global team and create a common marketing culture across the organisation, Telenor’s Brand Academy looked to London Business School to design a programme to make their marketing more effective and to help them to better understand their customers’ needs.
London Business School’s marketing faculty – comprising Professors of Marketing, Nirmalya Kumar, Nader Tavassoli, Naufel Vilcassim, Rajesh Chandy and Assistant Professor of Marketing, Marco Bertini – worked closely with Telenor to design programmes for their senior management and marketing professionals.
Explaining the framework of the programme, Professor Nirmalya Kumar said: “The Telenor Brand Academy was designed through deep collaboration between our faculty team and Telenor’s top management. Everybody from the CEO and executive board to country managers were interviewed to ensure the programme reflected Telenor challenges.
“The faculty, based on their experience and research, ensured that the programme reflected global best practices regardless of industry. Finally the goal was to transfer these best practices into the Telenor organisation so that they were subsequently reflected in the tools that were used by Telenor marketing in their everyday work life.”
The TRIM index score of 108, compared to the global average of 68, reflected the overall quality of the programme, how likely participants were to recommend it to others and the advantage participants felt they gained from attending, both personally and professionally. London Business School ranked “very high” across all categories.
Members of London Business School’s marketing faculty taught on the course, working with Telenor employees at sites in Norway and Bangkok and at London Business School. According to the Gallup study, the quality of London Business School’s faculty members was the most important driver for the impressive satisfaction results.
Anne Gro Gulla, Telenor’s Vice President, Marketing Communications, spoke highly of their experience with London Business School. She commented, “We are very happy with London Business School, which from the start was willing to adapt its teaching material to our needs. Telenor issues and input from the markets have constituted an essential part of the programmes."
As a reflection of the impact of London Business School’s programmes on Telenor, the organisation is continuing to work with the School on addressing the challenges of achieving excellence in the finance function. Visiting Associate Professor of Accounting, Chris Higson, is leading the custom finance programmes.
It is not only Telenor which has benefited from this relationship. Eugenia Patriniche, Telenor’s Account Director, explained: “Our marketing professors have acquired a wealth of knowledge through our client, which we are now able to leverage across our programmes.”