Sage and APS make landmark deal
FTSE 100 company Sage has agreed a landmark deal with the Association of Professional Sales to set 400 of its UK sales staff on the road towards professional accreditation.
Sage, a global market leader in accounting, payroll and payment systems, which has its headquarters in Britain, is committed to developing the UK's most ethical and best performing sales teams.
More than 400 Sage sales people will sign up to the APS code of conduct start the process of professional registration and commit to continuing professional development.
Each has three levels to reach as part of the APS journey: 'APS Affiliate', 'APS Member' and then the highest level 'APS Certified'.
Ian Helps, APS director of sales professionalism and a visiting fellow at Cranfield University, commented: "It's very gratifying that Sage has seen the value of the APS code of conduct and our professional registration."
"We believe that rapid learning and development of their sales teams will benefit their customers, their company and their performance."
Silent Edge, a leading sales and performance training organisation, will deliver work-based training for more than 400 Sage colleagues across Sage's North Park site in Newcastle and Central Park in Dublin.
Instead of using a competency framework to assess progress, coaches will use the Belief Platform, which is coaching software created by Silent Edge. This will be used by managers to observe their teams. The benchmarking is based on the skills and behaviours displayed in live customer calls.
Gary Boyes, Head of Sales at Sage, said: "At Sage, we are all about creating a high performance, customer-obsessed culture that is underpinned with fantastic sales coaching, the support to deliver a great customer experience, and a learning structure that empowers people to succeed."
"We want to be at the forefront of helping to build a global level of professionalism within the sales sector.
"Our [commitment to] APS accreditation and work with Silent Edge is the ideal way to do just this, as these are also organisations that are focused on advancing people and promoting excellence in the sales profession.
"By increasing the standards in sales and educating our staff to the highest levels we hope to employ the best, happiest and most empowered sales people in the UK and Ireland. We have brilliant people at Sage and this programme is all about nurturing this talent."