Testimonial

Improving the competitiveness of Executive Summaries at Norland Managed Services 

Quick facts

About
Norland Managed Services is a leading provider of hard services-led facilities maintenance and support services in the built environment. It has regional offices throughout the UK and Ireland, with turnover of approximately £250m per annum.

Courses

  • Structured Bid Writing

Carolyn Chambers, Norland Managed Services’ Sales Communications Manager, knew that her 60-strong business development team had the potential to take on their biggest competitor. But in order to achieve this high reaching aspiration, she also knew that they needed some good grounding in bid writing, and that meant training.

“We needed to focus more on executive summaries,” says Carolyn. “Although the team had experience of producing hundreds of executive summaries, I thought they should be reconsidered as a way of communicating ‘Why Norland?’ with senior executives.”

The training solution: Expert bid training by professional writers

After looking around for suitable courses Carolyn selected Writing Machine Academy’s Structured Bid Writing. Because of the size of the Norland team, Writing Machine Academy delivered the courses five times over several months. The staggered time period allowed for plenty of feedback and consultation between each two-day session, so that subsequent courses could be tailored to the next set of delegates, and their exact requirements could be considered.

“What I was most delighted with, was Writing Machine Academy’s flexibility. They really made it feel as if the course was written for our exact requirements and that nothing was too much trouble,” explains Carolyn. “I was also pleased that the course would be delivered by a professional writer, although I wasn’t surprised, given Writing Machine Academy’s writing heritage.”

Client feedback

Delegates were asked to give a score out of five on a list of feedback questions such as ‘Quality of the training content’, ‘Quality of the trainer’ and ‘I have learned new techniques that will enhance my writing’. The average score was 4.6 out of 5.

“What I was most delighted with, was Writing Machine Academy’s flexibility. They really made it feel as if the course was written for our exact requirements and that nothing was too much trouble.”
Carolyn Chambers, Sales Communications Manager, Norland Managed Services

“The course will have a positive effect on helping us get to the point – I need those in my team to come on this course.”
Norland delegate
“Spot on. The class was controlled well, the course had STRUCTURE, it was ENGAGING, had CLARITY, was kept simple and we had fun without losing the MESSAGE.”
Norland delegate
“I have learned a great deal over the last two days. Hopefully my writing and proofing will improve, along with my presentation building skills.”
Norland delegate