Saint-Gobain Distribution Bâtiment France is France’s largest distributor of construction materials, with 2,200 sales points throughout the country. The company is part of the Saint-Gobain corporate group, which specializes in manufacturing glass and other high-performance construction materials and has nearly 200,000 employees worldwide. From Campus Pro, Saint-Gobain Distribution Bâtiment France’s internal training center, the company meets the challenge of addressing the needs of its employees and ensures that they are not only operational in the field but can also carry out their functions at the highest level possible. In this context, the French company opted for Gamelearn’s serious games.
The challenge: bring training further into the digital sphere
At the beginning of 2016, Campus Pro, with over 20 years of experience and training centers in Paris, Rezé and Arles, was facing three major challenges:
- Bring training further into the digital sphere. In an increasingly digitized world, where investing in technology has become essential to increase company productivity, Saint-Gobain Distribution Bâtiment France was looking for an online and flexible format that would let its employees take the course anytime and anywhere. Opting to digitally transform training also had a ripple effect on the digital transformation of the entire company.
- Offer something different, modern and innovative. While there are many e-learning course providers, the company wanted something different that was capable of enticing its employees. The goal was to generate interest, go beyond e-learning and commit to a new way of learning.
- Shore up the staff’s business skills. Within the broad spectrum of training, Saint-Gobain Distribution Bâtiment France wanted to focus on the negotiation and sales skills of its employees. Many of them need to negotiate prices and contracts every day, and Campus Pro was therefore seeking to reinforce this soft skill to improve the overall results of the company.
Solution: Merchants, the serious game about negotiation
After looking over different options available on the market, the Campus Pro team opted for the serious game Merchants. This video game brings the employee back to fifteenth century Venice to learn the secrets of successful negotiation from a tutor and attempt to become the most successful merchant in history. This course afforded at least three advantages to the company:
- 100% online training. Employees only need an internet connection and email account to play this serious game. There is no need for classroom lessons or physical media. In this format, and in addition to training whenever and wherever they want (thus breaking the barriers of time and space), employees are also unwittingly taking steps forward (together with the company) in digital transformation.
- An innovative training format capable of captivating students. From the very outset, the video game format awoke the curiosity and interest among the employees of Saint-Gobain Distribution Bâtiment France. As soon as they began playing, the students put themselves into the shoes of the main character and immersed themselves into an adventure, which heightened their motivation and allowed them to form part of a new and innovative pedagogic method.
- The best negotiation course. The serious game Merchants, which is based on the Harvard negotiation method, gave Saint-Gobain Distribution Bâtiment France top-quality contents with proven success in thousands of companies worldwide. Merchants provides employees with not only theoretical contents but also a sophisticated simulator that guarantees direct practice and experiential learning.
Results: 97.7% consider it applicable to their jobs
When implementing the training, Saint-Gobain Distribution Bâtiment France also benefited from the experience of its supplier. The supplier provided some tips about how to launch the project, kindle interest among company employees and ensure that students understand how the game works. At the same time, Gamelearn also provided the technical support necessary to ensure a smooth and simple implementation.
After training some 200 employees, the managers of Campus Pro were extremely satisfied with the results. The commitment to digital transformation and a new and innovative format had a substantial impact on Saint-Gobain Distribution Bâtiment France, where nearly 90% of the employees finished the course. Moreover, 91.1% would recommend it and 97.7% considered it applicable to their jobs.