Vikas Vinayachandran, Soft Skill Training Consultant, has an MBA from Lancaster University Management School, UK and about six years of work experience in the areas of Training & Development, Customer Service, Sales and Transitions Management. He currently conducts middle management and frontline management training programs.

Areas of Training expertise:

• Communication Skills
• Business Etiquette & Personal Grooming
• Customer Service
• Cultural Awareness
• Team Building
• Time & Stress Management
• Selling Skills
• Conflict Resolution
• Assertive Communication
• Problem Solving
• Train the Trainer
• Leadership
• Presentation Skills

Career Highlights:

• Worked with all components of the training cycle :
  • Training Needs Analysis
  • Design and Development of Programs
  • Customization of Programs to Company-Specific Training Needs
  • Implementation of Training Programs
  • Evaluation of Training
  • Follow-up and Refresher Training

• Completed Master’s Degree in Business Administration (MBA) in 2006 from Lancaster University Management School, UK (currently rated 4th in the UK and 29th in the world by the Financial Times)

• Worked as a Training Consultant with MSB, a customer service consultancy located in Berkshire, United Kingdom

• Worked as the Assistant Manager and as a Soft Skill Trainer in the Training Department at Allsec Technologies Ltd.

• Trained over 1000 trainees on foundation level training including American Accent Training, Accent Neutralization, British Accent Training, American and British Cultural Awareness, Customer Service, Telephone Etiquette, Communication Skills and Team Work.

• Currently conducts training at the middle management level on topics such as Communication Skills, Customer Service, Client Interfacing Skills, Team Management, Business Etiquette, E-mail Etiquette, Creative Problem Solving, Conflict Resolution and the Art of Assertiveness.

• Management of all aspects of the Training Cycle including –
  o Identification of training needs
  o Design and development of training programs
  o Implementation of training programs
  o Giving and receiving feedback
  o Training assessment
  o Post-training follow-up and Refresher Training
  o Train-the-Trainer programs
• New Business Development for MMM Training Solutions
• Customer Relationship Management for a diverse range of clients from various industries such as BPO, IT, ITES, FMCG, Manufacturing and Banking

• Managed the Soft Skills & Accent Training Team (comprising eight trainers including review of their performance and individual feedback)
• Administration of the Training Department including MIS reports and interaction with the management
• Conducted training needs analysis based on information and feedback received from stakeholders in the training programme (trainees, trainers, management, clients and other departments)
• Administration and review of the training programme including day-to-day running of the programme in accordance with schedules and change management based on needs analysis
• Recruited and mentored new Trainers including performance review and feedback on a regular basis and contributed to organising a Train-the-Trainer programme for the Training Team.

• Worked for MSB Consultancy Ltd. (Ascot, Berkshire, UK) as a training consultant on customer service projects for a home repairs organisation and a banking service provider
• Worked on a 2 month project (as part of the MBA degree) that required our team to assess the marketing environment and facilitate the development of marketing and growth strategies for Advance Performance - a training organisation located in Preston, Lancashire, UK

• Trained over a thousand new recruits on soft skills covering topics such as communication, team-work, conflict resolution, telephone etiquette, dealing with customers, corporate etiquette, accents and cultural orientation - American & British
• Conducted training research and development covering areas such as American and British culture, American dialects, call centre communication and the BPO industry
• Designed evaluations and appraisal systems for trainees which continue to be used by the company
• Delivered guest lectures at various colleges on the topic of ‘The BPO industry in India’ and the opportunities available in the sector
• Made presentations to prospective clients (American & British) on 'The Role and Importance of Training in the Organisation'
• Attended two train-the-trainer programmes conducted for our organisation by training consultants
• In-charge of the Training Department's compliance to ISO 9001: 2000 quality standards from 2003 to 2004 enabling instances of non-conformance to be reduced to zero

• Process transitioning and implementation
• Client interaction
• Inter-Departmental coordination
• Agent training

• Customer service and follow-up
• Outbound telemarketing
• Market research
• Database management

• As part of the MBA, chose electives that focussed on Training and Development, Leadership and Change Management
• Wrote a dissertation (as part of the MBA degree) which looked at how training organisations in the UK approached sustaining the effects of their training and development programmes
• Ex-President – Accents Inc., a club that focuses on American and British accents and their various dialects, a part of Allsec Technologies Ltd.