ESR - THIRD PARTY SALES TRAINING PROVIDER ANALYST EVALUATION - Summary Mercuri International March 2011

The ESR Analyst Evaluation offers a detailed view of the training provider, its products and services, and qualitative and quantitative observations from the analysts perspective. Mercuri International one of the leading Sales Consulting and Result Improvement companies in the world, recently completed a thorough assessment of its capabilities conducted by ES Research Group, Inc. (ESR), a sales training research and advisory firm. Mercuri International sought the evaluation to acquire unbiased, candid feedback on its strengths and challenges as a sales training provider. Overview of Mercuri Mercuri differs significantly from many other sales training providers. This is a large firm. It can employ its own consultants and facilitators, providing a much greater degree of quality control and uniform delivery across its clients. Mercuri may in fact be the worlds largest sales training provider, with operations in over 40 countries throughout APAC, India, Africa, Europe, Brazil, and the United States. Mercuri gets selected because the firm believes that the quality of service and consistency of having its own staff, as opposed to contractors, clearly works to Mercuri's benefit with buyers. It is capable of offering a global consistency of service, global training customization, and global deployment, a capability that smaller firms cannot offer. In business more than 50 years, Mercuris development of long-term relationships is also clearly a factor. Mercuri is able to offer full blended learning solutions and has developed a series of e-learning modules in co-operation with strategic partner Cross Knowledge (e-learning and portal solution provider). These modules focus around sales and sales management. Mercuri also builds both standard and customized business simulation models, which are used as an adjunct to learning with clients. Mercuri is very focused on developing new programs with strategic partners in the U.S., such as PMI (Performance Methods, Inc.), which focuses on the need to develop customized client solutions around Strategic Account Management, as well as other partners worldwide. Another partnership of note is Market Partners, with which Mercuri is developing a series of virtual learning modules on pipeline management, opportunity management, and sales forecasting, co-marketed under the 3g Selling brand. In 2010, Mercuri was approximately a 60 million company. It had a significant ramp-up in late 2007/early 2008 to account for market growth, which subsequently evaporated with the recession. Mercuri used the recessionary economy to look at strategic partnerships, acquisitions, investments, and new product development. It used the economic decline, which amounted to approximately 20 percent, to restructure and reduce internal costs significantly so that the firm, during this period was able to restore profitability. The fundamental role of buyers and sellers has gone through a series of evolutions over the last 30 years. Mercuri has recognized this fundamental shift and evolved its programs to concentrate on the selling company's value added over that of the competition. Almost anybody can drop prices in order to buy business; Mercuri, however, believes that the selling organization must be able to differentiate itself, the quantitative value of each service, and how those services compare to the competition. Mercuri believes that this shift in the buyer-seller relationship, while precipitated by economic conditions, is permanent.

Many companies, especially those working on global projects for the first time, do not fully appreciate the quality assurance and consistency offered by a global firm and quite frequently opt for a provider based in their home country. Often, Mercuri is not the low-cost provider when one examines all of the services it believes are necessary to do global project management and localize a program for various countries to ensure return on investment (ROI) for local business units. Mercuri, like all older sales training providers, has a significant presence in the information technology industry. It also has substantial business in other market segments, including banking and finance, professional services, the medical industry, freight and logistics, and transportation sector. Strengths: Mercuri is a large, global training provider. Particularly capable when it comes to quality control and international delivery, the vast majority of its professionals are on staff, not contractors. It has built strong corporate relationships with other firms that can bring knowledge, skills, and learning materials to the market, relying on Mercuri's strong customer base and the rest of its customer relationships. Challenges: Although partnered with PMI, a very strong firm in the U.S., Mercuri still has a small presence and a largely unknown brand in North America. The firm is also challenged to expand down market and work with partner companies for allied expertise, which is part of Mercuris growth strategy. Capabilities Ratings: Being one of the oldest continuously operating training providers, Mercuri has a very broad range of course materials. Mainly working with larger companies and customizing programs for most clients, Mercuri may not be as strong for off-the-shelf basic selling skills training as some other firms in this industry. However, through its customization capability, adapting the programs and tools to the clients situation, we do see a competitive advantage. Solution Analysis: Mercuri's size and length of time in business clearly gives the firm an advantage in the breadth of program development. Its size offers the ability to deploy its own staff, rather than contractors, which delivers a level of controlled quality that other firms cannot. Mercuris January 2011 acquisition of the business simulation firm Celemi was a strategic and smart move. There is little question that business savvy and financial acumen is a required capability in the world of business-to-business selling. That skill is under-appreciated among many companies who struggle to convince their customers that their products are better than their competitors. It is often the financially savvy salesperson who has competitive advantage by gaining and maintaining access to the people who own the budgets and make the final decisions. When to Consider this Firm: Consider Mercuri if you are looking for a long-term relationship with a training provider that will use its basic inventory of training materials to develop and deploy an effective, long-term, customized program for your organization. That is Mercuri's sweet spot. ESR also recommends Mercuri for international firms with global operations because of its ability to offer programs that can be consistently delivered, but with specific national issues addressed. To the Point: First, ESR firmly agrees with and recognizes Mercuri's perception of the change in buyer behavior precipitated by the recession. We believe this change of buyer behavior is a permanent evolution. We believe that Mercuri is an excellent choice for a strategic, long-term partner to help an organization evolve its selling strategy. We also believe that Mercuri is an obvious and logical choice for multinational firms, wherever they may be, that must make minor (or major) selling adaptations to meet local market requirements.