To support Vorwerk in creating the first corporate academy in the world for a new profession – Recipe Developer.
THE CLIENT:: Vorwerk International
THE CHALLENGE
To structure, develop and implement contents and methodologies in an integrated hybrid format: e-learning platform combined with Campus Week sessions.
THE OUTCOME
The “Recipe Academy”, an 80% online and 20% in-person academy to train world-class Recipe Developers.
More than just a necessity, eating can be an absolute pleasure. Cooking tasty and healthy meals has been facilitated by the growing use of kitchen robots. The autonomy of these devices that combine diverse functions (mixing, steaming, blending, weighing, stirring, cooking, etc.), allows the user to be free for other duties or just to relax.
Thermomix® (Bimby® in Portugal and Italy), is present in more than 60 countries perfectly mirroring the success of the implementation of these innovative robots among domestic users and Chefs. Being Vorwerk’s most popular product, Thermomix® stands out in the market in terms of quality, the diversity of its functions and the universe of recipes that is associated to it.
Most people that buy Thermomix® usually are looking for the delightful and cleverly conceived high-quality recipes that come with it. Recipe development is a crucial strategic area of investment for Vorwerk who, due to the most recent technological improvements, stated an emergent need: to guarantee a prompt answer to the growing demand for high-quality recipes in digital format that feed the Cookidoo® (the Thermomix Recipe Platform). This would imply on one hand the creation of a standardized process for recipe development and on the other hand the development of a training process for a new profession – Recipe Developer. Consulting House’s experience of working in different Thermomix® markets for more than a decade (ex.: Portugal, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, USA), the deep knowledge of Vorwerk’s reality, the expertise in consultancy and training and our experience in building academies led to the invitation for a partnership on this ambitious and promising endeavour.
“The education for Recipe Developers” supports us on creating delicious, safe, success-guaranteed and relevant recipes more efficiently to increase the enjoyment for our customers around cooking, eating and nutrition. A vision came true to have a standardised training for all people joining us as Recipe Developers. This education enables them to deliver Vorwerk quality.”
CORINNA HAASE, INTERNATIONAL RECIPE DEVELOPMENT MANAGER
The first step proposed by Consulting House was the design of a business case together with the project owner. In a two day workshop we co-created the Business Canvas that allowed the project owner to pitch the project to the company board and get their approval.
After the Project Team, under the moderation of a Consulting House Facilitator, had worked out the competencies and modules they wanted to tackle in the Academy, the next challenge was bigger than expected. Most of the knowledge about the steps and process of creating recipes was concentrated in one person: the International Recipe Development Manager and with some recipe developers in the countries. The goal was to make this knowledge explicit and to translate it into a learning structure, able to train an unlimited number of people.
That’s what we did. Using a structured approach we developed together with the client the classroom trainings of the Campus Weeks to be delivered by Vorwerk’s internal Trainers, trained by us in world class presentation skills. Consulting House also guided closely the development of the online modules of the academy, guaranteeing their pedagogic value and securing their educational impact.
At the end of 2017 the pilot version of the “Recipe Academy” was launched on Vorwerk’s International online platform, complemented with Campus Weeks in which the participants met in-person to share experiences and apply their knowledge. The training process became more structured, organized and complete. This led to a more impactful preparation of “Recipe Developers” across the world, in less than half of the time required by the previous training process.In the words of Corinna Haase, International Recipe Development Manager, “The education for Recipe Developers” supports us on creating delicious, safe, success-guaranteed and relevant recipes more efficiently to increase the enjoyment for our customers around cooking, eating and nutrition. A vision came true to have a standardised training for all people joining us as Recipe Developers. This education enables them to deliver Vorwerk quality.”
After the conclusion of the project, in June 2018, and the assessment of the pilot version of the Recipe Academy, the final version will be launched and a new profession will be opened to the world.
