On September 4th, the registration opened for the world´s largest service market competition Volvo International Service Training Awards (VISTA)*. More than 18,000 technicians, from the Volvo Trucks and Volvo Buses global dealer network, are estimated to participate. Through teamwork and competence development VISTA aims to attract and maintain skilled technicians.
The VISTA challenge has included teams that represent South Africa. One to highlight includes the 2013 team that managed to reach the semi-finals where they came 17th out of a total of 32 teams that participated. This team that represented South Africa saw Volvo’s local Corporate Social Investment (CSI) programme – Star for Life recipient – Manqoba Mkhize who has become a fully qualified diesel technician who participated at the VISTA semi-finals that took place in Madrid. Star for Life is a multi-faceted programme which also offers apprenticeships to students from underprivileged communities.
Even though VISTA is a competition, the main objectives of the competition are to encourage teamwork, build team spirit and pride, as well as encourage self-improvement and competence development. It´s a way for service market personnel to increase their knowledge and the quality of their work as well as get to know their colleagues from around the world. The results of this leads to improved customer service and greater customer satisfaction.
Highly skilled and motivated technicians enable Volvo Trucks workshops to carry out fault diagnosis and fix trucks’ problems ‘right the first time’, in a timely manner and to high quality standards. These skills are vital to help our customers achieve maximum uptime for their trucks.
“VISTA improves our skills and gives us the motivation to be the best crew in the world. And if our mechanics are the best in the world – they are motivated to do the best job for the customer,” says Claes Nilsson, President, Volvo Trucks.
VISTA 2017-18 is expected to attract over 18,000 service market personnel from the global dealer network. They will work together in around 4,500 teams. The theme this year is ‘Performance is Everything’ – recognizing that to work for Volvo Trucks and Volvo Buses, performance must be top class at all times. VISTA is also a way for Volvo Trucks to address the worldwide challenge of both recruiting and retaining workshop technicians.
“With the support of everyone in the team, VISTA is the perfect opportunity to feel like you belong to the world’s best service market family,” says Claes Nilsson.
About VISTA
*VISTA stands for Volvo International Service Training Awards. It started in 1957 and was originally as a competition for Volvo technicians in Sweden. 20 years later, by 1977 it had reached out across all continents, attracting authorized Volvo dealers from all over the world. Today VISTA is a biennial event and the biggest competition for service market personnel in the world.
VISTA is open to Volvo Trucks and Volvo Buses dealerships and their technicians worldwide. To qualify, participating teams need to complete two parts comprising theoretical and technical questions. The winners in each market qualify for the semi-finals, which will be held in Gothenburg, Sweden in April 2018. Here, a total of 240 teams will compete, during a period of three weeks. The top 40 teams from the semi-finals qualify for the world final in Curitiba in June 2018.
Key dates VISTA 2017-18
Official Launch June 27, 2017
Registration Opens September 4, 2017
1st Theoretical Part November 7-30, 2017
2nd Theoretical Part January 30-February 20, 2018
Semi Finals, Gothenburg, Sweden April 9-27, 2018
Final, Curitiba, Brazil June 25-29, 2018
The world’s largest service market competition opens – VISTA https://t.co/qDScSzayFx @VolvoCar_SA @VolvoTrucks @TruckAndFreight #ArriveAlive pic.twitter.com/Bi1S1zq0vz
— Arrive Alive (@_ArriveAlive) September 20, 2017
