On Friday, November 22, European private credit firm Kartesia announced the acquisition of Richardson, a North American sales training company. Kartesia will merge Richardson with Sales Performance International (SPI), a European sales training and transformation company that it has owned since 2017. SPI and Richardson will soon operate as a single full-service global sales training and transformation firm.

The similarly sized organizations complement each other quite well. Richardson has primarily US-based clients, while SPI has a large EMEA footprint. Both firms focus on technology and manufacturing sectors, but Richardson brings expertise in financial services while SPI brings expertise in pharma and medical diagnostics sectors. In terms of sales approaches, each firm offers their own well-established methodology. Richardson’s Connected Selling Curriculum has an array of technologies with an emphasis on digitally formatted learning. SPI’s Solution Selling program covers buyer alignment along with related sales tools and methodologies.

Today’s sellers are experiencing increased pressure from business buyers demanding more meaningful, tailored, and insights-driven interactions. The combined forces of SPI and Richardson will be well positioned to deliver both skills-based training, guided selling, manager coaching, and sales process improvement services and tools to global selling organizations looking to close the gap between seller capabilities and buyer demands. However, this acquisition does not specifically address the companies’ shared lack of depth around services geared toward better equipping sellers to engage with digital-first and self-directed buyers.

To help Forrester clients navigate the evolving sales training landscape, we are launching a stream of research focusing on sales training and transformation. Mary Shea and Meredith Cain will be highlighting and then evaluating sales training and transformation providers that help businesses increase their revenue generation capabilities through a range of multiformat services tailored to sales leaders, sales managers, sales representatives, and customer service representatives.

This research will come in the form of a Forrester Now Tech report that will publish in early Q1 of 2020, as well as a Forrester Wave™ evaluation publishing in Q2 of 2020.