Hello Future: The ISP's PY Program is here for you
More choice. More flexibility. More support.
Leading the way in developing future Sales Professionals
The sales and business development industry is being transformed by automation and digital change. The rise of emerging technologies is influencing the way organisations buy and sell, and the professional skills that are valued. Unpredictable business landscapes mean that professional capabilities are more important than ever. Graduating Sales Professionals are increasingly expected to be job-ready and adequately equipped to handle our digital world. Today, our candidates are competing for roles as difference-makers, growth accelerators, critical thinkers, innovators and digitally savvy experts who can guide new initiatives to help businesses navigate disruption and unpredictable environments.
Building a sustainable future for our profession
The ISP PY Program is actively developing graduates who can apply professional scepticism and become trusted partners to customers and within their own organisations. The program integrates the development of deep technical expertise with strong professional skills, capabilities and advanced business acumen, offered in a digital environment through real-world engagement, authentic simulations and challenges, and embedded capability assessment.
ISP ANZ strives to deliver greater relevance and choice in the PY Program while maintaining the high standards and rigour of ISP education.
Amplifying professional skills
The PY Program sets out to maximise existing core strengths while encouraging high-impact skills, as we empower the next generation to become committed work-ready, future-focused Sales Professionals.
The PY Program develops the growth of candidates’ professional capabilities to ensure that they develop into:
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Ethical and trusted partners
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Collaborators, communicators and influencers
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Digital transformation leaders
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Critical thinkers and problem solvers
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Adaptive and reflective professionals
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Elite-level sales performers
Our ISP Sales Capability Model, based on comprehensive research into future capabilities of sales and BD professionals around the world, has informed our approach of integrating technical expertise and broad professional and business skills within the PY Program.
The aim was to address the changing nature of work and global disruption of professions, while mapping the career stages, professional journeys and work needs of Sales Professionals in Australia and New Zealand. The process spanned career trajectories, to ensure that we could provide a CISP with balanced development for today’s and tomorrow’s world of selling.
The ISP Sales Framework focuses on four domains:
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Core
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Business
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Leadership
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Personal
The future-focused Program: providing relevance and choice
The PY Program focuses on a combination of real world engagement, authentic simulations and challenges, and embedding professional skills to create a robust learning and development environment.
Real world engagement
Real-world engagement provides candidates with valuable opportunities to practically apply what they have learned. This allows them to apply their knowledge to the workplace, using industry links embedded to highlight and enhance real-world examples and activities.
Authentic simulations are created using digital platforms that replicate the workplace. Candidates create plans, collateral, supporting documents and dashboards, and use CRM systems together with commonly found analytical software and tools, such as PowerBI, Powerpoint and Excel. The program develops communication and collaboration skills through team-based activities and assessments, and networking opportunities provided through virtual classrooms. With flexibility offered across online, the PY Program has been designed to reflect a modern workplace, with an emphasis on powerful customer engagement, effective collaboration and team building.
Candidates work through authentic case studies and activities that incorporate professional, business and technical skills, which become increasingly complex as the program progresses. These incorporate the skill of finding, using and creating real-world documents that contain hidden ethical dilemmas – replicating what can occur in actual sales scenarios. Case studies often have multiple acceptable answers to reflect actual business decision-making. These answers are assessed, not only on the technical response provided, but also on how effectively the candidates’ insights are communicated to the appropriate audience.
Digital learning environments
A digital learning environment allows candidates to study in a way that replicates the way they work. Supported by online tools such as digital study guides, microlearning videos, podcasts, infographics, case studies, practice questions and interactive examples, the content is easily accessible through desktop or mobile, and caters to candidates’ diverse study needs, preferences and styles.
Rigorous and weighted assessment
Assessment is critical to the way in which the PY Program embeds professional selling capabilities. The PY Program leverages a number of assessment formats to assess all aspects of a candidate's capabilities. Rather than rewarding candidates for being ‘great at passing exams’, the variety of assessment methods ensure that our successful candidates are ‘great at being adaptive and effective Sales Professionals’.
Assessments are based on real-world scenarios, where candidates are required to integrate technical, business and professional capabilities. Beyond technical sales analysis, candidates are asked to prepare reports, draft emails and deliver simulated presentations to customers, partners and other stakeholders. Rather than being presented with a defined data set, candidates are consistently required to filter large amounts of information and distil insights to make appropriate recommendations – just as they will be expected to do as practising Sales Professionals in the real world.
Assessments are designed to measure and provide feedback on candidates’ professional skills. ISP ANZ engages and trains CISP's to mark assessments using performance criteria to judge the quality of candidate performance in different skill areas, such as communication and situational analysis.
The program will allow for greater specialisation through elective content, and hours have been adjusted for personalised, and impactful learning.
Your future is here!
