Volvo Trucks begins largest global competition for aftermarket technical staff with VISTA

Volvo Trucks recently kicked off its largest global competition for aftermarket technical service personnel, VISTA or the Volvo International Service Training Awards, as registration officially opens for its technicians to participate. Through teamwork and competence development, VISTA aims to further upskill, attract and maintain skilled technicians. 

This year, up to 20,000 technicians from Volvo Trucks and Volvo Buses global dealer network, including teams from Malaysia, are expected to participate in this global competition.

Even though VISTA is a competition, the main objectives are to encourage teamwork to build team spirit and pride, while also inspiring self-improvement and competence development on technical skills. It’s a way to increase both technical knowledge and the quality of work which, in the end, leads to improved customer service and greater customer satisfaction.

Highly skilled and motivated technicians will enable Volvo Trucks’ workshops to carry out fault diagnosis and fix trucks’ problems in a timely manner while also meeting high quality standards. These skills are key in helping customers achieve maximum uptime for their trucks.

“A top-of-the-line service network is crucial for our customers’ logistics and haulage business,” says Roger Alm, President of Volvo Trucks. “VISTA shows just how important our mechanics are and, at the same time, the competition improves our skills so we can deliver outstanding service provided by the best service crews in the world.”

VISTA first started in 1957 and was originally a competition only 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 aftermarket technical service personnel in the world.

Mitch Peden, Managing Director of Volvo Malaysia says, “VISTA is much more than a competition. It is a simulation of the workshop environment that aims to build competency and share expertise, in addition to motivate and foster teamwork and collaboration among our technicians. It is also a way for Volvo Trucks to address the challenges of recruiting and retaining competent workshop technicians.  At the end of the day our customers also benefit with better service to them through improved skills and teamwork enhancement.”

VISTA is open to Volvo Trucks and Volvo Buses dealerships and their technicians worldwide. A total of 50 teams, where each team comprises four aftermarket service personnel, from Volvo Malaysia’s network of dealership across the country will be taking part. The teams will need to complete several rounds of theoretical and technical tests before a winning team is announced.  

The winning team from Malaysia, as well as winning teams from other participating countries, will meet in the semi-finals in Gothenburg, Sweden in May 2020. Several top teams will then proceed to compete for the final global championship in Turin, Italy in September 2020.

“The team from Volvo Trucks Malaysia that made it into the semi-finals in Sweden in the previous 2018/2019 VISTA competition had gained invaluable experiences from this global competition. Their improved knowledge and skills acquired from VISTA were applied in their day-to-day work and it has been successfully reflected in our employees’ competency level,” Peden says.