Case study · Media training
Softcat’s partner team sits between the company and some of the world’s biggest technology vendors, so what they say matters twice over. We built media training around two crisis scenarios drawn from Softcat’s real risks, filmed every delegate under pressure, then brought in a national journalist to test them again.
- 2 training sessions
- 2 bespoke crisis scenarios
- 40 practice questions written
- 1 national journalist on the panel
- Client Softcat
- Sector Technology, IT services
- Training Media and crisis interview training
- When September to October 2025
- Audience Alliance team, partner and vendor specialists
- Format In person in Birmingham, then on Teams
What did Softcat need?
Softcat is a FTSE 250 company and the media often asks it for comment. Its Alliance team manage relationships with major technology partners, and most delegates were fairly new to media interviews.
Softcat set three objectives, in its own words:
- “Develop confident media communication skills”
- “Improve vendor and press interaction capabilities (i.e. also use these skills in meetings to field difficult questions)”
- “Enhance professional representation of Softcat and partner technologies”
What was the insight?
Softcat’s spokespeople have to protect two things at once: Softcat and its partnerships. A careless answer about a vendor can do as much damage as one about Softcat itself.
And the skills aren’t only for journalists. The same techniques help in partner meetings, event Q&As and quarterly business reviews. So we trained for the hard question, wherever it comes from.
What did the training cover?
- Session 1, in person. The media landscape, how journalists work, controlling the narrative, on and off the record, interview techniques and the tricks reporters use, from the “Columbo” question to the two-part question.
- Filmed crisis interviews. Each delegate faced a ten-minute filmed interview on a fictional crisis built from Softcat’s real risks, followed by group playback and critique.
- Two bespoke scenarios. A partner putting Softcat’s status under review, and a global outage caused by a third-party vendor, each with 20 practice questions from gentle to tough.
- Session 2, journalist-led. Former BBC and Times journalist Helen Nugent ran Teams interviews on the scenario each delegate hadn’t faced yet, escalated to a live business news story.
- Individual feedback. Every delegate got written notes on what worked and what to fix, plus a take-away guide and a month of follow-up support.
Will Ockenden led the first session, with Helen Nugent leading the second.
What did it achieve?
Results by stage of the AMEC evaluation framework, with the source for each figure.
| Stage | Measure | Result | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inputs | Crisis scenarios built from real risks | 2, plus an escalated version | Training materials |
| Inputs | Practice questions written | 40 | Question bank |
| Outputs | Sessions delivered | 2 (16 September and 22 October 2025) | Training decks |
| Outputs | Mock interviews | A filmed interview and a Teams interview for each delegate | Session notes |
| Out-takes | Individual feedback | Written strengths and fixes for every delegate | Session 2 summary |
| Outputs | Take-away guide | 49-slide key lessons pack | Training materials |
What did Softcat get from it?
Spokespeople who had already faced their toughest questions on camera, twice, before a real journalist ever asks them. By the second session delegates were staying calm, using evidence to give context and showing empathy from the first answer.
What did we learn?
- Use their real risks. Fictional scenarios built on genuine threats made the practice feel real.
- Two sessions beat one. Swapping scenarios for the second round tested whether the skills had stuck.
- What we would do differently. Score each delegate in both sessions, so we can show the improvement in numbers as well as notes.
Need your spokespeople ready for tough questions? Talk to us about media training.
