Web Learning Starts To Pay Off
Companies say Web training is cheaper and more measurable
By JOHN BERRY
Companies that launched virtual learning programs for their employees several years ago suspected that there were financial benefits, but they lacked the historical data to prove the case. Now that training on the Web has matured, the benefits are much more quantifiable--and often dramatic.
"Companies pursue the e-learning path today for the same reasons they pursued outsourcing 10 years ago," says the Gartner Group's Clark Aldrich. "Not because it's better, but because it's cheaper and more measurable."
Credit Suisse First Boston now offers 200 IT and financial-related courses over its intranet. The company, which hired finance education content provider Intuition Publishing to develop the course material, just launched its financial curricula to 2,000 executives and back-office personnel. The IT technical training--directed at the IT shop as well as end users seeking application training--has been running about 10 months--and the savings have been dramatic.
Diane Oswell, assistant vice president, global human resources development, estimates that the cost of delivering a Microsoft Excel technical support course is $150 per user in an internal classroom versus $300 in an external classroom. For traditional tutoring, the cost rises to $900. The cost via the Web is $2.50 per user. "If you do a straight comparison, the savings can be incredible," Oswell says.
KPMG Peat Marwick, the $3.8 billion consulting firm, is also beginning to migrate computer-based training on CD-ROMs to the Web. The company requires its professional staff to take a 30-hour course in e-business concepts and pass a mandatory test with a grade of 70 percent or better.
"The purpose is to establish a baseline of knowledge about e-business for all individuals within KPMG," says Douglas Stefanko, national director of consulting, training and development at the firm's Montvale, N.J., support center.
Out of 255 employees who have taken the exam thus far, 85 percent passed on the first try. Stefanko estimates that Web training costs one-sixth of what classroom delivery runs. And early results of a recent employee survey indicate that the workforce is pleased with the Web-based courses.
NCR Corp. is yet another company that agrees Web-based training is valuable. Up until two years ago, 95 percent of NCR's training was delivered through the classroom in buildings located worldwide. Today, 10 percent of the $6.5 billion company's in-house training is Web-based, and 40 percent is delivered outside the traditional classroom setting, chiefly through interactive television, CD-ROM and the Web.
Dave Siefert, director of NCR University Virtual Learning, says the company offers 600 Web-based courses, including office productivity and technical training on its products and services. He says a recent cost-benefit analysis of all types of technology-oriented training based on a survey of 288 employees showed that Web-based training delivered nine times the benefits versus the costs in terms of productivity and the quality of the experience.
One of the most innovative aspects of the company's virtual learning initiative is a custom decision support app that helps NCR determine the best delivery vehicle for a course. Siefert inputs the nature of the new course and queries against data collected on past projects to get a sense of which delivery mechanism--interactive TV, CD-ROM, classroom or Web--is best suited for the content. For example, it was assumed at NCR that a course in project management was best suited for the classroom.
"After running it through the decision-support system, we found the best medium was interactive TV with some preliminary training on CD," says Siefert. "The decision-support app said that all classroom training would have been too costly and taken too long to deliver.''
Learning the best uses for Web training can translate into a competitive advantage.
"Companies need to know how to learn this way, says Gartner Group's Aldrich. "It's in their best interest to teach them now, so as more course material emerges, they'll be a faster learning organization than their competitors."
John Berry is a writer and IT consultant based in Bend, Ore. He can be reached a jb@empnet.com.
