What you don't know can hurt you. More specifically, what your employees don't know can cripple sales, alienate customers, and keep your company three steps behind the competition. But for large and growing companies, getting the entire crew together for a day or two of intensive classroom education can cost millions of dollars. And depending on the department, instructor-led courses may not be the smartest use of your moneyâ€"or your employees' time.
Two years ago, classroom training accounted for 77 percent of the business skills education market. By 2004, corporate America will school its employees the old-fashioned way only 35 percent of the time, according to IDC. Businesses will earmark US$11.4 billion in 2003 to train their workforce via the Internet. But despite the large amount of projected spending, the fact is that e-learning is cheaper than many traditional methods. A lot cheaper. It helped IBM carve $100 million out of its training budget. Salomon Smith Barney saves $245,000 in travel costs and $480,000 in opportunity costsâ€"the expense of taking executives away from customersâ€"on every product training event. And Rockwell Collins is poised to slash its employee education expense by one third.
E-learning providers now deliver more than just canned courses in a Web browser. The challenge for businesses is to choose training that accounts for the varied learning styles and job descriptions of employees from all departments. Salespeople do best when they're entertainedâ€"and when they can talk back to presenters. Analytical engineers and technology staff? They want to get their hands dirty. And managers? Teach them to collaborate, before they become dictators. Here's how to solve your most pressing business problems.
