Deconstructing Extended Enterprise Learning

Extended Enterprise Learning is training that is provided to learners outside the company’s four walls. This extended enterprise includes the key links in your supply chain: suppliers, the distribution channel (partners, franchisees), and customers. Including them in your learning strategy can help maximize the impact and value of the chain in growing your business and increasing profits. EEL can empower each link with the information they need, when they need it, and deepen the connections and relationships that are critical to your success. Let’s use this supply chain view to deconstruct Extended Enterprise Learning.

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EXTENDED ENTERPRISE - THE SUPPLY CHAIN

By including the supply chain we can describe the extended enterprise domain for our learning strategy. It is a linkage of defined roles and responsibilities that integrate and operate to deliver the promised "value" to your end customer. Each link in the chain must perform their designated role and align with your strategy, objectives and desired results.

Figure 1.0 The Extened Enterprise Value Chain

Figure 1.0 depicts the three-primary links to a successful business outcome that operate outside the four walls of your company – outside your direct control, but certainly within your sphere of influence. First, there are the Suppliers, who provide the necessary input to your final product or service, such as raw materials, manufacturing and possibly research and development. Second, consider your channel and distribution network; here's where your Partners live. These would include franchise owners, outlets, and other channels and alliances. Depending on your industry, your distributors/manufacturing reps, etc., can be a big part of your sales and service highway to the consumer. And finally, in our classic view of the chain, there is your ultimate Customer, the consumer of your products/services that make the magic when they say, “I’ll take it!”

SuppliersChannel &

Distribution (Partners)

Customers

• Raw Materials • Manufacturers • Research &

Development

• Franchise Owners • Retail Outlets • Channel/Alliances

• Product Feedback • Social Influence • Product Training

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THE CONNECTED ECONOMY

Before we start deconstructing extended enterprise learning, we need to talk about “The Connected Economy”. Seth Godin, the well-known entrepreneur, marketer, and communicator, has talked about “The Connection Revolution” where technology connects people, relationships form and ideas are shared. This revolutionizes how things get done and value is created. He identified four pillars of connectedness that support this new economy: COORDINATION, TRUST, PERMISSION, and the EXCHANGE OF IDEAS.

Figure 2.0 Four Pillars of The Connected Economy

Think about how consumer spending is influenced in today’s world. The web and mobile technology put information and opinion at our fingertips, anytime, anywhere we want. Increasingly we are seeing purchase patterns heavily influenced by the experience and opinions of thousands of other consumers. The information that flows within these connections needs to be managed and shaped for your benefit. Extended learning delivery can have a positive impact in achieving that end.

First, there is Coordination – It’s about bringing everyone together. It’s effectively communicating the messaging of your brand – the base values of your business and the value you aim to deliver not only to your ultimate consumer but those that join you in that delivery: suppliers, employees, and partners. It's about aligning the messaging and delivery in such a way that there is a consistency of meaning and impact.

Coordination PermissionTrustExchange of Idaes

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Second, there is Trust – it’s about the authenticity of the message that sets expectations and promises delivery AND having the wherewithal to deliver on that promise. It’s so hard to establish trust and oh so easy to lose it. Next is Permission – this is one that is not so evident on the surface. In this context, Permission has to do with "proving you have the knowledge and skills to participate in this connected economy." Let me give you a simple example. We all know the disruption of the ground transportation market that Uber, Lyft, and others have had. With respect to permission, the company (Uber/Lyft, etc.), the "supplier/partner” (Drivers) and the Customer (Riders) all need to understand what the promise is:

• The company – a cheaper way to get from point A to point B

• The "supplier/partner" – how I get "work," how I deliver on that call, and how I get paid

• The "consumer," how I signup, how I request a ride, how I pay for the ride and how I provide feedback on my experience.

If anyone in that chain fails to understand their role, their required actions, and expected results, the whole thing gets discombobulated. Finally, the last pillar supporting this connected economy is the Exchange of Ideas. Here, the essential thought is that one learns better when exposed to different ideas, experiences, and outcomes. All of us together are smarter than any one individual. The variety provides the possibility of something new and valuable. It’s how innovation happens.

EXTENDED ENTERPRISE LEARNING – DECONSTRUCTED

Every day we hear about the importance of becoming a learning culture. Work and how we accomplish it seem to be changing every day. What we knew how to do five years ago, even three years ago, may quickly fade into irrelevancy. The ability to interject "new knowledge" that improves performance, productivity and outcome is at the very core of a learning culture.

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I’m going to approach this from a very structured framework of suppliers, partners, and customers:

1) Who: Role Definition 2) Why train them? 3) What should the training cover? 4) What are some of the challenges? 5) What are some of the solutions?

SUPPLIERS

Role: Their role in the supply chain is to provide goods and services that are directly or indirectly contributing to the end service/product you sell to your ultimate consumer.

Why

• You have the vision and intent of what your product/service is within the marketplace. Ensuring that your suppliers understand those enables them to provide what you need when you need it. The Japanese have a term, Keiretsu, which encapsulates a philosophy of a close-knit network that continuously learns, improves and prospers.

• Providing a supplier with the means to learn, understand and align themselves with your vision can dramatically improve their performance and benefit both parties.

• There are opportunities where your skills and capabilities around efficiency and effective business processes and practices can be shared with your suppliers to maximize their efficiencies, ultimately leading to lowering your costs and improving service from them.

What

• First, they need to learn how they contribute to your end-product/service. They need to understand your value proposition and where/how they fit into the fulfillment of that vision.

• Process improvement – sharing how to be efficient leads to effectiveness. Combined, these can lead to lower costs to you and higher profits for your supplier – everybody wants a win-win.

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• They need to have a consistent view and reference to how you intend to conduct business with them: your ordering process, delivery expectations, and payment processes help to solidify how you are going to interact with them.

• As you receive feedback on quality and experience from your ultimate consumers or perhaps from your manufacturing process, you can provide immediate and impactful learning back to them about what needs to improve.

Challenges

• How do you make it worth their while?

• What’s the most efficient and effective way to deliver the training?

• How will you know if the training delivered the intended outcome or if it needs to change?

Solves

• From the very outset, share your expectations around the continuous and mutual improvement of your business relationship – including having a learning culture.

• Point out what’s in it for them — a stronger relationship and opportunities for increased purchases.

• Think about where you interact with them most frequently. Odds are it’s within your Customer Relationship Management System. Providing learning delivery within that application framework will make it easily accessible and enhance learning effectiveness because of immediacy and context.

• Measure target outcomes after you've deployed learning. Look at both efficiency and effectiveness of topics and delivery. Are reject rates falling? Are delivery times more consistent?

PARTNERS

Role: Their role in the supply chain is an independent or loosely coupled entity that resells your product and provides local value-added services and support.

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Why

• Companies must maintain the integrity of their brand promise

• Global partners often represent competing product lines from your competitors. Thus, it becomes a game of "mindshare."

• The organization that can train and certify its extended sales/service teams will be better positioned to win.

• Across all industries, companies that train and certify their partner channels see dramatic increases in channel sales and customer satisfaction.

What

• Brand and product/service positioning should be shared and reinforced.

• Channel training and certification will improve channel performance.

• Onboarding of partner sales teams will start them out quickly and armed with the right information.

• Competitive advantages for your product/service will help them differentiate you in the market.

• Best Practices can improve their internal operations and help make them more successful.

• Attracting and retaining strong talent in their sales/service organization. They are an extension of your organization; hence, they need alignment with the talent profile you rely upon within your organization to "make the sale."

Challenges

• Providing the right training to the right players in your partner’s organization

• Tracking compliance and certifications can be time-consuming and costly.

• As with suppliers, figuring out what is the most effective way to deliver learning – determining what is the mix between in-person instructor-led versus online delivery and Micro-learning methods.

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Solves

• Make sure that your partners understand your brand promise and how they are an extension of communicating and fulfilling that promise.

• Simplify how training is delivered and track its progress and results meticulously. Link it directly to key indicators.

• For online learning, providing delivery within the CRM application framework will make it easily accessible and enhance learning effectiveness because of immediacy and context.

• Model your training content and messaging on what you do for your internal employees (with appropriate changes) so that you present consistency across the entire chain.

CUSTOMERS

Role: "Magic Makers," the ultimate consumer of what your supply chain delivers.

Why

• Retention - It’s 6 to 7 times costlier to acquire a new customer than retaining an existing one.

• Helps to build trust and brand loyalty.

• An informed customer is likely to become an engaged customer.

• Engaged customers typically spend 20% – 40% MORE than those who are not

• The power of social influence, both positive and negative, is real and you need to recognize it.

• Customer training can lower your overall support costs

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What

• Your brand positioning and customer value proposition should be a key first message; it’s what will attract and bind them to you.

• Your differentiators that support your value proposition, so they become a more informed consumer.

• Offered product/services, details, and benefits

• FAQ’s and How To’s; help in using your product or services.

Challenges

• There’s a lot of information and frankly, disinformation out on the web and in social communities – your truth needs to stand out against the noise.

• Creating bite-sized chunks of information that can be consumed anywhere and at any time requires design thinking on how your customer will interact in the learning event.

• Delivering customer training in the simplest and most engaging manner possible, think about they communicate and act in their daily lives.

Solves

• Make your learning experience a mobile one; it’s where the information highway is today.

• Apply design thinking to the customer’s experience in accessing and taking training.

• Use videos, streaming content.

• If your CRM has embedded learning delivery capabilities, look at creating communities of learning within that framework. These communities provide your customers the ability to connect with their peers and provides you a wealth of feedback that can be analyzed and provide key insights to improving success.

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In this brief, we defined Extended Enterprise Learning as an effort to extend

the learning experience beyond the four walls of the organization. We

identified the three constituents of the enterprise Supply Chain: Suppliers,

Partners (Channels/Distribution) and the Customer. We talked a little about

The Connected Economy and it’s four supporting pillars: Coordination,

Trust, Permission and the Exchange of Ideas. These provided a backdrop to

discuss today’s mobile technology and the social connections, interactions

it enables, and the implications. Finally, we deconstructed Extended

Enterprise Learning through the lens of the enterprise Supply Chain.

Summary