Facilitate Enterprise ROI

Through Learning

Digitalization Meeting the Demands of the Business

Why Do Companies Invest in Training?

Large, global organizations typically operate disparate business systems around the world – increasing

IT costs and impacting service consistency for customers. To increase efficiency and performance, many

enterprises choose to optimize their operations based on globally standardized “core” systems.

Implementing core software applications, such as SAP,

PeopleSoft, Salesforce, Maximo, Workday, and others,

takes a major investment not only in the technology

infrastructure, but also in preparing end-users to operate

within the system. Business cases are prepared to forecast

the potential savings that will result from the installation

of the new application. Assumptions are made on how

quickly and thoroughly the users of the application will be

able to use it efficiently and effectively. These expectations

can be jeopardized if the technology roll-out is delayed or

slowed because the users are not ready to meet these

assumptions. If a company wants to achieve its business case goals, they must ensure maximum end-

user adoption with skilled, competent users.

How Do Companies Enable Skilled, Competent Users?

There are many positives that can be said for the old “tried-and-true” training methods. On-the-job

training was and still is a solid approach to transmitting needed skills and competencies. Classroom

training remains a standard at many companies. But the way we work in the 21st century is not the same

as the way we worked in the 20th century. Users may not be in the same room, building, or even the

same city as their counterparts. They may not even be in the same time zone. These factors must be

taken into consideration when preparing users to access and effectively use critical software. Companies

Learning today has

become a business-critical

priority for increasing

skills, improving the

leadership pipeline, and

enhancing employee

engagement.

Deloitte University Press, “Global Human Capital

Trends 2015: Leading in the new world of work”

are global — training users must be global too. So, what is the best solution for getting people well

prepared for their jobs?

We have all been through our fair share of live or in-person training courses. Whether it be the two-

week “immersion” course in a hotel conference room with 150 of your newest colleagues or the three-

day “crash course” in how to use the updated system, these live training events are invaluable. It is a rare

opportunity to interact face-to-face with colleagues known only by voice.

Classroom courses provide the opportunity to ask questions and really dissect the tasks at hand. There

is the advantage of a live instructor who can provide extra help when a concept is too difficult to

understand based on the pre-reading material. Classroom training holds attendees more accountable

and they tend to be more attentive due to peer pressure. Most importantly, though, is the ability to

actually practice what is learned. Practice can take the form of a scenario role play or logging into the

“practice system” to perform the tasks required for a particular role.

Alternatively, there is the eLearning or self-paced approach to training where training can be individually

scheduled. The obvious advantage is that disruption of work is more controlled. Management can

determine the best time to take the required courses, then weave that into the daily routine without

affecting the normal flow of the day. Additionally, users move at their own pace, focusing on the

elements that are relevant to them and skipping the things they already know. Finally, the training is

given in small portions for more effective learning, also known as “microlearning.” The hands-on practice

scenarios are often repeatable, so the user can get a level of repetition that reinforces learning.

Both forms of training – classroom and eLearning – have advantages and disadvantages. Those

responsible for preparing and deploying training must consider the audience, the circumstances and the

costs (direct and indirect) to make an informed decision as to the appropriate approach. The focus of

this paper is to examine the costs related to the two primary approaches to technology-based training

— classroom-based, instructor-led training and eLearning, self-paced delivery.

What Should the Business Case Include?

To realize the maximum benefit from investment in people, process and technology, organizations

must enable the best systems and the most knowledgeable people working on those systems. But

there are limits. Leadership is motivated to finance a project when there is potential for a strong return

on investment. A business case analyzes the benefits and costs to ground the expectations of

management regarding what the financial outcomes, both revenues and costs, will be over time. If

sufficiently favorable, subject to a variety of risk factors, the business case is typically accepted and the

project initiated.

The training element of the business case is generally two-fold:

1) the costs (direct or indirect) in developing, deploying and

supporting a training effort with sufficient quality and within

cost structures to ensure that 2) expected targets (key

performance indicators, or KPIs) impacting the business are

met. If costs stay within budget, but the KPIs are not met, then

the project was not successful. If the KPIs were met, but the

costs were out of control, then the project was not efficient. However, if both are reasonably met, then

the project generates success.

Thus, the cost of preparing end-users must fit into the parameters established by the business case.

These parameters should focus on two major areas: 1) the cost of developing, delivering and supporting

the organizational change effort that is change management and training, and 2) the assumptions that

are used to measure success from the business point of view — in essence, the impact on the business

that the change is projected to generate, usually stated in terms of improvements that translate into

dollars. Let’s examine more closely the costs associated with training end-users and measuring the

outcome of a system implementation.

What Is Training Costing Your Enterprise?

There are two types of costs related to training. For the purposes of this paper, they are categorized as

“overt” and “covert” costs. Like their names imply, overt costs are the hard costs associated with the

application implementation usually identified and accrued at the project-level and may be capitalized;

covert costs are the hidden operating costs that are not listed in the project budgets, but cause a

significant impact to the business.

When conducting classroom training, the overt costs

include costs to develop the materials for the training

(hardware, software and the labor necessary to develop

training content, and develop and maintain training

databases to support delivery, including consulting costs

and travel/expense; costs to deliver the actual training

(classroom(s), equipment, instructor salaries, and travel and

expense for project personnel); and post-delivery support

(usually to support post-system-go-live activities to ensure

full understanding and rapid assistance at the point-of-

need to help soften the drop in business productivity)).

Basically, this includes all costs that hit the project budget.

Covert costs generally include costs for trainees to travel to the site, hotel/housing during the event(s),

per diems for the participants, and lost productivity (both trainee salary costs and lost sales). Depending

on the number of trainees and the geographical disbursement of the participants, the covert costs of

classroom training can well exceed the overt cost in creating and delivering the training.

Often, the covert costs are either overlooked during business cases or significantly understated. The

understatement is usually because the scope of the project, from a training aspect, is unclear at the point

of business case development. It is not because they don’t have the data. Most companies can tell you

Research shows that

most companies

underestimate their

[training] spending by a

factor of two to three, and

many have uncoordinated

and duplicative programs

and tools throughout the

company.

O’Leonard and Krider, “The Corporate Learning

Factbook 2014”

down to the penny the cost of one employee’s absence for a day. And a good audience analysis can

determine the number of employees affected by the training and the average number of training days.

Deriving a total is pure math.

The cost to provide classroom training can be significant, but is typically overshadowed by a

commitment from leadership to provide the best for their employees. Leadership also tends to view

classroom training as safer because it is the “tried-and-true” means to ensure knowledge transfer,

especially for mission-critical applications. There is some value in this thinking, but it generally means

that leadership has short-changed the cost — especially covert cost — to reach this position.

eLearning approaches can provide significant savings in various areas over classroom training, but they

come with greater risks relative to effectiveness. Development cost is roughly the same as classroom

materials, except for the need to develop and maintain training databases (further explored below).

Deployment costs are also significantly reduced, courses can be pushed to trainees quickly and

efficiently while being designed to provide only the learning information needed (unlike classroom

training that is more one-size-fits-all), and training executives can monitor eLearning to ensure

successful completion.

The downside to eLearning is that you do not have the instructor to bridge the gap if the materials are

not sufficient for the participant to gain critical mass in learning. Basically, eLearning demands well-

written and properly presented content that is high-fidelity and appropriately formatted. eLearning

deployment works best with material that is process-oriented, routine in nature, and well-documented.

Classroom deployment works best with more theoretical, results-oriented material, where the interaction

between instructor and student is critical.

The needs of training audiences vary, so the approaches must vary as well. Selecting a blended approach

allows you the flexibility to deliver instructor-led or eLearning when the situation calls for it. Current

tools can provide realistic simulations that create robust process solutions for training, whether in the

classroom or through eLearning. As a result, the costs associated with creating and maintaining

hardware as well as sandboxes of the application is significantly reduced. As beneficial and useful as a

sandbox may be when training staff on a crucial enterprise application (as they are configured with the

same software and hardware), they are very costly and time consuming to set up and maintain.

Costs of training clients or sandbox systems can run from $150,000 to $1 million per year.

Additionally, there are costs tied to the development time required to keep the training client up-to-

date in conjunction with ongoing system changes. Clearly, this is expensive as well as laborious,

negatively impacting the return on the technology investment.

What if companies could deliver high-quality systems training with a learning model that includes formal

classroom sessions, hands-on system practice, self-paced and on-demand courses, and point-of-need

support in production for less than their traditional training approaches cost?

How Learning Digitalization Allows Organizations to do

More with Less

To reduce cost while improving quality when implementing and training end-users on software systems,

companies need to explore the impact that training technologies have had on both the development of

content and subsequent deployment. The challenge with today’s core system training approach is that

there are often a multitude of different tools being used to create content, and the time required to

develop against a system that is not fully stable and under

development is expensive. All too often, there are

redundancies across the content that the instructor-led and

eLearning development teams are producing. Just the

scrubbing of training data alone (i.e., masking sensitive

customer data, translating content into multiple languages or

simply developing use cases for a training environment) can be

a time consuming and costly effort. And once you publish and

conduct initial system training, you immediately begin the

effort of updating and rebuilding training for the next system

release.

What if there was a way that your learning and development

(L&D) department could end the cycle of inefficiency, make training content development less labor-

intensive, and shrink the time to proficiency for your users, all while positively impacting the IT

department and the overall bottom line of the business?

Assima provides a toolkit that digitalizes the essence of mission-critical applications through its cloning

technology, which generates multiple training and ongoing support content types. You can make

training development an efficient exercise through a single capture process that allows for simultaneous

We often focus on

the costs of getting

training in front of

employees, but forget to

include the long-term

costs for maintaining the

training and any

refresher training that

may be needed.

Erin Krebs, “Show Me the Money: Building a

Rock-Solid Business Case for E-Learning”

publication of all of your training outputs (i.e., high-fidelity simulations, participant guides, eLearning

courses, job aids, etc.).

Cloning offers the ability to translate, anonymize or localize captured data and create relevant training

outputs in a fraction of the time. Not only will you have training materials that stay in sync, you will also

have hands-on system simulations that allow your users to explore the system in a version that is as

close to the “real thing” as possible – training 30% quicker than in a real system. Maximize the

effectiveness and retention of new knowledge as the realism of the clone keeps the learner engaged

and interested. A significant advantage of a virtual clone is that it eliminates the technology expense of

traditional training clients/sandboxes. No longer will you have the financial impact of system licensing,

maintaining databases, as well as the technical staff time to set-up and maintain a training client.

Achieving a strong return on your technology investment at the project-level starts with efficiently

developing training content and effectively training your end-users. In addition, your company’s return

on investment can be maximized by ensuring end-users maintain their proficiency post go-live through

in-application performance support.

Increase the Performance of End-users

In the 20th century, performance support was the person in the next cubicle. For the apprentice, a hands-

on, in-the-moment lesson. For the journeyman, it was a side-saddle, on-the-job session. But as pointed

out before, the 21st century brings different challenges. The mentor isn’t in the next cubicle, room,

building or even state. (S)he may be in a time zone on the other side of the world.

Studies have shown that

70% of learning happens

while on the job, and users

forget 70% of learning two

days after formal training.

With that in mind, the

focus shifts from relying on

a user’s retained

knowledge from pre-go-

live training, to new or

refresher learning in the

live application. This is not

to say that formal training

should go away, but that it

can be dramatically

reduced through just-in-time supplemental training that ensures proficiency levels remain high, at the

moment of need, and that employees are more effectively using the system.

There should be more to training than just ramping up employees before a system goes live or is

updated. The focus should be on increasing their performance as a whole. If you proactively pinpoint

when system changes are going to occur and deliver the required training at the point-of-need in an

application, you eliminate the need to take someone off their desk to attend a formal training event.

Thus, employees become more proficient quicker because their learning happens within the workflow

where it is most valuable, saving the organization both time and money.

Taken one step further, imagine the ability to reduce in-application errors, which could prevent costly

downstream work by reducing data mistakes. Not only are users better able to do their jobs because

they have access to in-application guidance, but you save money across the organization due to lower

operational costs. If system users receive the help they need within the application, it can also lower the

costs of maintaining a help desk. Assima supports point-of-need training, reducing in-application data

entry errors and providing user analytics. This enables increased visibility into user proficiency to more

easily make decisions that optimize how users should be working within the system.

By shifting your training solutions to focus both on formal training and on-the-job training, you can

shorten the time to proficiency for employees. The more proficient your users, the more benefit you

gain from the system, as an effective and efficient workforce ensures the best ROI from your enterprise

application.

About Assima

Assima creates technology solutions to support large-scale application deployments, delivering

measurable return on investment through increased user performance. Assima’s award-winning

software, training and change management solutions drive adoption, utilization and

organizational proficiency for any business-critical IT change project. For more information, please

visit www.assima.net.

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