Gioia Della Rosa is the co-Founder and CEO of GDR Global, Inc., a SAP/ERP Training and Consulting provider (www.gdrglobal.com), based in Pennsylvania - USA and London. GDR Global is launching a new e-Learning service for SAP training programs: www.live-learn.com
Over 150 international heads of IT and Chief Executives from the industry and companies with significant IT functions attended the conference.
In the recent election campaign all political parties have been stressing the importance of knowledge and skills as a key competitive asset for British businesses. No doubt we can rest assured that their future plans and actions will reflect this awareness…
In the meantime, what are businesses doing to strengthen the competence and capabilities of their workforce? How and where, are they directing or re-directing their investments?
Our perspective, however partial, is surely a good indicator of the "temperature" of the training "space" and may help in defining some of the issues at play.
Whether we like it or not, the Global Society is here to stay: these days, the flutter of a butterfly wing in Singapore really does cause a hurricane in California…the economic slow-down is a good example. Wall Street warns its newly-made millionaires that the future may be uncertain, and the City swiftly abandons its belief in the benefits and the rosy prospects of technology….
The technology boom-bust phenomenon has left numerous victims in its wake: hardware and software vendors, CIOs with renewed fiscal discipline, despondent investors to name a few. But this list should also include confused employees, those that were promised a work life more efficient, less redundant procedures, more delegated responsibilities. Those employees that saw many of their co-workers go, in line with a more integrated vision of the company business processes.
You may remember, we called them end-users, because they were the final point that could make large, complex, integrated enterprise systems really work. Today, these systems combine core business functions - such as accounting, production planning, sales and distribution, quality assurance, and project management - into an integrated system that links the "front office", "back office" and financial systems to create a seamless process. The newest versions of these enterprise systems are now focusing on e-commerce applications, aimed at reengineering the front end of a company's processes (customer-oriented), as well as the entire supply chain. Names like SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle, J.D. Edwards & Co. have become the dream and the nightmare of hundreds, thousands of CEOs, CIOs, HR Managers all around the country. Actually, the countries, because the proliferation of these phenomena is not limited to any one country in particular. It is probably the most singular global trend that has swamped businesses all over the planet.
But let's go back to our confused, unsatisfied end-users. Many companies have not achieved a return on their technology investments, in part because of these end-users, the people who actually have to do the work. How many had been properly prepared for the big wave of change that plunged over them? How many did actually know what was expected of them and how to react? In some cases, the preparation was optimal. In most cases, it was rushed and far away from the point of need. In many cases, it was simply not done. As an example, I can refer to a recent client of ours, an Anglo-American multinational, that enrolled all their end-users from 17 countries in English courses to train them on the new system…I'm sure you caught the point that English is not the widely spoken language in all 17 countries around the world…
And more and more of these requirements will emerge: with the continued proliferation of enterprise systems throughout an ever-increasing number of businesses, the need for comprehensive end-user learning has become a critical component. Effective training allows employees to perform their new work roles, use the system efficiently, understand integrated processes, and recognize the personal changes facing them. How are those CIOs and CFOs challenged by increased fiscal discipline going to react to these requirements?
From our perspective of the market, many businesses have recognized some of the mistakes of the past, and some "meaningful conversations' amongst key stakeholders have emerged. We would certainly expect the upcoming wave of new releases and upgrades to be handled differently from the first "go-live" programs.
At the same time, the "success stories" of "those who did it", and did it well, are being propagated and illustrated on the press, at trade shows, in Consultants glossy presentations. According to Farmington, MA-based IDC, "...the better the training, the faster you'll see business metrics move in the direction you're looking for." Effective end-user learning enables companies to quickly realize substantial return on their high investment in the software, by improving post-launch productivity by as much as 25%. The training investments are now beginning to pay back.
We believe the industry has learned, and the importance of a comprehensive training program is becoming increasingly understood and valued by the customers of enterprise systems. The importance of human performance is still, after years of discussion, at the center of attention, and now with metrics that can sustain it.
We also see a new "frontier" emerging, that will fundamentally change the way training support is provided: where it is needed, when it is needed, on what is needed. I'm talking about technology-assisted learning, where technical tools and communication network infrastructure have evolved dramatically over these past two years. The state of the market for e-learning providers is a reflection of that. A look at the page of advertisers for training products and services for the top industry publications in 1999 and 2001 will tell us more about the transformation of the industry than a market survey…a good exercise to do in one of those "down" days, should one of these days come along..
Some good news for our end-users then, and for all of us as consumers and investors: business processes are improving, products are manufactured at lower costs, shipments are delivered more quickly. At the end of the day, a plant maintenance operator is still repairing machine tools, an invoicing clerk is processing invoices….a depot clerk is picking and packing parts…..In other words, people will be doing their jobs…but doing them faster, with less waste, with fewer errors and with fewer physical assets on hand.
Finally, a reminder of what an effective end-user learning program should consist of:
- Rationale - People need to know why the change is happening. Frequently, people's initial reaction is that jobs are at risk, which causes the majority of the organization to resist the change.
- Context - People also need to know what is changing, in terms of work, language, and organization structure, among others.
- Role-Based - An ERP project nearly always changes how work is done. This, in turn, changes work roles of individual end-users.
- Process-Oriented - Most organizations are built around functional departments. ERP systems are built around process transactions.
- Process Integration - Additionally, the efficiencies of ERP systems are gained through the integration of processes across an organization.
- System Navigation - This is clearly an essential part of end-user training.
Unfortunately, if this is the only component included in the training programs (as is often the case), much of our good news will not come true…real learning will not have taken place in the business environment, not on the shop floor, nor in the account receivable department, nor at the depot.