To highlight this, a couple of years ago I wrote about the CIO of one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. He delighted several executives in my former employer (SumTotal Systems) with this statement: “Our LMS is the second most-used application in the company today … right behind e-mail.” He went on to say that it had become “mission critical” to their organization. I’m sure LMS critics would be surprised at this, and have a hard time conceiv- ing that the LMS could be almost as ubiquitous as e-mail. But one aspect of an LMS platform which seems often overlooked is that – unlike many other tech- nologies labeled “enterprise” – an LMS touches virtually every employee in an organization. And increasingly, non-employee audiences, such as distributors, partners, and customers, are also using it. Most CRM or ERP applications can’t claim anywhere near that kind of reach, let alone most other components of an “integrated talent management” suite like a recruiting platform or compensa- tion management application (more on this subject later).
The LMS has indeed become a core application on which other business func- tions are significantly dependent. The range of use is sometimes mind-
boggling:
• Like many pharmaceutical companies, Wyeth uses their LMS to keep their sales force up to speed on new drug introductions, and in one case, as a result of better sales training, the company was able to in- crease market share of one product by more than 900%.
• At NCR, the LMS serves as the primary intranet site for the employee population, making it the most accessed Website within the corpora- tion, with well over 60 million hits per year.
• Roseville, Calif., which has a population of about 105,000, purchased a learning management system to help city officials deal with an antici- pated workforce shortage. The city estimates that approximately 60 percent of its workforce could potentially retire in the next five to 10 years, so they are using the LMS to deal with the potential loss of or- ganizational knowledge and to identify specific skills and competencies inherent in a successful performer.
I’m sure LMS critics would be surprised that the LMS could be al- most as ubiq- uitous as e-mail.
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• As is the case with most insurance companies, Pacific Life has multiple compliance requirements that are required of their entire employee base. Standardizing on an LMS reduced the time for employees to meet these requirements by 82%, which the company feels has had a
marked improvement on the productivity of its workforce.
• Symbol Technologies, best known as the inventor of the bar scan de- vice, uses its LMS to educate and certify the partner channel. As a re- sult, Symbol has seen a direct correlation between the number of part- ner certifications and increases in the channel’s revenue stream. In a five year span, partner revenue climbed from 59% to 75% of total reve- nues. In addition, Symbol experienced a 5 – 10% decrease in partner support calls.
• At Peterson Air Force Base, where the U.S. Northern Command and its air-defense partner, the North American Aerospace Defense Command are based, they are charged with defending North America against ter- rorism and responding to multiple threats, including natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. They are using a learning management sys- tem to quickly keep personnel up to speed. “That is crucial in this ever- changing world and the ongoing war against global terror,” said Air Force Lt. Col. Doug Johnston, a twice-named Top Gun. “As our foes use new tactics against us, we have got to get information out as fast as we can so that people not only know about those tactics but understand how to combat them.” While it’s still years away, the system’s logical progression would allow military commanders to identify and deploy personnel immediately, according to Johnston.
• The Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI), the professional body for in- dividuals working in all sectors of the UK automotive industry, credits their LMS with directly increasing annual revenue by 70%, the result of a 40% increase in market share of its awarding and qualification busi- ness.
As these examples illustrate, learning management systems are often touching core areas that CEO’s and other senior leaders think about every day: revenue, productivity, risk management, readiness, market share and operating effi- ciency.
Track scores and manage courses? That’s so ten years ago.
Track scores and manage courses? That’s so ten years ago.
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Interestingly, in some organizations learning management systems have also become a tool for CEO’s to affect one aspect of their companies that has tradi- tionally been very challenging to proactively change: corporate culture. Citi- group, for example, is using their LMS to unite its employee population of 300,000+ around CEO Charles Prince’s company-wide ethics program. The program came out of a need for the world’s largest financial-services firm to better balance its “delivering-the-numbers” culture with a longer-term atten- tion to reputation. “We need to change the way we do business,” said Prince in response to the program, and the company is using the LMS as a primary tool to facilitate this.
One of the most powerful statements I’ve heard about the clout of an LMS – and Web-based learning in general – is that it’s one of the very few “levers” a CEO can pull to get all employees marching in step with one another. In a very basic way, the LMS is one of the few pieces of technology where you can de- liver a consistent message throughout the workforce, and not only ensure that everyone receives the message but that they comprehend it. In my opinion, many CEO’s still haven’t recognized this power. But once they do, it typically raises the visibility and importance of the department and individuals that oversee and manage the enterprise-wide LMS.
In fact, many people feel that the visibility and recognition of the learning function has increased in recent years. The LMS platform probably doesn’t get enough credit for its role in this growth. Too often the industry has focused on the failures of the LMS industry, as opposed to sitting back and realizing what an LMS has enabled: a much more powerful role for the training department. I’ve had many senior training professionals tell me that their LMS has in- creased the strategic value of training in their employer’s eyes.
“The LMS has definitely increased the strategic value of training,” said Leslie Durham Director of Global Sales Training of Symantec – now the fourth largest software company in the world. “Our sales managers rely on the employee skills information for retention and employee development. Information from the LMS ties to our performance review process to determine eligibility for the highest level of performance. As we make the data and information from the LMS available to managers in more meaningful ways, the perceived strategic value of training increases.”
Rob Lauber, the VP of Global Training at YUM! Brands, was previously the ex- ecutive director of learning services for Cingular Wireless. While at Cingular, he told me that “the LMS has totally increased the visibility of learning in our
Too often the indus- try has focused on
the failures of the LMS industry, as opposed to sitting back and realizing what an LMS has enabled: a much more powerful role for the training de-
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business,” primarily because it is the central point of entry into all learning ac- tivities, and it is in a prominent position on the main Employee Portal pages, where before learning activities weren’t as visible to the business.
While he was Program Manager for United Airline’s Workforce Performance Systems group, Jeff Presseau told me that their LMS “is an enabling platform for business transformation. It allows us to leverage technology to support per- formance improvement in our organization in ways that are not possible in disparate systems.” He went on to say that “the implementation of a Web based LMS has given United new tools to boost organizational readiness and speed.” While visibility for successful projects is typically viewed as a good thing, if the project is not successful this same visibility can be a career-wrecker. That’s why selecting the right system – and the right provider – is so critical for most organizations.