Training measurement continues to be a challenge in our industry.    In fact, it is one of the top three areas of concern on the minds of corporate training managers.    We have been studying this issue for more than five years now, and much of our findings are now available in a new book The Training Measurement Book (now available from Bersin & Associates  and from Amazon. com).   The book details the principles, methodologies, case studies, and findings of this research.
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This week I had a call with five financial services clients to understand the impact of the economic slowdown on their learning, talent, and systems investments.   How are HR, talent strategies, and enterprise learning investments being affected by the credit crunch and slowdown in the US financial system?  (The clients included companies in banking and insurance: TD Bank Financial Group, First Horizon National Corporation, BNY Mellon Asset Management, Manulife Financial, and Wachovia. ) I was encouraged to hear that none of these financial institutions is dramatically cutting its talent investments.   In fact, each of these executives told me that their top executives continue to understand the need to maintain investments in people as the business slows.   Most of these companies are, however,  reducing expenses, including a freeze on travel and cutting back on large meetings and conferences.
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On March 12, two of the leading talent management software vendors went to war.   SuccessFactors, a leading provider of performance management software,  filed a lawsuit against Softscape, a leading provider of integrated talent management software. The lawsuit, and continuing press releases, claims that Softscape inappropriately logged into SuccessFactors' internal systems, distributed false and misleading claims about SuccessFactors' customers and products, and misused SuccessFactors' name and logo in a presentation distributed to clients. We have seen both the filing and the presentation in question.   I would characterize it as a very aggressive marketing move by Softscape with a combination of truth, exaggeration, inaccuracies, and salesmanship.
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As we read more and more about talent management suites and the rapid growth in the market for integrated HR software, what has happened to the market for learning management systems?  I'd like to provide our readers a brief update, with more details available in our research library. 1.   The LMS market continues to grow.   The LMS market will reach over $700 Million this year and it continues to grow.   While more than 70% of large enterprises have some LMS in place, almost 40% of these are being replaced, consolidated, or upgraded.
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