In the fall of 2002, BT's five lines of business met to discuss ways to leverage each other's resources and to drive e-learning usage throughout the company. BT's businesses were under considerable pressure to control costs. And the company wanted to move its learning programs from primarily instructor-led to online training.

As a result, the businesses consolidated their separate e-learning content licenses into a single enterprise-wide license with NETg. The license provided greater access to courses at a much lower cost per learner. To drive e-learning usage, BT partnered with NETg on a series of "roadshows" and other targeted programs to promote the new courses.

The results have been quite remarkable, exceeding even BT's most optimistic projections. In less than one year's time, BT was able to double usage of its online courses and has made the switch from primarily instructor-led to primarily online training. Overall training costs have actually declined by $22 million, and yet learning programs have maintained their effectiveness and alignment with strategic priorities.

An industry study of the costs of training operations among firms who are outsourcing and firms managing these activities internally. This study compares training costs and personnel in order to determine: does outsourcing really save money?

Here's what you will learn:

• How much cost savings does outsourcing provide?
• What are the reductions in staffing afforded by outsourcing?
• What areas of training technology and operations should be outsourced to provide the greatest savings?

If you are a training manager, this report will show you why and how outsourcing of key functions is important to consider.

Traditionally the process of building "courseware" or "e-learning content" has been a sequential effort including a team. The team typically includes a subject matter expert (SME), instructional designer (ID), a web developer, and a project manager. Together these four people design an instructional plan and follow a circular process. This process often has many checkpoints and testing cycles to make sure that the courseware is complete, instructionally sound, interesting, and working well.

While this approach provides many benefits, the problem is that it is often too slow. According to our research, the #1 challenge faced by e-learning developers is: "It takes too long to develop a course." Enter Rapid E-Learning.

This article describes the process for building rapid e- learning applications and the current tools available.

Our monthly webinar series features findings from our recent research. These webinars are free and are hosted by Josh Bersin.

In this month's webinar, we will present the results of a new study on the total costs of corporate training operations. This study will identify cost allocation for both internal and outsourced models, and will examine the motivations, benefits, and limitations of each approach.

• The Economics of Training Outsourcing
• When: August 19, 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern
• SIGN UP NOW

In September's webinar, we will highlight the results of our recent study of the Rapid E-learning Market. The webinar will provide guidelines on how and where to use rapid e-learning techniques and will briefly review tools and technologies.

• Rapid E-Learning: What Works
• When: September 16, 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern
• SIGN UP NOW