Benefits of e - Learning

Traditionally distribution has not been quick to embrace new training technologies. An annual survey of sales training in distributorships continues to show that more than two-thirds of all sales training is done in some sort of seminar format with only a fraction of those seminars using some other medium (e.g., video) for reinforcement. CD-based training, CBT, and various distance learning media show up in the surveys infrequently or not at all. Given this reluctance to move to more advanced training/education media, why should the distributor consider Internet-based training? There are two answers. The first is that the Internet uniquely conforms to a number of trends in workplace education and training. At a time when nearly 40% of applicants tested were found to be deficient in the skills needed to do the job companies have dramatically increased their investment in education and training. According to Training Magazine company investments grew by more than 33% — from $45.5 billion to more than $60.7 billion — between 1990 and 1998. More employees are, in fact, getting training and education on the job. However, it is not the same old training; a number of trends in the workplace and in training/education are having an impact on that. In the world of the knowledge-based economy in which we will all have to live there is a new view of education and the role it will play in the company’s success.

Old Economy New Economy  Four-Year Degree  Forty-Year Degree  Training as a Cost Center  Training as the #1 Source of Competitive  Advantages  Learner Mobility  Content Mobility  Distance Education  Distributed Learning  Correspondence & Video  High-tech Multimedia Centers  One-Size Fits All  Tailored Programs  Geographic Institutions  Brand Name Universities & Celebrity  Professors  Just-in-Case  Just-in-Time  Isolated  Virtual Learning Communities  Degree-goaled  Certification

Web-based learning, along with other distributed learning such as video conferencing, meet these new requirements, not only allowing for life-long learning (the “Forty-Year Degree”) and totally tailored curricula, but also providing it when and where it is needed.