April 2005 CLOmedia.com

2 Learning Business ProcessOutsourcing and the Journey to High Performance

4 Breaking Through to HighPerformance: Unleashing the Power of Learning BPO

8 The Personal Side of Outsourcing

10 A.G. Edwards:Learning and IT Transformation

11 Sun Microsystems:Improving Customer SatisfactionThrough Learning Outsourcing

12 Avaya: Outsourcing for Business Results

14 Learning BPO:Overcoming the Misconceptions

A Supplement to CHIEF LEARNING OFFICER magazine

AchievingBusiness Results

With LearningOutsourcing

Sponsored by

overview

What’s on the minds of learning executivestoday? An exclusive Accenture Learning researchstudy has found that a single, common goal dom-inates the learning field today: leveraging thelearning function to make a business impact andachieve high performance.

Corporations and governments alike have highexpectations for their learning organizationstoday. As companies focus on growth and innova-tion, learning and other human capital capabilitiesare going to make a difference. Organizationswant a learning organization that is aligned withoverall business strategy; they want to see meas-urable returns on their learning investments; andthey want learning executives who operate asgeneral managers of a business unit. In this envi-ronment, it is no wonder that increasing numbersof organizations are turning to external firms suchas Accenture Learning to collaborate with them toensure their investment in learning provides tangi-ble business results. Nearly half of the organiza-tions in our research study, “The Rise of the High-Performance Learning Organization,” either planto or are currently outsourcing one or more oftheir learning functions to a comprehensive out-sourcing company.

Learning business process outsourcing, or learn-ing BPO, is on the rise. In just a few short years,the use of external, comprehensive service firmsin the learning and development area to drive highperformance has grown dramatically. Learning isnow second only to the information technologyfunction in terms of the prevalence of outsourcingrelationships. Learning BPO can be a significantelement of a talent-multiplier system—an essen-tial ingredient of the performance anatomy of ahigh-performance business, as determined byother extensive research by Accenture into thecharacteristics of high performance. With a learn-ing BPO strategy, organizations can achieve supe-rior business results versus their peers per dollarof investment in their workforces.

For many organizations approaching learning BPOfor the first time, however, questions may outnum-ber answers: ideal timelines, contractual issues,choice of collaborators, managing the relation-ship, deciding which processes to focus on first,working to drive business performance with amore effective learning strategy, and so on.

At Accenture Learning, we are pleased to bringtogether, in this Chief Learning Officer magazinesupplement, some of today’s leading thinkers

and practitioners in the area of learning out-sourcing, as well as major companies that havecollaborated with Accenture Learning to achievehigh performance through their learning collabo-ration strategies.

“Achieving Business Results with LearningOutsourcing” is based on exclusive Accentureresearch, implementation experience and the les-sons from companies that have pioneered the cre-ative and effective use of learning BPO. This sup-plement shares knowledge and insights along thespectrum of outsourcing strategies: from planningto implementation to managing the relationship tohelping employees make the transition.

In the centerpiece article, “Breaking Through toHigh Performance: Unleashing the Power ofLearning BPO,” Hap Brakeley, president ofAccenture Learning, discusses the potential oflearning BPO to make a transformational impacton the performance of organizations today.Accenture Learning has pioneered a number ofsignificant innovations in the learning field that arehelping organizations from all industries, all overthe world, achieve growth and high performancethrough a learning function that is cost- effective,flexible, aligned with the most pressing needs ofthe business and capable of producing impressivebusiness results like improvements in the closerates for salespeople introducing a new product.

Because the outsourcing phenomenon was reallyborn at a time of global economic recession,however, many organizations still mistakenlylook at outsourcing as primarily a cost-reductionopportunity. It is much more than that. With alearning BPO strategy, organizations can lever-age deep industry and technical experience, aswell as innovative approaches to learning, todeliver a significant impact in measurable busi-ness terms: increased productivity, revenuegrowth and net income growth.

Achieving this transformational impact and usingit to drive high performance may require over-coming areas of resistance within companies.Organizations have a dual responsibility here: todeal with that resistance openly and honestly, butalso to clear up some false assumptions that maybe fueling the resistance. In “Learning BPO:Overcoming the Misconceptions,” Doug Harward,founder of TrainingOutsourcing.com, deals withseveral of the most prevalent areas of misunder-standing. Will organizations lose control? Willlearning executives damage their careers?

2

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

LEARNING BUSINESS PROCESSOUTSOURCING AND THE JOURNEY TO HIGH PERFORMANCE

Sponsored by Accenture Learning2

3

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

Should companies try to clean up their businessprocesses first, before pursuing outsourcing? Ineach case, the answer is, “No.”

In detailed case-study interviews, we focus onthree market leaders—A.G. Edwards, Avaya andSun Microsystems—that have collaborated withAccenture Learning in their quest for high per-formance. We are especially grateful to thoseexecutives for sharing their experiences. In eachof these cases, the company has gone far beyondits initial expectations about outsourcing as pri-marily a cost-reduction strategy. These compa-nies are now using learning BPO in a number ofinnovative ways to serve customers and businesspartners, in addition to their employees.

Avaya has been a true pioneer, outsourcing itsentire learning function to Accenture Learning tomeet the accelerated training needs the compa-ny had to enable rapid market uptake. As Avaya’sSuellen Roth noted, there’s much more to learn-ing BPO than just transitioning learning adminis-tration functions to a third party. “The power is inusing learning to transform the business proposi-tion,” Roth said. She added that a pilot of Avaya’ssales certification program last year demonstrat-ed that the company could increase the salesfunnel by about 10 percent and improve its closerate by about five points.

A.G. Edwards looked to augment its existingtraining staff to assist with a critical businessgoal: reskilling the IT workforce as part of a morecomprehensive IT transformation initiative. Trustand communication have been keys to the suc-cessful collaboration between the company andAccenture Learning, built on a commitment todelivering value on time and at speed.

Sun Microsystems has used learning outsourcingto help deliver vital customer education pro-grams. One of the big successes for Sun hasbeen ensuring the continued high quality of itscustomer training programs while managing thetransition of these programs to AccentureLearning in a way that was totally transparent tothe customers themselves. In the end, increasingnumbers of companies are going to be asking thesame question that Sun senior management did:“Why aren’t we, an industry leader in using busi-ness partners to drive our business strategy, alsousing this model for corporate learning?”

Finally, “The Personal Side of Outsourcing”shares the experiences of four people who tran-sitioned from their companies to Accenture

Learning as part of a learning BPO arrangement.What stands out in these stories is something toorarely noted: Organizations cannot reap the fullvalue of learning outsourcing unless they supportthe people who are vital to the success of thestrategy. Each of these four learning profession-als was able to work through initial feelings ofapprehension, supported by thoughtful and well-executed transition services from AccentureLearning. In the end, they have found fulfillingwork, less prone to the budgeting ups and downsof internal corporate training departments. Thesestories are exemplary in that they show how thepeople of two organizations—a client and an out-sourcing collaborator—can create a learning anddevelopment function that is not only more effi-cient, but which is also being used as an essen-tial engine for innovation, high performance andmore energized career opportunities for peoplewith a passion for learning.

In every industry, executives are discovering thepower of external learning services and learningBPO to dramatically reduce the elapsed time toimplement learning solutions that deliver meas-urable business value. Accenture Learning ishelping organizations to become more efficient,but also helping them tap into a source of inno-vation and experience that is helping to propelthem along their journey to high performance.

O HIGH PERFORMANCE

Sponsored by Accenture Learning

Organizations increasingly seek trusted collabo-rators to help them achieve high performancethrough their learning function. The greatestopportunities, especially for businesses, willcome from total enterprise learning outsourcingstrategies that have the potential to transform a company—supporting growth, innovation andcompetitive differentiation.

LEARNING STRATEGIESTHAT DRIVE GROWTH

Around the globe, executives from every industry areseeking a variety of external relationships to assistthem in their quest for high performance. From out-right acquisitions to alliances, joint ventures andbusiness process outsourcing arrangements, organ-izations have learned that owning all aspects ofevery business process can ultimately hamper theirability to sustain high levels of performance overtime and to compete in tough markets.

The outsourcing move-ment has been especiallynoteworthy in its growthand in its expanding pen-etration of businessfunctions: from IT tofinance to supply chainto CRM and now into thelearning and develop-ment space. Outsourcingof the learning func-tion—also called “learn-ing business processoutsourcing,” or “learn-ing BPO”—really refersto a broad range of rela-tionships that organiza-tions establish with anexternal service compa-ny to transfer and/orshare responsibilities forthe successful operation

of the learning function: design, development,delivery, administration, measurement andreporting. The outsourcing relationship may be assimple as outsourcing the learning managementsystem and learning administration responsibili-ties (sometimes called “out-tasking”) or as com-plex as arranging for an external company toplan and deliver the entire enterprise learningfunction, encompassing an organization’s com-plete value chain, from employees to customersto channel partners.

Accenture Learning has been privileged to workwith major companies such as A.G. Edwards,Avaya and Sun Microsystems (see case studieson pages 10-12) to help them achieve high per-formance through a number of innovative learn-ing initiatives that address the learning needs ofglobal workforces in a wide variety of industriesin 143 countries around the world. In each case,a key to success was that Accenture and theclient forged a collaboration that truly accelerat-

ed the value delivered:increasing competitive-ness and the speed tomarket for new products,moving from a variable-to a fixed-cost model andcreating a learning func-tion that supports themost critical strategies ofthe business.

Learning BPO is already amarket force. Accentureresearch indicates thatlearning is now secondonly to IT in terms of theprevalence of some sortof outsourcing arrange-ment. Leading IT marketresearch firm IDC esti-mates the global learningBPO market to representa $5 billion slice of annu-

4

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

Harry H. Brakeley

4

BREAKING THROUGH TOHIGH PERFORMANCE:

UNLEASHING THEPOWER OF LEARNING BPO

Sponsored by Accenture LearningFigure 2: Achieving Transformational Value

Complexity

Transformational Impact

Learning management system

Training administration

Content design and delivery

Strategic workforces

Lines of business

Enterprise learning outsourcing

Figure 1: Learning BPO Market Opportunity by Vertical

Financial Services, Communications & High Tech, and Products represent the largest Learning BPO market opportunities by 2010.

US $B

$0

2002

$.8B

2005

$5.3B

2010

$14.3B

$4

$8

$12

$16

*Includes auto, consumer goods, industrial equipment, life sciences, and retail.**Includes chemicals, energy, metals and mining, and utilities.

Source IDC, 2005

nn 61.2% Resources**

nn 38.7% Financial Services

nn 39.4% CHT

nn 51.5% Government

WORLDWIDE 42.6% 2002-2010 CAGR

nn 44.0% Products*

5

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

al corporate spending on external learning serv-ices. With a forecast compound annual growthrate of 42.6 percent, learning BPO looks to be a$14.3 billion market by 2010. (See Figure 1.)

Yet, the role of outsourcing in the learning space isgoing to change dramatically in the coming years.When organizations were focused mostly on driv-ing down costs, cost reduction was the first roleassigned to outsourcing. Today, as executives turntheir attention to using learning to grow top-linerevenue and increase market share, they need toapproach learning BPO with a new vision in mind.Accenture research into the characteristics ofhigh-performance businesses has found that thereare three essential building blocks to high per-formance. One is performance anatomy, which,distinct from market focus and distinctive capabil-ities, comprises a set of organizational mindsets.In turn, one of these mindsets concerns the devel-opment of the people who enable high-perform-ance businesses to achieve extraordinary levels ofemployee productivity. In this way, they create a“talent multiplier”—achieving superior businessresults versus their peers per dollar of investmentin their workforces.

Learning BPO is truly a key talent multiplier.Because organizations are applying lessons andbest practices learned by others, especially inother business functions, and because learningservices firms are continually refining theirmethods and increasing their capabilities, resultsare now delivered more rapidly, with fewer mis-steps. When you combine that fact with thegrowing knowledge of the significant impact thatlearning has on overall organizational perform-ance, you can see that learning outsourcing isbeginning to be seen as something that deliversmore than cost efficiencies. It can deliver rapidbusiness results that support growth: improve-ments in customer retention and satisfaction,increased speed to market of new products,

improved productivity of strategic workforcessuch as IT, sales and customer call-center oper-ators, and decreased turnover of high-potentialmanagers. Just as important, it can help anorganization prepare itself for future challenges,helping it to continuously adapt, and to driveinnovation and growth.

LEARNING WITH AN IMPACT

Increasing numbers of studies are confirming thebusiness impact of an effective learning function.The recent Accenture Learning survey of learningexecutives—conducted with a cross-sample of285 senior learning professionals from Fortune1000 companies, as well as a number of stateand local government agencies—has uncoveredsome dramatic correlations between learningcapabilities and overall performance of theenterprise. (For more information, seewww.accenture.com/learning.) This researchidentified high-performance learning organiza-tions—about 10 percent of those surveyed—thatexhibit excellence in a handful of distinctive andcommon characteristics, and these are correlat-ed with high performance for their companies inseveral ways:• Productivity (as measured by sales per employ-

ee) was 27 percent greater.• Revenue growth was 40 percent higher.• Net income growth was 50 percent greater.

Executives are looking at their learning functionswith a more critical business eye, and asking twoimportant questions: First, “Can we achieve andthen sustain high business impact from ourlearning function, or are we best served by work-ing with an outsourcing collaborator that canshield us from technology change, and take us tothe next level by using learning to drive organi-zational innovation and top-line revenuegrowth?” Second, they are also asking, “Can an

Sponsored by Accenture Learning

6

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

outsourcing firm have the kind of knowledge of ourorganization required to support the mission of ourbusiness?” To both questions, the answer is, “Yes.”

THE TRANSFORMATIONAL OPPORTUNITYOF LEARNING BPOThe struggle to move beyond a cost mindset is actuallynot something that only learning professionals are dealingwith. In a down economy, executives in general examineeverything through the lens of potential cost reduction. Atthe start of a growth period, many may not remove thoselenses quickly enough and may thus miss opportunities toget out in front of the competition. So, what does learningoutsourcing look like in a growthperiod?

The opportunity at the begin-ning of a period of economicexpansion is to leverage learn-ing BPO as something richerand more complex than simplyan attempt to save money in theback office of the learningoperation. The fact is, it is thetransformational businessimpact that will sustain therelationship over time.

Graphing the different kinds of activities that fall loose-ly under the concept of learning BPO against the poten-tial for transformational business impact, especially animpact on growth, we believe that many companies areonly at the beginning of their journey to use learningoutsourcing relationships to transform the business(See Figure 2.) As companies transfer increasingly morecomplex functions of their learning operations—fromthe learning management system to content design anddelivery to strategic workforce development to enter-prise-wide learning—the opportunity increases forachieving transformational value and high performance.

Here is the key point: Companies can get part way downthe road to high performance with a focus on drivingefficiency in the “non-core activities” of learning: thelearning management system, learning administration,and so on. Make no mistake, these efficiencies areimportant and substantial. But really breaking throughand using learning outsourcing to transform the busi-ness requires a more comprehensive relationship toaddress the core engine of learning and use it to driveinnovation through the organization and its value chain.

BREAKING THROUGH

So on the journey to transformational business impactthrough learning BPO, are there friction points or resist-ance points? Certainly. One of them has to do with thequestion asked earlier: Can an external learning servic-es company understand the mission of one’s businessdeeply enough to help fuel growth?

The experiences of pioneers in the field suggest strong-ly not only that they can understand, but that such arelationship is vital to achieving business impact. Today,

we are working with companies like Avaya not only tofocus on the cost efficiencies of learning BPO, but alsoto help define the key business indicators they mostwish to influence through the learning BPO relation-ship—measures such as:• Time to competency for strategic workforces• Speed to launch new products in the marketplace• Close rates for key sales staff• Customer and channel partner loyalty

It is only when this dialogue begins—linking the learningfunction, the outsourcing relationship and businessimpacts—that an organization and its learning BPO collab-orator can build a strategic learning plan to address these

business issues and put into placea course of action that leads toworkforce and business transfor-mation.

LESSONS FROMTHE PIONEERS

The experiences of AccentureLearning, and those of severalcompanies pioneering these deep-er learning BPO collaborations,suggest a number of key commonprinciples used to break through

and use learning BPO to drive transformational businessimpact and achieve high performance.

1. Hire a collaborator, not just a provider. Veteranoutsourcers know that hiring a learning outsourcingfirm is not just a matter of the lowest price quoted orthe highest savings promise proffered. Experiencedoutsourcers demand a lot from their collaborators,price being only part of the equation along withexpertise, flexibility and a spectrum of other assets.Veteran outsourcers acknowledge that the “hardissues” of pricing and contractual terms are impor-tant, but so-called “soft issues”—though often hard-er to address—are more important: things like indus-try knowledge, client track record, creativity and“culture fit.” “You can’t tell from a proposal what it isgoing to be like,” said one experienced outsourcer.“You are not allowed to put down ‘act of faith’ as aselection criterion. You have to fully understand theoutsourcing service company’s culture, its trackrecord in delivering value and its ethos.”

2. Work with your learning collaborator to definebusiness outcomes early and often. RecentAccenture research confirms the central point wehave been making here: that, although savings are asignificant driver of outsourcing, experienced out-sourcers take a much broader view of the benefits tobe gained. Seventy-four percent of respondents to arecent Accenture survey report that their companiesmeasure and manage outsourcing performance bylooking at a broad range of business outcomes.Increased profitability tops the list, reflecting anexpected cost-conscious mindset, but significantnumbers of respondents also cited other desirable

6 Sponsored by Accenture Learning

Figure 2: Achieving Transformational Value

Complexity

Transformational Impact

Learning management system

Training administration

Content design and delivery

Strategic workforces

Lines of business

Enterprise learning outsourcing

Figure 1: Learning BPO Market Opportunity by Vertical

Financial Services, Communications & High Tech, and Products represent the largest Learning BPO market opportunities by 2010.

US $B

$0

2002

$.8B

2005

$5.3B

2010

$14.3B

$4

$8

$12

$16

*Includes auto, consumer goods, industrial equipment, life sciences, and retail.**Includes chemicals, energy, metals and mining, and utilities.

Source IDC, 2005

n 61.2% Resources**

n 38.7% Financial Services

n 39.4% CHT

n 51.5% Government

WORLDWIDE 42.6% 2002-2010 CAGR

n 44.0% Products*

7

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

business outcomes such as improved managementfocus, speed to market, increased revenue and bettercustomer loyalty. Equally significant, 60 percent ofexperienced outsourcers build these business out-comes into the arrangement from the beginning, andby the third year, almost 100 percent of respondentsare relying on such outcomes.

3. Seek to deepen the outsourcing relationship, notjust make it more efficient. Every outsourcing rela-tionship or learning collaboration begins with a con-tract. That is not just proper, but critical for aligningexpectations and interdependent responsibilities atthe outset of an outsourcing arrangement. Yet experi-enced outsourcers know that, over time, a “contractmindset” can actually be a barrier to moving the col-laboration toward its transformational potential.Accenture Learning clients such as Sun, A.G. Edwardsand Avaya all affirm the importance of trust as a keyto success. Trust is simultaneously something thatmust be earned over time, but also something thatmust be worked at, and not left to develop on its own.Selecting an outsourcing collaborator is not yourstandard procurement exercise. As one executive putit, “I am buying into a journey and a route. I do notknow exactly how I am going to get there, but I amconfident that I will reach the destination, because ofthe cultural fit”—that is, the deeper cultural align-ment between his company and the outsourcing serv-ice firm he chose.

4. Focus on the impact of learning outsourcingacross your entire value chain. Some companiesapproach learning outsourcing as if they were gettinginto a cold swimming pool: first a toe, then a tenta-tive foot. At Avaya, by contrast, executives took amore transformational approach. For Avaya to opti-mize the performance not only of its employees but ofits business partners, as well, a tentative arrange-ment to take over only limited functionality like learn-ing administration was not going to work. By out-sourcing its entire learning function to AccentureLearning, the company has been able to support thelargest release of new communications products inits history at a cost substantially less than previousproduct rollouts. Some companies may succeed witha strategy that takes an incremental approach anduses that to move up the spectrum toward transfor-mational learning outsourcing. Yet such a tentativestrategy carries with it some risk. Those movingfaster may reap the benefits faster, and it is hard tomake up that lost ground. It may also be that the verytentativeness of one side of a learning collaborationinterferes ultimately with the development of theclose, symbiotic character that ultimately createshigh performance through learning outsourcing.

5. Use active governance to steer the learning col-laboration on the outsourcing journey. Experiencedoutsourcers understand that a learning outsourcingcollaboration does not steer itself. Active involve-ment, through effective governance, is vital. As one

experienced outsourcer expressed it, “Governancemust work at the very top level all the way down tothe operational level. Is everyone talking to everyoneat every level?” Open communication is obviouslycritical. Yet more formal governance structures arealso essential. What Accenture Learning calls“Business Interlock” is an innovative approach beingused successfully by a number of our clients to definethe desired business outcomes of the outsourcingarrangement, and then monitor performance alongthe way to ensure the outsourcing company stays“locked in” to those outcomes. Full-time manage-ment attention is also a secret to success. Large per-centages of successful outsourcers report that theircompanies have assigned a dedicated executive tothe task of supervising the outsourcing arrangement.Outsourcing (at least successful outsourcing) is afull-time business proposition requiring focusedattention at the management level.

LEARNING COLLABORATIONSFOR HIGH PERFORMANCE

Accenture Learning research into high-performancelearning organizations has found that a distinctive char-acteristic of learning departments that have a greaterimpact on overall performance is their openness to avariety of external business relationships: not just tradi-tional training vendors, but also outsourcing companies,business school executive education departments, tra-ditional universities and online educational institutions.

By 2007, according to Accenture research, the types ofcollaborators upon which learning organizations rely willshift toward less reliance on traditional training vendorsand greater reliance on consortia of companies in thesame industry and comprehensive outsourcing collabora-tors. Nearly half of the organizations surveyed (48 per-cent) either plan to or are currently outsourcing one ormore of their learning functions to a comprehensive out-sourcing company.

Successful business outcomes through learning BPO areavailable to any organization with the willingness towork hard at breaking through the barriers—those that,in the words of legendary architect Daniel Burnham,“make no little plans.” Outsourcing for efficiency alonehas had its day, in a world economy where companieswere struggling to survive. A new vision is now need-ed—one that sees the ultimate value destination oflearning BPO, and not just the interim efficiency mile-stones that get you there. Realizing the transformation-al impact of learning BPO requires a willingness to col-laborate with those who have the track record of resultsand can earn the trust to get more deeply into the coreactivities of an organization. At Accenture Learning, webelieve that deeper learning BPO relationships enhancethe return on investment companies make in learning—giving them the potential to redefine their markets andachieve high performance.

Harry (Hap) Brakeley is President of Accenture Learning. He can be reached at harry.h.brakeley@accenture.com. You can also visit www.accenture.com/learning.

Sponsored by Accenture Learning

When companies transfer all or part of their learn-ing functions to an outsourcing provider, changeripples through both organizations, especially thepeople whose jobs are redefined. Guido Minaya—who until June 2001 was the director of learningservices for Avaya’s Caribbean and Latin Americaregion, with a staff of about two dozen—recalls hisinitial reaction to hearing that his company haddecided to outsource its learning and developmentfunctions to Accenture Learning. Quite simply:“What will my new role be? And what will happento the people on my team?”

Brian Butler, a former regional manager at SunMicrosystems who now heads up engagements

with that companyat Accenture, recallsa similar reaction,one also focused onthe effects of mov-ing from the knownto the unknown. “Achange like thisinvolves much morethan just the ‘work-ing’ side of a per-son,” said Butler.“The work itself, infact, may be thething that changesthe least. What youthink about is the

change in colleagues, in culture and in all the day-to-day presumptions by which you may haveinteracted with people for years.”

Both men have discovered, however, that therecan be even greater job fulfillment, responsibilityand opportunity waiting for people who findthemselves changing uniforms and playing for adifferent team. For companies considering out-sourcing their learning function, the keys to cre-ating that ultimate satisfaction are twofold: pro-viding transition services and support that canaddress head-on the challenges of “leaping intothe unknown,” and ensuring that the work at theend of the transition is something that gives theemployees a renewed vigor and engagement withnew roles and responsibilities.

GREENER GRASS? One important insight shared by Minaya was the

fact that life before outsourcing is rarely an idyl-lic world that is then shattered by the newarrangement. Minaya’s role prior to outsourcingwas focused on developing training deliverystrategies that were aligned with Avaya’sCaribbean and Latin America region leadership.Although the innovative solutions from Minaya’steam made the role exciting, it was also verychallenging. “It was difficult to get productcourse materials on time prior to the launch of anew product,” Minaya said. “In fact, the interna-tional regions were usually the last to receivecontent that was applicable to new productlaunches. This made the training readinessobjective difficult to meet. We never had done anadequate job of developing learning prior to theintroduction of a new product launch,” he said.

Minaya and his global team also faced a historyof unclear investment levels and team size. “Itwas difficult to manage training without clarityregarding investments in our internal traininginfrastructure.” In fact, Minaya ultimately inter-preted his company’s outsourcing decision as acommitment to learning, not a de-emphasis.“When I first heard of the outsourcing decision, Ifelt some comfort knowing that Avaya was mak-ing a strategic decision to improve the effective-ness of learning, rather than just cut the budgetor downsize the staff.”

MAKING THE TRANSITION

Change management and transition activities arevital to the success of an outsourcing arrangement.They help ensure that services continue withoutinterruption, and also address the apprehensionand fear of the unknown for affected employees.For example, Accenture Learning has a completemethodology called“ T r a n s i t i o nServices” that notonly moves learningservices effectivelyfrom the client toAccenture Learning,but also addressesthe transition issuesfrom a personalpoint of view. Thisprocess brings peo-ple up to date onwhat their new roles

8

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

THE PERSONAL SIDE OF OUTSOURCING

Sponsored by Accenture Learning

Brian Summerfield

Guido Minaya

Peggy Dougherty

F OUTSOURCING

9

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

will involve anddemonstrates acommitment to themand attention to theirconcerns.

C o m m u n i c a t i o n splay a big role inensuring that tran-sition services pro-duces a new learn-ing department thatis fully operationalmore quickly. “Acouple of thingswere especially effective for us,” said PeggyDougherty, a delivery manager who transitionedto Accenture Learning from AT&T Wireless (nowCingular). “We received an e-newsletter from thetransition team every Monday morning, whichwould talk about the progress of the outsourcingeffort and some resources that would be avail-able to us. It was also the vehicle for asking andanswering questions on people’s minds. I thoughtthe transition team performed extremely well incommunicating what was going on, why it wasgoing on and what the progress was. That teamworked on the plans and processes that neededto be in place to transition our wireless trainingoperation in its entirety to Accenture Learning.”

Norbert Krebs, a former Avaya operations manag-er who moved to a director position at AccentureLearning in January 2002, noted that keeping allparties informed also means providing clear andconsistent messages. “What was helpful in thetransition was the strong commitment expressedby leadership—especially clear communicationsabout how we could work together to achieve theultimate goal of uninterrupted services to cus-tomers through the transition period,” he said.

At Avaya, Accenture Learning held weekly confer-ence calls with the affected team members. “Myfirst few weeks with Accenture were quiteimpressive,” said Minaya. “It was a challengingscenario to leave my former company, but theweekly calls and access to information I neededmade it easier to understand my options.”

As questions occurred to Minaya, both personal(“What are the new career progression optionsavailable to me?”) and professional (“What toolsand learning architectures does my new employ-

er use?”), he got immediate answers from JohnHubbell, executive director of transition servicesat Accenture Learning.

“There is a two-pronged effort in doing a transi-tion,” Hubbell said. “One is around the people,and one is around the service. People transitionis all about getting people successfully moving totheir new organization. Service transition isabout moving the service from the existingclient’s processes to the new processes.” In bothcases, time is of the essence. The first 90 days,said Hubbell, arecritical for both theemployee and theclient services.

Minaya’s immediatesupervisor madesure that he andother delivery teammembers under-stood what it is liketo be part ofAccenture Learning,and they led the wayto the transforma-tion needed in theglobal deliveryoperations. Minaya met with the AccentureLearning team face-to-face, and then, throughregular conference calls and e-mail newsletters,he was kept up to date on the progress of thetransition to Accenture Learning. Minaya played arole in helping his team transition, as well. “I wasable to represent our team as we began workingon improved role definitions,” he said. “It wasexciting to see my team members take on expand-ed roles within Accenture Learning.”

WHAT’S ON THE OTHER SIDE?A transition period is truly effective only if mean-ingful and fulfilling work is waiting on the otherside. Many employees discover that their careersare enhanced with the company they’ve movedto. “The opportunity side of the equation is per-haps the most welcome, and sometimes unex-pected, benefit of moving from one company toanother during an outsourcing arrangement,”said Nelson Frye, executive director of accountmanagement at Accenture Learning. Frye, who

Sponsored by Accenture Learning

PERSONAL SIDE continued on page 13…

Norbert Krebs

Brian Butler

Kellye Whitney

When A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. began a period ofIT transformation—developing the new technolog-ical capabilities required for the company to growand prosper in the coming years—the companyrealized that reskilling its IT workforce would be akey ingredient to overall success. Because of thescope of the work and the strategic importance ofthe overall initiative, executives decided that aug-menting their existing training staff would helpthem reach their goals faster, and the companysigned an agreement with Accenture Learning toprovide learning services.

A.G. Edwards has nearly 7,000 financial consult-ants in more than 700 offices nationwide and inEurope, supported by 1,250 IT professionals. A.G.Edwards University—the company’s internaltraining group based in the St. Louis headquar-ters—provides high-quality training to the firm’sbranch and home office personnel. The companyrealized, however, that it needed trainingresources with specialized technology knowledgeto support the IT organization. With that in mind,the IT division created a smaller training group toserve its employees. “When I was tapped to leadthis group, we had a real need within IT to pro-vide training so that our people could support ourIT transformation initiative. We had a group ofdedicated training professionals in the IT group,but we did not feel we could adequately meet theneeds required by the IT transformation,” saidJudy Pennington, vice president of IT strategyand development.

Realizing this, A.G. Edwards looked for some spe-cialized help. “Training is not a core competencyfor our IT division. We don’t look at training asone of the services we are going to provide per-sonally,” Pennington said. “Because we are not atraining organization, it was important to providestate-of-the-art training resources at a coststructure that was based on our demand fortraining. While we need basic services all thetime, over the next three to five years there maybe some periods when we have more needs thanat other periods.” By working with AccentureLearning as a service provider, A.G. Edwards canadjust its learning needs up or down based onbusiness demand.

“In deciding to look externally for learning serv-ices, we began with competency modeling,”Pennington said. “We redid all of our job descrip-tions and created job families, reducing the num-

ber of distinct job titles from over 300 to 23.Then we used our architecture direction to definethe skills we will need in the future. These skilldomains were then mapped to each job family.”

“We asked Accenture to help us perform an analy-sis of our training capacity because we wanted togain a better understanding of our workforcetraining needs now and into the future,”Pennington said. The company also wanted theanalysis to factor in the new technology tools thatwould be needed for things like knowledge shar-ing and talent management. “We knew we wanteda training solution supported by the tools neededto share knowledge easily. So we looked at solu-tions that would help our IT personnel support ourbusiness needs, but also give them the trainingthey needed to meet our needs in the future andhelp with career development.”

Accenture Learning now hosts a learning man-agement system to track registration, whileoffering access to a wide selection of standard-ized Web-based training modules and the devel-opment support needed to create course content.The arrangement means that A.G. Edwards main-tains control over learning strategy and align-ment, and identifies the curricula and coursesneeded to meet the needs of the division. Thefirm then works with Accenture Learning todevelop the content and delivery.

A.G. Edwards’ relationship with AccentureLearning is progressing well to date. Although aformal metrics program is not yet in place,Pennington said that progress definitely has beenmade. Because the team is focused on deliveringhard business results, Pennington feels that inthe long run the investment will prove advanta-geous. “We believe that we will have decreasedtime to competency for new hires, and that ourexisting people will also develop required newskills more quickly, as well,” she said.

When building a collaborative relationship to deliv-er learning, trust and communication play a majorrole, Pennington said. “Trust is built first of all byboth sides meeting their commitments on deliver-ables,” she added. “For this kind of relationship towork positively, it has to be a win-win.”

Kellye Whitney is associate editor for Chief Learning Officermagazine. She can be reached at kellyew@clomedia.com.

10

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

A.G. EDWARDS: LEARNING & IT TRANSFORMATION

Sponsored by Accenture Learning

case study

case study

11

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

In the beginning, Sun Microsystems Inc. (Sun) didit all when it came to customer education. Itslearning professionals designed and developedtraining and delivered it in Sun’s classrooms. OfSun’s roughly 35,000 employees, some 1,400 werededicated to the educational space. Eventually, topmanagement wanted to know something: Whywasn’t Sun, a partner-driven company, using alearning outsourcing model—an approach thatwas beginning to take hold throughout the corpo-rate learning industry?

“That question was, I think, the starting point ofthe entire story,” said Stephan Gropp, director,global education business partners, SunMicrosystems. “We began by asking who couldeffectively partner with us to design, develop anddeliver courses to our internal and external cus-tomers in a way that would be both effective andcost-efficient.”

After sending out requests for proposals, Sunchose Accenture Learning to be its learning out-sourcing partner, and Sun has successfully out-sourced its course delivery business to Accenture.By doing so, it has created a seamless customereducation initiative while at the same time reduc-ing costs. “High-quality, uninterrupted service tocustomers was our main concern with the entiredeal,” Gropp said. “Before the outsourcing tookplace, our customers enrolled in Sun for everyclass. They came to our training locations. Theyknew the instructors because they had attendedclasses taught by those people already. After theoutsourcing, our customers using Sun’s previousinfrastructure generally did not notice any differ-ence. Actually, it took them a while to figure outthat their instructors didn’t have a Sun badge ontheir jackets anymore; they had AccentureLearning badges.” In other cases, Sun was able toreduce its classroom space requirements bysmoothly redirecting clients to Accenture’s existingglobal delivery network. “The outsourcing relation-ship has resulted in many changes for our compa-ny and our people,” Gropp said. “But from our cus-tomers’ point of view, it was transparent.”

Working with European workforce regulations wasan interesting part of this outsourcing arrange-ment. As part of the agreement, many Sun employ-ees became Accenture employees. “If you are out-sourcing part of your business to a different com-pany, you have to make sure—and this is actually

based on legal requirements—that your partnersare taking over the employees on the same termsand conditions they had with us,” Gropp said.

Sun retains responsibility for its intellectual prop-erty and develops training for its customers on newproduct lines, but Accenture supports Sun inadjusting course content based on specific cus-tomer needs. Initially, Accenture Learning was onlydelivering the entry-level courses, but the relation-ship has gone so well that Sun asked Accenture todeliver the higher-level courses that require moretechnical and sensitive course content adjust-ments based on individual customer needs.“Accenture Learning is now interacting directlywith these business customers, which enablesthem to adjust the courses by themselves to moreeffectively meet those customers’ needs,” Groppsaid. “The relationship continues to grow.”

The quality of learning for customers has remainedhigh and in many cases has improved, andAccenture Learning is responsible for maintainingthis quality. “Our customers are expecting a certainlevel of quality for the money they pay for thesecourses,” Gropp said. “We use customer surveys tohelp us figure out whether they are satisfied withthe course content, the skills of the instructor andthe service around the building. It’s very easy for usto monitor whether the quality goes up or downcompared to when we performed this functioninternally.” Sun’s learning outsourcing arrangementis also an excellent example of how companies canbenefit from the additional capabilities of an out-sourcer. In this case, Accenture’s previously exist-ing reseller role as a Sun system integrator openeda new sales channel, helping Sun Education to gainback market share from non-certified vendorsoffering courses on Sun technologies.

The relationship has fulfilled expectations so well,Gropp said, that Sun is looking to partner withAccenture Learning to deliver live virtual class-rooms and Web-based training. “Our good relation-ship with Accenture helps us, no question aboutit,” Gropp said. “In any outsourcing relationship, ofcourse, there will be tough negotiations. That’swhy you must have a trusted relationship with youroutsourcing partner. Both parties must be focusedequally on making the partnership a success.”

Kellye Whitney is associate editor for Chief Learning Officermagazine She can be reached at kellyew@clomedia.com.

Kellye Whitney

Sponsored by Accenture Learning

SUN MICROSYSTEMS: IMPROVING CUSTOMER SATISFACTIONTHROUGH LEARNING OUTSOURCING

case study

When Avaya—a global leader in business com-munications software, systems and services—prepared to embark on an aggressive schedule ofnew product launches, a key success factor wasmaking training programs immediately availableto help customers promptly realize efficiency,performance and business benefits. It becameclear, however, that Avaya’s geographically frag-mented learning organization was not positionedto meet the accelerated training needs thatwould enable rapid market uptake. To cope withthe increased learning demands, Avaya out-sourced its entire learning function to AccentureLearning in November 2001.

“Avaya has spun from the legacy of AT&T andLucent,” said Suellen Roth, vice president of glob-al workforce diversity, employee excellence, glob-al policy and Avaya University. “When we werecreated, we brought with us a learning departmentthat consisted of people with strong backgroundsin engineering and other disciplines. They werevery familiar with our products, services andstrategy, and we used this group of people to dodevelopment and delivery of courses.”

In most cases, however, these people were notlearning and development professionals, and therewere no technology platforms in place. “We didn’thave user registration, good testing and certifica-tion or a strong feedback and measurement loop.We didn’t have the infrastructure that you need torun a world-class learning organization, and assuch, we suspected we were spending too muchto produce too little impact,” Roth said.

As part of the agreement, approximately 200 peo-ple from Avaya’s original training organizationbecame Accenture Learning employees. Theseemployees were placed within Accenture Learningbecause of their talents and because theirsubject-matter expertise was important—theirknowledge of Avaya policies, products, services,delivery channels and sales approaches.

Because Avaya University serves the company’s20,000 employees, business partners, distribu-tors and customers, the outsourcing relationshiphas to be seamless. According to Roth, a goodoutsourcing relationship is one where the sourc-ing is transparent to external stakeholders.

“There’s so much more to it than just transition-ing learning administration functions to a thirdparty,” Roth said. “The power is in using learningto transform the business proposition.” High-quality learning experiences are also vital. “TheAvaya brand is on all materials that an employee,client, distributor or business partner sees asso-

ciated with Avaya’s learning offerings,” saidRoth. “The quality of the training, the content andthe actual learning experience must be excellentand reflective of our brand. While we werepleased with our in-house team, we looked toAccenture Learning to take it up a notch.”

What were some of Avaya’s other goals in pursu-ing the outsourcing relationship? According toRoth, “We were looking for faster and betteralignment with the business. When there areproduct changes and new releases, we need ourcourses to be updated quickly and efficiently.Finally, we were looking to transition frominstructor-led courses to more of a blended cur-riculum. This is what Accenture Learning did forus, as well as administering the entire programon their learning management system.”

Notable benefits of this outsourcing arrangementinclude successfully supporting the largestrelease of new communications products inAvaya’s history at a cost substantially less thanthe previous product rollouts. Avaya also hasexperienced better operating efficiency and asteady improvement in the responses from bothexternal and internal clients. Employees give feed-back through Avaya employee surveys on howcourses are affecting their work and performance.

While cost savings have been substantial—Avayaestimates it has saved several million dollarsover the past two years—the learning outsourc-ing arrangement is also able to deliver hard busi-ness results. “We piloted our sales certificationprogram last year and demonstrated that wecould increase the sales funnel by about 10 per-cent and improve our close rate by about fivepoints. Time to close is faster, too. All of thatmotivated us to invest a lot more this year to getthe majority of the sales team through trainingbecause it really did have a significant impact ontheir effectiveness,” Roth said.

To enjoy a successful outsourcing relationship,Roth believes that it must always be clear who isrunning the business. “Avaya is accountable forbusiness strategy and how that business strate-gy—and changes to it—affect our learningneeds and learning approaches,” Roth said. “Aslong as a business that outsources a key functionlike this maintains accountability for the majorbusiness decisions and works with its outsourc-ing partner to create seamless delivery—butdoes not abdicate responsibility—I think theworld becomes a beautiful place.”

Kellye Whitney is associate editor for Chief Learning Officermagazine. She can be reached at kellyew@clomedia.com.

12

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

AVAYA: OUTSOURCING FOR BUSINESS RESULTS

Sponsored by Accenture Learning12

Kellye Whitney

13

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

has managed several learning outsourcing tran-sitions, added, “Transitioned employees canoften look forward to building new skills and par-ticipating in new client opportunities. For exam-ple, those involved with delivery often expandtheir knowledge base into curriculum design anddevelopment. Others may get the opportunity toteach or work abroad.”

“I have gotten more opportunities presented tome at Accenture Learning,” agreed Butler. “Sunoffered me a rewarding career as well, but due tothe nature of the economy and its business, thelearning department was in a downsizing mode.At Accenture Learning, we’re in a big growth pat-tern, and there is constant opportunity that I ambeing offered here. I feel it’s a very challengingposition, but one that’s welcomed. I am happywith the growth opportunities here, and I wouldn’ttrade that for anything, really.”

Krebs emphasized two aspects of the opportunitiesthat result from an outsourcing arrangement: per-sonal career development and richer interactionswith new colleagues. “I have been given excellentcareer development opportunities from the begin-ning,” Krebs said. “But perhaps more important, Ihave had the opportunities to develop richer workexperiences with expanded responsibilities, first ina different geography and then on a global level. Asecond kind of opportunity, however, comesthrough the interaction with new people on a glob-al basis. I found I was now with a larger communi-ty of learning professionals that shared my passionfor the corporate learning field.”

Dougherty echoed this sense of the expandedopportunities made available by transferring overto the outsourcing provider. “You find yourself nowas part of a large team focused on multipleclients,” she said. “You have more resources avail-able to you. There are more people with differentbackgrounds and different client experiences. Ihave found that my peers or colleagues are bothwilling and able to share their experiences andshare resources or different solutions.”

Transitioned employees in a learning outsourcingarrangement generally continue to feel a deep

sense of commitment and loyalty to their formeremployer (because that is the client they are nowserving), and that feeling is to everyone’s advan-tage. In the case of Avaya, following the outsourcingarrangement, Accenture Learning and the formerAvaya employees immediately set out to improvethe quality of the learning programs that accompa-nied the release of new products, as well as theability to measure the effectiveness of learning. “Inthe first few months, we all worked very hard tounderstand what the existing work processes were,

how these might be changed, andhow Avaya University could improveits overall efficiency and effective-ness,” Minaya said. “I think aroundmonth five of the outsourcing, I wasgetting a much better view of thetypes of learning programs neededin other regions. That was animprovement, as well. Before, I hadabsolute visibility into the Caribbeanand Latin America region but not asmuch into the other regions.”

This greater organizational con-nectivity gave Minaya a new perspective acrosslearning geographies, which he could share withhis colleagues. “I started seeing a gap in theAsia-Pacific and Japan regions—they were notwell-connected to the U.S. operations,” he said.“So I recommended to Accenture Learning lead-ership that I could potentially support the regionand leverage some of my team’s successes fromthe Caribbean and Latin America region. A weeklater, I was on a plane to Singapore.”

Minaya said that it was a rewarding experienceto work with his new team in Asia and Japan. “Iwas able to leverage my knowledge and expert-ise from my previous role and assist Avaya inAsia to improve its learning operations. My wifeand two children loved the time we spent inSingapore,” he said.

Learning BPO success stories like those ofMinaya, Dougherty, Krebs and Butler are notuncommon, especially when a professional or ateam is sent to an organization with a knowledgebase and resources that support that particularfield. The new arrangement is a “win-win-win.”Employees are happy to have job continuity andto be able to work in a field that interests them.The organization that receives them is pleased toadd enthusiastic and qualified personnel to itsworkforce. And customers often benefit becausethey now have a dedicated team with a true cus-tomer service perspective.

“I feel that I’m on a roll now—fully utilizing thecapabilities I have, and being respected for whatI can bring to the table,” Butler said. “It’s a chal-lenging new position, but one that has broughtwith it many rewards.”

Brian Summerfield is associate editor for Chief Learning Officermagazine. He can be reached at brians@clomedia.com.

PERSONAL SIDE continued from page 9…

Sponsored by Accenture Learning

“I HAVE BEEN GIVEN EXCELLENT CAREERDEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES FROM THEBEGINNING. BUT PERHAPS MORE IMPORTANT,I HAVE HAD THE OPPORTUNITIES TODEVELOP RICHER WORK EXPERIENCES…”

—NORBERT KREBS, ACCENTURE LEARNING

Learning business process outsourcing (BPO)services are now officially the most robust seg-ment of the corporate training field. It’s easy tounderstand why. Learning BPO (also known astraining outsourcing) has become the logicalsolution for companies seeking to move fromfixed to variable costs, and to shed learning func-tions that are not core to their business.

However, in a global economy now focusing ongrowth, companies are beginning to realize thetransformational benefits of learning BPO inher-ent in a more comprehensive partnership.Enterprise-wide learning outsourcing infusesscalable design, development and deliveryexpertise and state-of-the-art technologies intolearning so that it is able to deliver substantialbusiness outcomes: improved performance bystrategic workforces, increased productivity andfaster speed-to-market.

SEVEN MISCONCEPTIONSABOUT LEARNING BPO Companies that want to realize these transforma-tional benefits may need to move out of their ini-tial “comfort zone,” where they restrict their ben-efits only to the cost savings they can realize bytransferring responsibility for learning adminis-trative services. Companies that remain in thatcomfort zone too long may be suffering from anumber of misconceptions about learning out-sourcing: what it is, what it does and what itseffects are. Based on observations and discus-sions with a wide variety of companies, here arethe seven most prevalent misconceptions associ-ated with learning outsourcing:

• If we outsource, we will lose control. This isby far the number one misconception aboutlearning outsourcing—frequently heard, butalso misguided. In fact, the exact opposite istrue. Companies actually gain more controlover the output of their learning organizationsthrough outsourcing because they hold thesupplier accountable through service-levelagreements. The supplier will inevitably bringmore experience and global resources to therelationship than the internal learning organi-zation can, and will bring a customer service

focus to the relationship that an internal func-tion can rarely achieve. Outsourcing learningfrees organizations to focus on the strategicnature of their businesses, while also main-taining the rights and ownership of their intel-lectual property. This actually gives organiza-tions increased control. Consider this: Learningexecutives typically spend 80 percent of theirtime engaged with tactical issues, leaving ascant 20 percent to focus on aligning learningwith the strategic priorities of their business.When they outsource learning, they can actual-ly reverse those percentages.

• Outsourcing is a career-ending move for theCLO. Learning executives often feel threatenedby an outsourcing relationship, reasoning thattheir job responsibilities will be heading out thedoor with the deal. Once again, that is seldomthe case. Instead, CLOs often gain a more tan-gible and visible impact on the business, whileleaving the tactical learning execution mattersto the outsourcing partner. They are more like-ly to be appreciated by senior management fortheir strategic contributions. In short, out-sourcing can be a career-advancing move forthe CLO. Learning executives at companies likeAvaya have actually gone on to assume moresenior corporate positions following outsourc-ing of the learning function.

• We don’t have a centralized approach tolearning, so we can’t see the value in out-sourcing. Many organizations do not have a goodhandle on what they are currently spending onlearning due in large part to the fact that themajority of spending is decentralized accordingto business functions. This model misses thepotential to align learning to drive significantbusiness results to the organization. LearningBPO provides a catalyst for an organization torestructure its learning function into a true, inte-grated business process, where learning is man-aged according to the top priorities of the busi-ness.

• Outsourcing equates to job loss. What hap-pens with jobs after outsourcing can usually bedescribed as a “shift” rather than a loss.Because two prevalent reasons to outsourceare to bring efficiencies to the learning process

14

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

LEARNING BPO: OVERCOMING THE MISCONCEPTIONS

Doug Harward

14 Sponsored by Accenture Learning

15

and to reduce fixed expenses, a realignment ofstaff is often one of the effects. In fact, boththe learning organization and its professionalscan benefit. The organization’s mission is clar-ified through better alignment with key busi-ness objectives, while its best employees aremost often hired by the outsourcing supplier,where their skills are developed and theircareers enhanced. (For more, see “ThePersonal Side of Outsourcing” on page 8.)

• Outsourcing equates to knowledge loss. Thefear of losing valuable “institutional knowl-edge” through learning BPO is frequentlyheard. But in a well-managed learning BPOarrangement, that is not going to happen,because you would never consider parting withyour knowledge any more than you would per-mit an outside firm to make your strategicdecisions for you. It’s all part of responsibleoversight of your learning partner, and it shouldnever be ceded to others.

• A learning outsourcing firm could neverunderstand our business. This is a familiarrefrain, but one that learning outsourcing firmsdisprove every day. How? In two ways. First, bybringing to the relationship deep industryexperience that is at least the equal of the cus-tomer’s, as well as global subject-matter expe-rience and design and development resources.And second, by investing the time to deepenthe relationship so it can produce more of atransformational impact. That was one of theexperiences of Sun Microsystems (see the casestudy on page 11). The greater value of Sun’soutsourcing arrangement came after the rela-tionship had been established a year or more.Over time, an organization can reap greatervalue from outsourcing by partnering with theoutsourcing firm to pilot new approaches, toolsand techniques, and by pushing the envelopeon the transformational value of learning BPO.

• We can’t outsource until we have all of ourinternal processes cleaned up. Anyone whoinsists on this cleanup as a precondition willnever outsource. The fact is, improving internallearning processes rapidly and cost-effectivelyis one of the best business reasons for adopt-ing a learning outsourcing strategy.

Don’t let these misconceptions stand in the wayof advancing the business impact of your learn-ing organization through learning BPO. Speakwith colleagues and peers who may be furtheralong the journey than you. What you’re lookingto establish is an arrangement where customerand provider are continually working to movefrom a cost focus to a productivity and growthfocus, always thinking about how learning candeliver a business impact.

Doug Harward is the CEO and managing partner of The Exceleration Group. He can be reached at dharward@theexcelerationgroup.com. You can also visit TrainingOutsourcing.com.

April 2005 Iw

ww

.clomedia.com

ICLO

Special Report:Learning Outsourcing

Sponsored by Accenture Learning

Ad No. M37994C Bleed

Bleed: 8-7/8" x 11-1/2"Safety: 7" x 9-7/16"

FOOTSTEPS LEARNING COPYCOMPOSITE MAGAZINE PAGE - SIZE A

This advertisement prepared by Young & Rubicam, N.Y. (30-1-1)KS0902

Client: Accenture Product: Image Codes: (AC/IM)Copy— D. Sinreich Art— M. Khuri Acc’t Mgt.— T. Duffy

Art Producer— XXXX Print Producer— C. Miller

SENT TO ENGRAVER

DATE:

APPROVALS

CLIENT:

LEGAL:

CLIENT BILLING NO. JOB NO. CONTACT

PATH FILE NAME PAGE

SETUP/REVISE DATE/TIME

TH

E S

TU

DIO

Accenture M3799 Rodes Ponzer x8-3738

Mech_Accenture>Image>Footsteps>Magazine M3799_Ftstps_4CB_8.87x11.12.v3 1

mm,jk, JS(PDF), mm (pdf), JS(DISK) 7/6/04 1:30PM

T I C K E T #

6-7428

Go on. Be a Tiger.

Is it enough for you to improve your game?Or is it your goal to change the game itself?

©20

04 A

ccen

ture

. All

right

s re

serv

ed.

High performers are recognized not just for reaching the peak, but for staying there. Accenture Learningprovides solutions that unleash the value of yourworkforce and achieve measurable results. To see howwe can help your business become a high-performancebusiness, visit accenture.com/learning

Proof generated by Earth Color. Anyquestions, please contact ProductionDepartment at 212-564-2500.

E# 44683 - PROOF# 1_CQ

44683_M3799_V1 7/8/04 7:17 PM Page 1