Classroom Benefits
But some industry analysts are skeptical of the new training tools. Jeff Golterman, a research analyst with Gartner Group, says traditional classroom training can never be fully replaced. "There is more benefit in the classroom because there is more knowledge being imparted than over the Web," he says, adding that human interaction has much more impact than listening to someone's voice over a computer. "When I see users who aren't adept on their systems, it's usually the result of insufficient classroom training," Golterman says. Collaborative products are best used as a companion tool to classroom teaching, he says.

Therien agrees. He says the Canadian Department of Agriculture will still provide standard classroom training to employees in large metropolitan centers such as Ottawa and Toronto. "There are many cultural changes involved with distance learning, so we want to walk before we run," he says. For example, students being trained online must be disciplined not to take phone calls or leave their offices while the lesson is under way--usually not a problem in a conventional classroom setting. But getting cooperation is less of an issue if students know the material they're learning is key to their on-the-job success, analysts say.

Therien says there are also technical problems associated with training via the Web. "We found out that we had to limit the content of slide presentations, and not have any animation because it had a negative impact on the transmission," he says. His instructors also ran into bandwidth problems when moving from, say, a PowerPoint screen to an SAP screen. Occasionally, students would get knocked offline and have to log on again.

Another issue is that the SAP suite, which has thousands of screens and fields, is difficult to learn even by conventional classroom methods. Students can be overwhelmed by having to master a distance-learning product on top of the ERP system. But Therien, for one, says that hasn't been the case with the Centra product because it consists of only six basic functions and can be mastered in minutes.

Therien plans to take his department's Web training even further by using it to conduct all refresher courses, as well as classes on any new versions of SAP. In the past, it wasn't cost-effective to hold classroom training, then follow it up three months later. With training via the Web, companies can ensure all employees are comfortable with the new applications. Canada's Department of Agriculture pairs about 10 students with every instructor in initial training sessions. With refresher courses, it plans to have about 50 students per instructor, on the assumption there will be fewer questions because the material has already been covered.

Computer-based training programs also yield savings that are hard to measure but still important. Judy Andoloro, an analyst with AMR Research, expects to see these products take off among companies concerned about productivity losses during implementations of sales-force automation applications. "These training systems are valuable tools for sales reps who don't want to waste days going to class when they can be out in the field making deals," she says.

That was the case at Armstrong World Industries Inc., a Lancaster, Pa., maker of building products that rolled out sales-automation software from Baan Co. late last year. "We didn't want to take our salespeople out of the field for training," says Dennis Scott, manager of sales and marketing information systems at Armstrong. "When you do that, they are no longer contributing to the mission of the company." Scott says going with Centra's Symposium for collaborative training was the less-costly option--in terms of training and lost sales--estimating a savings of 25%. Salespeople logged on to the training sessions from their home offices, got the information they needed, and returned to work.

"I can't speak to why other companies haven't discovered collaborative training," Scott says. "For us, it was the right application."

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