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February 26, 2001

E-Learning Branches Out

continued...page 3 of 3

By Sandra Swanson (sswanson@cmp.com)

Illustration by Lorraine Tuson

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE CONTENT:

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It's hard enough to keep track of the technical requirements needed to make E-learning harmonious with internal corporate IT systems. Throw in variables such as users outside the firewall, outdated modems at home computers, and blocked streaming media, and you've got more trouble. As a result, many companies revert to technology's lowest common denominator to ensure broad access to E-learning.

Streaming media wasn't even considered when $56 billion Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. established its online content to complement classroom training for dealers' technicians in May. The automaker had very specific, and modest, requirements for E-learning vendors: The courseware had to work effectively with a 28.8-Kbps dial-up modem and a Pentium 133-MHz CPU with 32 Mbytes of RAM. "We couldn't be sure where technicians would access the course," says Jim Heideberg, manager of technical training design for Nissan North America Inc. He wanted technicians to access courses from home without waiting an eternity for page downloads.

DuPont wants easy access for its E-learning students, too, especially since they're paying customers. Since December 1999, DuPont has sold instructor-led E-learning events, featuring DuPont expertise in areas such as safety and engineering quality, to customers, including Honeywell, Nordstrom, and the U.S. Postal Service. During the "live" E-learning events, which cost about $350, students listen to instructors in real time, while viewing content online and participating in online polls and chats. DuPont also hosts these E-learning events, using Evoke Communications Inc.'s E-learning platform, for companies that want to reach paying customers with their expertise. SKF Bearings, one of DuPont's suppliers, partners with the company to sell a workshop on bearing analysis to manufacturing and engineering companies.

DuPont experimented with streaming video and audio, currently done over the phone, for its E-learning events, with disappointing results. During one workshop, an instructor used a video clip to illustrate a case study. One-third of the audience had firewalls that blocked streaming video, and some users had trouble turning on Media Player. That's not just bad for E-learning, it's also bad for business. When technology glitches occur, DuPont can't charge for the session, and it loses repeat business.

DuPont invested about $5 million from its Corporate New Business Development fund in its customer E-learning program, called Virtual Workshops, and should break even this year, says George Rotsch, business manager of marketing. "This will be a small business for DuPont, but it has significant potential," he says, adding that Virtual Workshops could remain part of DuPont or be spun off.

Franklin Covey Co. sees revenue potential in E-learning. The $585 million company, which sells the Franklin Planner and other personal-productivity tools, is developing Web-based versions of its classroom instruction for project management and other business topics to be released later this year.

While more companies are looking to E-learning as a way to build customer relationships and generate revenue, efforts are still in the early stages. According to the InformationWeek Research's survey, 17% of respondents offer customers focused E-learning; another 21% plan to offer it in the next year.

With such big plans, what hinders companies' adoption of E-learning? Technology plays a large role, particularly limited bandwidth. While there are companies with access to streaming video, many networks aren't designed for streaming media; instead, they're meant to handle E-mail and printer traffic that can be sent piecemeal or rerouted. Effective networks have management tools to allocate bandwidth for streaming media and to trim available bandwidth for E-mail, but IT departments probably won't rank streaming video for training as a high priority unless the E-learning initiative supports business strategy.

George Rotsch Photo by Bill Crammer Circuit City found an effective way to provide high-resolution video with its Web-based training: the VCR. When employees reach the video segment of an online course, they're instructed to stop and insert the accompanying video in a VCR. Says Wells, "Everything we do is built around 56K, so we're not into elaborate streaming video programs."

Today's online training has come a long way. When Susan Miller, Famous Footwear's director of training and development, started at the company in April 1998, employees could sit at their computers and learn all about the corporate wisdom--by reading mountains of text on a blue screen. "Everything you wanted to know in 16 hours, if you could stay awake." Now when salespeople sit in front of a computer screen, they interact with virtual customers in Famous Footwear's online training. Miller wants to demonstrate that E-learning improves sales performance, and that won't happen for at least another year. The company plans to purchase a new learning-management system that will require rebuilding content, which will take six months, plus six more of collecting data.

As John Deere's Loyd found out, it all comes down to corporate commitment. Training cost reduction is appealing, but that alone won't justify the investment E-learning requires. It isn't plug-and-play, and it requires a powerful long-term vision to weather the storm of IT glitches and user resistance. --with Diane Rezendes Khirallah and Marianne Kolbasuk McGee