YOU CAN’T DO IT ALL YOURSELF

From the desk of Marcia Dresner...

There have always been partnerships and alliances in the business world, but their use as strategic business tools really accelerated in 1990, when Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad introduced the concept of core competency - the idea that companies should only do those things that create significant competitive advantage and outsource, through partnerships and alliances, those things that they have to do but that aren’t “core” (The Core Competence of the Corporation, Harvard Business Review, 1990). Similarly, learning organizations have to think about the needs of the business, concentrate on the areas where they can add the most value, and find partners to do the rest.

Learning organizations use a wide variety of partnerships and alliances. In a previously released CorpU Newsletter, we discussed the partnerships that L&D creates with colleges and universities. That’s just the tip of a very large iceberg. Companies with very lean learning organizations use partners for everything from technology infrastructure to delivery of instructor-led courses. Even some companies with large learning organizations choose to devote their internal resources to determining what learning is needed, and develop partnerships to handle tasks like design, development and delivery of courses. Measurement, a key component of successful L&D groups, is often outsourced to companies with particular expertise in that arena.

Hitachi Data Systems' VP Nick Howe describes the web of partnerships that the Hitachi Data Systems Academy uses in a CorpU video called “Relationships”. He discusses how the company looks to partners to fulfill its mission of educating employees, customers and sales partners, and talks about the use of partners to create and deliver learning in countries outside the U.S. In fact, some of the relationships he describes were CorpU award winners in the Alliances category in 2006. He admits that it took him a while to see the value of those relationships, but that now he can’t imagine working any other way.

Nick Howe

The Corporate University Xchange 8th Annual Benchmarking Study asked learning organizations to report the percentage of total outsourcing dollars allocated to various categories. Training delivery and design represent most of the spending, with 31% allocated to various aspects of classroom-based training and 24% to technology-based training.

Source: Corporate University Xchange 8th Annual Benchmarking Report

More important than what the money is spent on is the kind of relationship companies look for. We were somewhat surprised by the answers we got when we asked L&D organizations what factors were most important in choosing partners. It was not a surprise that quality of the program was the biggest factor, but the fact that willingness to understand the business came in a strong second means that L&D organizations are looking for real partners – companies that are going to go beyond providing existing courseware or off-the-shelf software solutions, and that they can work with to create learning programs with real impact.

Source: Corporate University Xchange 8th Annual Benchmarking Report

Innovative alliances

The Corporate University Xchange Awards for Excellence and Innovation in Corporate Learning celebrates companies that have found innovative ways to look at the full range of external providers to support or manage elements of their learning programs. Judges in the Alliances category want L&D to be able to show the following:

• The business challenge your organization faced that caused you to explore the alliance
• Processes or systems for choosing which learning products or services to outsource; breadth of services provided by external providers
• Criteria and processes (e.g. requests for proposals) used to identify and select partners
• Evidence of a best practice program developed in partnership with an external provider, focusing on design, objectives, level of customization, target audience, delivery method, management, etc…
• How the alliance helped advance corporate learning strategy (i.e. reduce costs, generate revenue, speed delivery and retention rate of content, and/or create a learning culture within the organization)

Here are some examples that illustrate how recent CorpU award winners have used partnerships and alliances to create real value.

A Global Consultancy

This company delivers audit, tax, consulting and financial advisory services worldwide. The goal of the Learning team at the organization was to create a “virtual mall” for its 15,000 consultants. The challenge was to provide a state-of-the-art learning experience with content that met the needs of a diverse group of “shoppers,” each with their own learning preferences and constraints. From a learning perspective, each program would be rooted in blended content, acquired in the virtual mall, and timed according to the “shopper’s” needs or level. The learning organization team used a formal request-for-proposal (RFP) approach. In addition to the functional and technical requirements, a significant aspect of the evaluation process was the willingness on the part of the major vendors to partner with the company and to work with other vendors to create this new learning experience.

By September of the year before launch, anchor store decisions had been made, roles were identified in the overall learning strategy, and they ended up using four major providers. The LMS, content and platform providers worked together to provide an integrated solution that enabled seamless login from the corporate portal to the three provider portals, seamless transition from the LMS to the content or learning platform and back. For “merchandise” not externally available, the design and development partner was a key factor in meeting learner needs. By fully integrating that partner into the development lifecycle, the time to market for custom e-learning content was shortened significantly. With the close of the year following the sending of the first RFP, the “Mall” was complete.

A Food Distribution Company 

This company ran into several demographic, geographic, and business issues that created the “perfect storm” of challenges in filling its executive ranks. Fortunately, they recognized the problem early enough to be able to address the needs before they negatively affected their ability to succeed. To address its issues, the company’s corporate university launched a Senior Executive Development Program (SEDP). SEDP was developed and implemented with several external partners who met four basic standards: (1) quality product, (1) excellent customer service and flexibility, (3) timely response and (4) cost effectiveness. Alliances were struck with several well-known vendors in executive development and competency management, along with several university partners and enabled the corporate university to develop, integrate, and implement a solid program of leadership development that has been associated with several key outcomes including observable behavior changes in the candidates and business success, as well as the creation of a more robust leadership pipeline that will have an impact for a long time. 

A Security Company

The company had an account manager turnover rate of 30% nationwide, even though some of the people leaving were considered “high quality” managers. This directly affected client retention, and so the company needed to find a way to reduce turnover. To find a solution, the company partnered with The Center for Talent Retention (CTR) and together they created a Leadership BootCamp – a program that included pre-class assessment, a 3 1/2 day resident program and 16 weeks of on-the-job application. The program was designed to create a cultural shift in terms of how leadership was perceived and implemented in the company. It accomplished its goal not only anecdotally, but also in terms of financial results, with turnover going down by a third, and customer retention going up 8 percent.

Final thought

While these and other organizations have showcased their best practice alliances through the CorpU Awards Program, many L&D groups have not yet boasted about the excellent work they are doing with alliances and partnerships. Be sure to share your story by submitting an application to the 10th Annual CorpU Awards Program. Deadline for submission is September 5, 2008.

Marcia Dresner, Senior Research Analyst

Resources available to CorpU Member Companies

Do you need help finding the right partner? CorpU’s analyst inquiry service – available only to CorpU Members – has now expanded to include vendor sourcing research. The additional service covers learning providers in the soft skills curricula area and will include information about their offerings, delivery methods, and geographical reach. Contact your account manager or send an email to research@corpu.com for more details on how to use this service.

Full copy of the Partnering and Outsourcing chapter of the 8th Annual Benchmarking Study

Clarian Health Webinar on Alliances
Discover how Clarian Health has utilized alliances and college partnerships to grow their internal workforce and meet critical employment needs within their organization.