The Business Case for Creating a Corporate University

Topics: Leadership, Learning Excellence, Align, Capability Planning, Strategy Integration, Performance Consulting, Organize, Technology & Infrastructure, Governance & Structure, Branding, Execute, Program Design & Delivery, Operations, Partnerships, Measure, Personal Outcomes, Business Outcomes, Cultural Outcomes

Overview

This paper sets forth the business case for creating a corporate university, based on the premise that corporate universities are the current best practice for systematically building human capital – a key capability for adaptive, innovative, knowledge-based organizations.  The term “corporate university” is most prevalent in the United States, Western Europe and Japan, but whether it is called an academy, institute, or center for excellence, the feature that distinguishes it remains the same: the alignment of key learning programs so they actively support the strategic interests of the business. 

Corporate universities offer a curriculum designed to support major change initiatives, serve to align staff development with business goals and improve the ROI associated with training investments.  Corporate universities help create the conditions for strategic agility and innovation in a knowledge economy.  Successful corporate universities have executive support and oversight to assure corporate goals and training align; appropriate technologies to assure and measure transfer and retention of knowledge and skills; and a well documented organizational plan for execution.  Companies with efficient and effective corporate universities show measurable improvements to the bottom line in shareholder return, productivity, and customer satisfaction.