Partnerships

Collaboration across national boarders is a critical success factor in business today.  It adds diversity in new product development, drives market penetration, and improves competitive positioning in local markets.  It enables companies to take advantage of talent and resources wherever they are most cost-effective.  It encourages innovation as the global economy forces organizations to work outside their country boundaries, and potentially outside their comfort zones.  Collaboration is not new, but the increasingly global nature of business requires that companies maximize the effectiveness of collaborative efforts to drive competitive advantage.  Technology helps, but learning and talent development organizations have a bigger ... Read More »

In the spring of 2010, Westinghouse powered up their official university, which supports all employees, customers, partners and suppliers.  By leveraging alliances with both internal teams and external vendors such as Penn State University, University of Pittsburgh, Boston University Corporate Education Group, ABREON, and SkillSoft, Westinghouse broke down traditional product line silos and avoided expensive duplication across the company. Westinghouse continuously fosters external relationships with vendors that strengthen employee development.  One of the many benefits Westinghouse receives by leveraging these alliances includes quality programs, designed and developed by well-respected institutes and delivered by qualified and experienced instructors.   At this webinar ... Watch Video »

In the spring of 2010, Westinghouse powered up their official university, which supports all employees, customers, partners and suppliers.  By leveraging alliances with both internal teams and external vendors such as Penn State University, University of Pittsburgh, Boston University Corporate Education Group, ABREON, and SkillSoft, Westinghouse broke down traditional product line silos and avoided expensive duplication across the company. Westinghouse continuously fosters external relationships with vendors that strengthen employee development.  One of the many benefits Westinghouse receives by leveraging these alliances includes quality programs, designed and developed by well-respected institutes and delivered by qualified and experienced instructors.   At this webinar ... Read More »

      Aon Corporation provides risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, human capital and management consulting. Aon has approximately 500 offices worldwide, serving 120 countries with 59,000 employees. The decision in December 2009 to move away from Aon’s historically decentralized approach to running the companies that were under the Aon umbrella set the stage for Aon’s globally integrated approach to talent development.       Aon’s three strategic imperatives across the company are Distinctive Client Value, Unmatched Talent, and Operational Excellence. In 2011, Aon Talent Development collaborated with the CEO Greg Case, the Aon Executive Committee and the top 125 ... Read More »

Alstom is a world leader in supplying the needs of the power generation, power grid and rail transportation industries. The company almost went bankrupt in 2003, but has since grown to a company with 93,500 employees and revenues of €20.9 billion in 2010/2011. Even during its hardest times, however, the company continued to train employees. The problem was that the learning was scattered and uneven and would not properly support a company that was embarked on a major rebuilding effort and moving into new markets and market sectors. Alstom University (AU) was tasked to create a new ... Read More »

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.       Read More »

Updated, Mon Aug 15. A common question we hear from learning organizations is whether or not they should pursue the use of tablets in their mobile learning strategy. The amount of change in the tablet market has been a moving target, making plans and strategy difficult, to say the least. For those who need to gain understanding about tablets as a mobile learning strategy, there are certain things to consider before diving in. Below are some questions and answers that might help you make a decision regarding the use of tablets for learning.   What are the Benefits of Using Tablets ... Read More »

As more companies look to unleash video initiatives across the workforce, the challenges faced include getting a good transcription of the text that was spoken during the video, associating the transcription with the video frames so that someone could read along, and translating these transcripts to the local languages needed. Here were the four questions asked in the past two months that we're gathering into a short synopsis of what's out there and what's changed since CorpU last covered accessibility and localization in learning programs:   Are there any online services that provide machine transcriptions of video files ... Read More »

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnership: May 2011 Update For the month of May, CorpU analysts and researchers have identified five mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships worthy of comment from the news, including Trivantis's acquisition of Flypaper, VMware's acquisition of Socialcast, Microsoft's acquisition of Skype, Knightsbridge Human Capital Management's acquisition of iPal Interactive, and InVision's acquisition of The Call Center School.  Trivantis Acquired Flypaper Studio VMware Acquired Enterprise Social Collaboration Capabilities Microsoft Acquired Skype Knightsbridge Human Capital Management Acquired eLearning capabilities InVision Software Extends Cloud Computing Strategy  Trivantis Acquired Flypaper Studio Trivantis, a provider of an elearning authoring ... Read More »

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnership: April 2011 Update For the month of April, CorpU analysts and researchers have identified five mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships worthy of comment from the news, including SuccessFactors' acquisition of Plateau, Peopleclick Authoria's acquisition of Aquire, Jive's acquisition of Proximal Labs, Desire2Learn's acquisition of Captual, and Polycom’s acquisition of Accordent. Contents: Peopleclick Authoria Acquires Analytics and Modeling Capabilities Jive Acquires Proximal Labs Desire2Learn to Offer Presentation Capture and Webcasting Solutions Polycom Acquires Accordent Technologies SuccessFactors Acquires Plateau Peopleclick Authoria Acquired Analytics and Modeling Capabilities Peopleclick Authoria, a provider of talent management software solutions ... Read More »

Mergers, Acquisitions, and Partnerships: March 2011 Update In this installation, CorpU analysts and researchers have identified five mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships worthy of comment from the news, including General Physics' acquisition of RWD Technologies, Interoute's acquisition of Visual Conference Group, Berlitz's acquisition of Second Language Testing, Inmedius's acquisition of Knowledge Xtensions (to extend its Gen21 LMS), Skillsoft's acquisition of 50Lessons assets to fold into its Leadership Development Channel, and Xyleme's partnership with Comtech. Contents: General Physics Extends Market Reach Interoute Adds Video Conferencing and Telepresence Services Berlitz to Offer Customized Language Test Inmedius Extends eLearning ... Read More »

Are colleges doing what they need to prepare students for the jobs of the 21st century? Are new hires, especially those just finishing their first college degrees, ready to be productive contributors? If the answers to the first two questions are negative, what can learning leaders do to optimize their company's investment in new talent? This article presents the challenges of today's college preparation of the 21st century workforce, and strategies that learning leaders can take to ensure that the incoming, college educated talent pool can meet the strategic needs of their companies. What Is Missing in Today ... Read More »