Realize productivity gains from network-driven communication, training, and assessment

What sets apart The Business Case for E-Learning?

• Unified approach to e-learning. Covering knowledge sharing, training, and assessment. E-learning components such as online testing and certifications are uniquely combined.

• Productivity. The cause for rather than a consequence of e-learning. The Business Case for E-Learning demonstrates cases and methods in e-learning to those seeking productivity advantages for their organizations and ecosystems.

• Focus on ecosystem. Those seeking productivity advantages across the entire supply chain or value chain of delivery can benefit from the presented perspective.

• Recommendations go beyond organizational gains to cover resellers and customers.

• Results and returns. See case studies and empirical evidence of the value and return on investment (ROI) that demonstrate the success of a cohesive e-learning program. Learn how Cisco Systems saved $142 million in one year using e-learning.

I have always truly believed that the Internet and education are the two great equalizers in life, and this book provides information about how to combine the two for productivity and profitability gains, based on real successes.
-John Chambers, President and CEO of Cisco Systems

The Business Case for E-Learning is the first book that demonstrates the productivity gains provided by Internet learning through a unique approach combining e-communication, e-training, and e-assessment. Beyond theory, The Business Case for E-Learning is based on practical experience in developing and deploying programs that bolster profitability. This book offers you practical recommendations for best practices and return on investment and provides lessons learned from real-world experiences.

The Business Case for E-Learning presents several case studies that range from the challenges of learning in Africa to the emergence of corporate knowledge-sharing communities. Case studies on Toyota, BearingPoint, Element K, and other e-learning leaders demonstrate how e-learning best practices can yield value for any organization. One case study quantifies how Cisco Systems in one year generated $16 in value for every dollar spent on an e-learning program.

Managers need to prove to companies that an e-learning program can result in demonstrable productivity gains. Through The Business Case for E-Learning, you learn to avoid unnecessary trial and error with e-learning and take advantage of the e-learning experience documented by authors Tom Kelly and Nader Nanjiani.

You can visit the companion website for The Business Case for E-Learning at www.cisco.com/go/book/elearning.

This volume is in the Network Business Series offered by Cisco Press. Books in this series provide IT executives, decision makers, and networking professionals with pertinent information about today's most important technologies and business strategies.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 9 Ratings

Best Practices, Case Histories and Value of E-Learning - 2005-04-09
Reviewer Rating:
I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this book because I hadn't seen anything about the payoff from e-learning. I know that most training has benefits that are hard to document unless you tie the learning into a high payoff program . . . like Six Sigma.

The Business Case for E-Learning exceeded my fuzzy expectations in a number of ways.

First, the book contains lengthy explanations of how Cisco Systems developed its E-Learning program and what the results have been. That alone would have made the book worthwhile.

Second, the authors pull from the cases (both Cisco and nonCisco) to identify what's needed to make E-Learning a profitable activity. The three key elements are communication (to drive alignment), training (to add new information) and assessment (to see whether the information has been absorbed and applied correctly).

Third, you also find a model for how to develop and test the payoff of such an initiative. That will be essential for those who will need to start small (almost everyone).

Fourth, there are quantifications of the payoffs from the case histories that can be used to both select areas to create e-learning and to document the potential for economic benefits.

Fifth, the book does a superb job of describing how e-learning can make product rollouts much more effective by engaging sales people and partners in rapid and value-adding ways. Anyone who works with an organization that adds lots of new products should definitely read and apply this book.

The book does have some limitations though.

It is often repetitive. You are constantly reminded that Cisco saves $16 for every $1 it spends on e-learning (most of these references come before the part where the savings are documented).

The book often seems to be trying to push Cisco's products and services.

There are not enough nonCisco cases. Cisco can hire the best people and deploy the best e-learning practices. It's more valuable to me to learn about mere mortals do in this area. In this regard, small organizations will not find much that is directly aimed at their needs in the cases or discussions.

The book isn't very well written. It's more like a series of edited essays on the subject than a book.

But I'm glad I read it . . . and I suspect you will be too.

The book is the title... - 2005-01-04
Reviewer Rating:
This book is all about its title: building the BUSINESS case for e-learning.

It turns out that the obvious reasons for doing e-learning are just the ones that lie on the surface. As you read and explore Tom Kelly's and Nader Nanjiani's tightly focused book, you'll learn not only how to build that justification for e-learning on sound business practices, but will be exposed to a number of ancillary reasons for implementing this evolving area of empowering your people.

The book gives solid reasons - with hard, real-world numbers - about why e-learning is rapidly becoming mission critical to businesses of all sizes. Besides the plentiful examples from Cisco Systems, several case studies from other industries and companies are included. When you are finished reading this book, you will be convinced of why now is the time to get serious about implementing e-learning in your organization, and, you'll pretty much have all the steps and material you need to put a plan into action.

I highly recommend this book.

This Train Has Left the Station - 2004-12-05
Reviewer Rating:
This book provides a lot of useful data on the productivity gains that an enterprise can realize from an online learning program. In providing the validation for implementing e-learning and in showing how to model the productivity gains in terms of returns on investments and improvements to the supply and value chains (the so-called ecosystem) in a large organization, the book merits five stars. It accomplishes what it sets out to do.

The next step, of course, is to figure out how to implement an e-learning program. The book doesn't tackle this process in very much detail, but does provide some guidelines to follow when setting up an e-learning initiative. It also provides some useful detail on how Cisco built its own e-learning program.

This book is really aimed at CxO and upper management. It's main intent is to provide justification and proofs of the efficacy of e-learning programs in general and of some specific programs (Bearing Point, Toyota, and the Cisco Networking Academy) that are detailed in case study format. These studies will give you a decent sense of what these companies went through to implement e-learning; this should hopefully help a training manager to navigate through the maze of requirements for putting together an e-learning program of their own.

How do you measure the output of an e-learning program? This is an area that seems nebulous at first, and the book takes us through its methodology so that we can be more comfortable with the data. Cisco commissioned an independent survey conducted to take some measurements from its Partner E-Learning Connection (PEC) program. Respondents reported hard figures such as a savings of 9-10 hours per month and increased sales of an average of $9700 per month. When these figures were extrapolated across the entire partner program, and compared to the costs of implementing the PEC, it was found that the training investment had paid off at an astonishing ratio of 16-1. The case studies for the other vendors was somewhat more anecdotal but also contained hard evidence.

The pyramid of the productivity sets apart the Cisco program and gives it a unique credibility that makes it worth studying. At the base of this pyramid is communications; in the middle is the training itself and assessment is at the top. I think in some ways this is really key - when you take away the live instructor and the reporting that an expert can give you as to whether the students truly understand he material, the need for assessment is obvious.

But it can be rather tricky to construct the assessment portion of a training class so as not to be too general and high level, and also not to be too nit-picky on details that can always be looked up in the field (as long as the basics of a technology are understood). There is an art form to this, and if it's done well, it can make a training program much more effective.

There is, I believe, no doubt that many kinds of subject matter, particularly in the industrial realm, are better served by e-learning than any other method. Reasons for this include the lower cost of an e-learning program (assuming, of course, that there is a large enough student base to justify the rollout) and the fact that an e-learning initiative fits really well into the difficult-to-predict schedules of the recipients of the courseware. People who are under pressure to sell or to deliver IT consulting of their own cannot necessarily afford to take a week off of work to receive specialized training in a technology, product, or methodology.

What almost anyone can do, however, is find a chunk of time here and there to study a segment of a larger course. When the course is available online, with assessments to measure progress, and the ability to remember where the student last left off, the resulting flexibility allows the student to take in more subject matter.

All of this is not to say (and the book doesn't claim) that classroom training should be eliminated in favor of online learning. Subjects that benefit from "give and take" between an instructor and students (or between the students themselves) would certainly lend themselves to having a classroom component. The art of troubleshooting comes to mind, or of providing technical support. However, a great deal of industrial training can be handled more effectively, and more cheaply, through e-learning. This is bound to be increasingly true in the future, as more young students are comfortable with this mode of learning.

After laying out the case for e-learning, the book describes how to organize an e-learning initiative. I think this area is a little bit more high level and less concrete than the case studies themselves, and that a training manager responsible for implementing an e-learning initiative will still have more work to do in fighting the battle to put a program together. Still, some good high-level rules are laid out, such as demonstrating cost advantages, and identifying benefits and key dependencies. These are all good rules of thumb.

There is probably no "one size fits all" template for putting together an e-learning program, and training developers have to muddle through their unique situations to apply these principles to their individual companies and the subject matter at hand. However, if you are starting out cold, you will benefit from the descriptions of how to get support from management, how to implement a pilot, and how to set goals to measure your results.
But the bottom line is that the e-learning train has left the station, and if you're involved in corporate training in any way, you absolutely have to take a hard look at it.

Stands the Test of Time - 2007-12-08
Reviewer Rating:
This book is an easy read, both informational and concise. It may be written for the CxO audience, but anyone who has a vested interest in the success of an eLearning deployment should read this book - cover to cover. The shaded excerpts from Tom Kelly are practical and plain-speaking. His extensive experience and humorous tone clarifies the mystery of balancing a business case with practical tidbits for a successful execution.
I highly recommend this book, for the fundamental messages are still as applicable as they were in 2004 when the book was published. It will definitely stand the test of time and worth your time to read and share with your team.

E-Learing came out of it's Infancy - 2005-10-24
Reviewer Rating:
I have been an opponent of E-Learning for several years after having seen some very poor attempts at deployment and usage of it as a business solution. In many cases it has been less than desirable because of its lack of flexibility and its "dumb" approach that tends to lean more towards fact pushing than to learning. The problems that deterred me are the same issues that have companies running from the technology they should now be embracing. The problem is there wasn't any good "lessons learned" being shared with the rest of the business world. It was a forbidden topic left to only the training department to discuss how poor it was and always will be. The few people that realized any benefits of it were those that took it on themselves for personal development, many of which in my experience were people that did so due to financial reasons above it being a better alternative.

The reality is that there are many reasons to be using these technologies in today's environment. This book does an excellent job at showing those lessons learned in such a way that it enables businesses to make a truly informed decision into using e-learning to boost the bottom line. The business community has more capability today than they have in many years to reap substantial benefits from E-Learning than ever before. This book illustrates this in many ways but the best is by exposing the inefficiencies of classroom based training and it's inflexibilities to fully accommodate the particular needs of the needs within departments and specialties.

Its examples include the sales force being able to concentrate on specific sections of a technology to more accurately and efficiently hone in on a region or area based on its unique needs and demands. The case studies presented are both concise and educational on how to maximize and measure return on investment and focus the business in on what it can do to fully realize the potential.

The need within a company is to enlighten its staff to properly sell, support, and deploy its products. This cannot be done without some form of educational and measurement tools. E-Learning does this in the most efficient manner while also enabling the second most important factor, that of measuring its own effectiveness with trackable progress and known content. Something that is much more difficult with a classroom environment. These efficiencies and measurements alone are worth the price of admission for this book.

I would highly recommend this book to any business leader but also feel it's best information belongs in the hands of the Mid to Large business sector.

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