TECHNOLOGY EXCHANGE

LearnShare

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Fortune 500 Companies Go Online To
Create World’s Largest Learning Center

A consortium of Fortune 500 companies has created the world’s largest, private learning institution, making available over 500,000 Web-based courses to 2.7 million employees.

Courses range from 30-minute refreshers covering multiple topics to master’s degrees in business with curricula adapted from Stanford University, The London School of Economics, and other prestigious centers of scholarship.

Learnshare

Called LearnShare and located in Toledo, Ohio, the consortium of non-competing businesses is transforming the ways companies research, design, purchase, package, and communicate career development and skill enhancement courses to employees.

“Employee knowledge has become a strategic tool and competitive necessity, and LearnShare serves this need, delivering customized courses to millions of potential students anywhere on the globe,” said Lois Webster, general manager of LearnShare. “Students can take courses at whatever time of day or night best suits them.”

U.S. corporations will spend over two billion dollars for online training and development programs this year, and this is projected to increase to $23 billion by 2004, according to a recent report by International Data Corporation. IDC predicts the market will more than double in each of the next three years.

LearnShare also serves as a learning solutions center, Webster said. Members can request a course for a specific need and it is instantly posted on sites of leading learning providers.

Quotes on customized courses are returned within 48 hours, and all LearnShare members have access these programs when they are developed.

Members also share proprietary research results and success stories, and are online to answer questions and help solve problems to fulfill each other’s needs. Current projects include assisting Owens Corning, a LearnShare charter member, in creating a corporate university.

Other charter LearnShare members include General Motors, Pfizer, Motorola, 3M, Chevron, Northwest Airlines, Deere & Co., Eaton, Levi Strauss, Owens-Illinois, GTE, United Parcel Service, CNA Insurance,and Pilkington. Total annual sales of these companies exceed $350 billion.

Webster noted that LearnShare is offering two-year sustaining memberships to other Fortune 500 corporations and to smaller companies. These memberships, she said, provide access to the best programs, practices, and thinking of some of the world’s largest and most successful companies and learning centers.

Most LearnShare courses are delivered through seven global learning providers specializing in corporate education and development: THINQ of Billerica, Mass.; UNext of Deerfield, Ill; QuicKnowledge of Springville, Utah; Development Dimensions International (DDI) of Pittsburgh; Ninth House of San Francisco; and 24/7 University of Irving, Texas.

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U. S. Companies Spending Billions
On Employee E-Learning Programs

U.S. companies spend enormous amounts on employee career education and skills enhancement – almost $65 billion dollars this year alone. Less than two percent – over two billion dollars – is allotted to Web-based delivery systems, but these numbers will change dramatically.

A study by IDC predicts that by 2004 the Web will dwarf all other learning methods and capture 80 percent of the employee education and development market – some $24 billion.

“The face of corporate education has changed forever,” said Lois Webster, general manager of LearnShare, a Toledo, Ohio, consortium of Fortune 500 firms. LearnShare members pool resources to provide Web-based career development and skills training for 2.5 million worldwide employees.

“The advent of the Internet and the subsequent explosion in on-line learning is totally transforming the way companies enhance the skills and knowledge of their employees,” Webster added.

“These changes are increasing access, lowering costs, improving quality and efficiency of presentation, and introducing fundamental alterations in the structure and culture of corporate education and development.”

Webster noted that a recent study by the American Society of Training and Development revealed these findings:

A Merrill Lynch report profiling the U.S. market for corporate training services indicates that education and development is the number one source of competitive advantage for companies. Indeed, for every dollar spent on training, there is an estimated $30 gain in productivity, according to studies conducted by Motorola.

“The growth of the knowledge-based economy and the shortage of skilled labor, along with the rise of the Web and corporate intranets, have created the need for new approaches to employee skill enhancement and career development programs,” Webster said.

“LearnShare was formed to provide this new direction, and the Web is our strategic tool.”

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LearnShare E-Learning Providers

Most LearnShare courses are delivered through seven career development and skills training providers:

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Lois Webster Named General Manager
Of World’s Largest Corporate Educator

Lois Webster, director of Motorola University Business Systems Integration, has joined LearnShare as general manager (Jan. 2001). Ms. Webster will be on a two-year assignment at the Toledo-based e-learning consortium, which is comprised of Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. and Europe.

Ms. Webster joined Motorola in 1990 and has been director of Motorola University in China and for the North and South Asia Pacific regions. Prior to that she was Director of Motorola University for the Northeastern United States.

Formed in 1995, LearnShare is the world’s largest corporate educator, making available over 500,000 web-based courses to 2.5 million member company employees.

For More Information:

Lois Webster, General Manager

LearnShare

(419) 327-4164

lois.webster@learnshare.com

Tim Trainor, General Manager

Trainor Communications

(313) 965-4900

trainorcomm@cs.com