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Most
global organisations take great pride in their enterprise-wide corporate
varsities, which they have built and propagated as individual brands.
Only these “temples of learning” are not brick-and-mortar
structures with sprawling campuses, but a virtual phenomenon—the
scope of learning albeit remains as vast. For an organisation, its
corporate varsity is the via media for combining the training needs
of the employees with the business needs—integrating the vision
and strategy of the organisation with Web-based just-in-time courses.
Edge
over traditional training
Corporate
varsities were initially set up as an extension of the traditional
training arms of companies as e-learning modules, which over the
years acquired greater significance for facilitating just-in-time
training. These e-varsities had a clear edge over traditional training
arms for many reasons—aligning course modules with business
objectives while traditional training opted for popular courses;
leveraging technology to enhance learning and not as a cost-cutting
option; and enabling “tailor-made” training for individuals
in their own time and pace.
Corporate
varsities bring down the cost of training significantly. Rahul Thapan,
head of education services division, Tata Infotech, says, “The
traditional training department involves maintenance of expensive
physical infrastructure and trainers at all desired locations. Invariably,
we have seen that the training is delayed for want of either trainers
or infrastructure. Both these resources are scarce.” Thapan
believes that a corporate varsity programme is the next step when
an organisation has successfully implemented its e-learning initiatives.
As e-learning is still at a nascent stage in the country, it will
take a while for e-varsities to become a popular corporate training
option. In the US the transition has already been made. Tata Infotech
partners with SmartForce (now SkillSoft), which has successfully
set up corporate varsity initiatives worldwide with Unisys, Dell
and Philips.
Design
and maintenance
The
essentials of designing a corporate varsity are: relevance of content,
selection of platform, branding, delivery mechanism and easy access.
Maintenance includes updation of content, incorporating feedback,
certification from external universities and vendors, and evaluation
of the learning process. Typically, a provider that designs and
maintains corporate varsities provides the content, technology and
services. “The content mix will consist of a combination of
IT skills, business skills and interpersonal skills depending on
desired competencies. The technology enables hosting the service
and content management through Learning Management Systems (LMS).
The service mix consists of collaborative tools including mentoring,
threaded discussions, online seminars and subject matter led chat
sessions,” informs Thapan. The corporate varsity programme
may extend beyond the employees (depending on the desired content
and services) to business partners and customers.
In
India, very few organisations have initiated the process of setting
up e-varsities, but awareness is on the rise. “Several banks
and insurance houses have traditional brick and mortar structures
and are contemplating integrating technology also into their training
institutions,” says Pramod Khera, CEO and managing director,
Aptech. Designing, developing and maintaining online varsities is
one of the services under the Learning Service spectrum of Aptech.
The training major is looking at the following verticals for offering
services in the corporate varsity arena: Banking, Engineering, Pharmaceuticals,
Defence and allied industries, and Petrochemicals.
Prudential
ICICI AMC has a Pan Asia corporate varsity. PRUUniversity was launched
in March 2001 in Hong Kong and June 2001 in India. Vasant Sanzgiri,
senior vice president and head-HR of PruICICI AMC says, “The
courses are for all employees on a need basis. The focus of the
courses is to help people sharpen their skills—technical as
well as behavioural—to help them perform at work and serve
their investors better. Approximately 9,000 plus enrollments have
happened in Asia. In India there have been 500 plus enrollments.”
The university is hosted by Prudential Corporation Asia and encourages
employees and agents to benefit from continuous learning for their
current roles and future industry needs. Sanzgiri informs that there
are four-five people who work full-time with PRUUniversity in Hong
Kong. They are supplied content by functional specialists, for example
for Mutual Fund courses the content is sent from India. While the
varsity is online, it also offers blended as well as classroom training.
Significance
of branding
A
lot of effort goes into building the brand image of a corporate
varsity, which mostly has its own name, logo and vision. Sanzgiri
explains why: “It provides an identity to which students relate,
feel good about. If it makes clear what the brand stands for then
it also communicates its value. Participating in such courses enhances
pride about working in the company resulting in retention of talent.”
According to Pramod Khera, branding also provides a powerful marketing
advantage to the organisation and offers opportunity to brand the
service amongst customers, strategic partners and members of the
value chain.
Khera
asserts that members of the organisation who are experts in their
field and have practical experience must
be identified as facilitators of learning and not necessarily as
teachers. “Thus there will be multitude of possibilities emerging
of trainers with expertise from within. Jack Welch of General Electric
for instance was the teacher most of the time for Crotonville’s
leadership programmes,” he adds. It is also necessary to create
communities of practice to enable groups of people with similar
experiences to come together and share their collective knowledge,
which eventually helps in identifying solutions from within.
NCR’s
corporate varsity is a part of its employee development initiative
and is accessible to all employees who have access to the company’s
intranet. Sanmitra Trivedi, head of HR at NCR Corporation informs
that apart from communication, messages and presentations made by
senior executives of the NCR Corporation, it also has features like
“Seminar on Demand”, free as well as paid technical and
soft skill courses.
Does
a corporate corporate varsity make a visible difference in an organisation?
“In today’s knowledge economy people are the best assets
a company can have with them in their quest for winning markets.
As pace of business changes it does help employees to take ownership
of their career and it pays back to the company,” affirms Trivedi.
Yet another debatable factor is— are such in-house initiatives
necessary in the era of outsourced expertise? Sanzgiri believes
that the best solution is that the software for the courses should
be developed or customised through outsourcing, while the platform
should remain in-house. This would also enable packaging of courses
according to the needs of the students.
Those
organisations in India are expected to be receptive to the concept
of enterprise-wide virtual varsities which have already implemented
and witnessed the benefits of e-learning. While IT organisations
are sure to set the trend, the non-IT companies are expected to
follow suit.
Advantages
of e-varsity
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Reduces cost of training
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Aligning training needs with business strategy
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Just-in-time training at own pace and convenience
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Brand building for marketing advantage
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Enhances employee pride and morale
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Helps in retention of employees
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