Case Study: Rapid E-Learning at Malvern
Rapid e-learning approach helps Malvern Instruments reduce time to market from weeks to days.
For companies that sell complex products or broad product lines, the proficiency of their sales force and channel partners has a great impact on their ability to compete. When it comes to delivering product knowledge and updates, such as before a new product release, companies frequently weigh the trade-offs between delivering effective training and delivering training quickly. Bringing sales reps out of the field and visiting channel partners may provide an effective learning experience, but it isn't always efficient. Posting product information to a website or delivering product manuals makes information more widely accessible, but its impact is questionable. Delivering a traditional e-learning module is an engaging format and effective way to expand reach, however, financial and time constraints often precludes its use for the vast amount of rapidly changing information that needs to be delivered, as well as the number of varied audiences.
Enter rapid e-learning, an approach to e-learning delivery that places easy to use tools into those that hold the knowledge across companies, including product managers, executives, technical experts, and thought leaders. These tools enable the average businessperson--without specialized digital media skills--to create, deliver, and track online, multimedia communications and courses that carry the benefit of hearing directly from company experts in an engaging format. Rapid e-learning offers a compelling solution to learning professionals who struggle to keep pace with demands of getting training to those who need it, and offer line-of-business managers who are charged with driving revenues a way to ramp up sales channels and get a consistent message to the market quickly.
Here's how Malvern Instruments, a supplier of instrumentation systems, took control of its time-intensive training practice using solutions from Brainshark.
Few-to-many ratio
Malvern Instruments is a leading supplier of instrumentation systems that apply advanced technologies for the accurate characterization of particles and bulk material’s physical properties. Malvern’s products are complex, and require extensive training to properly introduce them to Malvern’s customer base and channel partners. With eight subsidiaries and many international dealers, as well as a geographically dispersed customer base covering nearly all industrialized nations, Malvern’s technical experts found themselves constantly traveling to customer and partner sites to deliver vital product training. Not only were other job functions ignored due to frequent and hectic travel schedules, but responses to any technical questions or problems that arose at a channel or customer site were sometimes delayed due to excessive travel commitments.
Recognizing the need for a simple, effective way to deliver critical product information--and free up experts and reduce costs--Malvern turned to Brainshark, a Waltham, Massachusettes-based provider of on-demand rich media technology, which combines voice, visuals, and business documents. Brainshark has enabled Malvern’s experts to more efficiently create web-based training presentations that could be rapidly and widely delivered via an email that links to the presentation. The result has been a significant reduction in time and cost for travel, as well as the capability to provide necessary training to channel partners and customers in days rather than weeks.
Randy Byrne, vice president of marketing at Malvern says, “We estimated that it would take us 2.5 years to deliver in-person training to the number of people we reached in just one year using Brainshark. Not including travel, we saved $546,000 in 2005. Beyond these quantifiable measures, our management team is very aware that we’ve created a better trained, more efficient channel which has reduced time to market, increased sales and revenues and has enabled us to provide a more consistent message to both channel partners and customers.”
Byrne recalls one instance when they used Brainshark to deliver new product information to prospective customers. With Brainshark’s ability to track viewed presentations, Malvern could see that 12 percent of the prospects viewed the presentation within the first few hours of receiving it. “It would have taken us months to deliver this information to that number of people,” he notes. “Furthermore, by the time we reached everyone, the message would have been diluted and much less effective. Using Brainshark keeps the message fresh and consistent.”
Malvern’s previous training method followed a train-the-trainer approach in which the company’s internal sales team received training first. They, in turn, trained their contacts within the channel, who later trained their sales reps and so on. Because the information would take several weeks to get to everyone, the message was often diluted and sometimes ineffective by the time it reached the marketplace.
The rapid e-learning solution enables Malvern to deliver training to its sales force, partners, and customers quickly and cost effectively, track completion, and have a continuous gauge of training reach. Now, Malvern can prepare its sales force before a product launch, enabling workers to hit the ground running, talking intelligently with prospects and selling the new product prior to launch.
On-demand: on target and on time
Another prime example of the effectiveness of rapid e-learning is Malvern's roll out of a new product at its national sales meeting. The worldwide product manager, who had the responsibility of educating the entire sales organization on the new product and who was based in the United Kingdom, found his overseas flight delayed due to an airline strike. Because rescheduling was not an option, he soon realized that the only method to deliver the sales training was to use Brainshark.
After rushing back to his office, the product manager simply uploaded his presentation from his computer into Brainshark, picked up the phone to add his voice to the presentation, and emailed the link to the sales meeting manager--just in time for the meeting. After the presentation was delivered to the sales force, the product manager joined the meeting via teleconference to answer any follow-up questions. “It was almost exactly like having him there in person delivering that training,” says Byrne.
Big benefits, little effort
For subject matter experts such as Malverns’ product managers, creating an on-demand module using Brainshark takes little more time than it does to talk through their PowerPoint presentations. To create a typical presentation, there is no need for installed software, additional network infrastructure, or IT involvement.
Using familiar tools such as the Internet and phone, developers can create, manage, and share on-demand presentations that combine voice, visuals, and text. In addition, unlike a live training session, in which training is over when the class ends, this sort of on-demand solutions is accessible to users 24x7. Presenters can record information a single time at their convenience, and deliver information to every person that needs it. Finally, the learning modules are can be accessed and edited repeatedly to ensure fresh, dynamic content without reinventing the wheel every time a product receives an upgrade or add-on. Malvern has created a training library of Brainshark presentations on its website for internal sales training as well as customers and resellers, providing anytime access to the knowledge they need wherever and whenever they need it.
Right Tool for the Job
Like product experts in many companies, Malvern technical experts barely had time to meet the demands of their jobs, much less to spend time traveling to deliver training. By leveraging Brainshark’s rapid e-learning tool, Malvern turned a time- and cost-intensive training process into a cost-efficient, convenient, and more effective training resource that has reduced the time and effort required of its technical experts, delivered better results, and led to increased sales and revenues.
Publsihed: April 2006