Exploring Lean Corporations: “Simplify, standardize, automate” The idea of a “lean corporation” isn’t new.  Though the term is used to describe many start-up and high-tech firms today, Lean has long been used in reference to the manufacturing principles of the automaker Toyota.  By removing wasteful, inefficient practices throughout their production and supply chains, Toyota has historically been able to minimize costs to their customers – making them the textbook case for Lean. But as we all know, Toyota isn’t the only company that seeks greater efficiency for economic benefit these days.  So what does it mean for businesses to be truly Lean, and how does Lean impact the learning and training environment in those companies?

Adopting Lean at Bayer Last year, Greg Babe of Bayer MaterialScience (BMS) wrote a piece for the Harvard Business review that answers many of those questions.  When Babe was “blindsided” by his company’s global executives with a proposal to shut down the company’s North American headquarters, he used it as an opportunity to leverage Lean for the benefit of the entire company.

In today’s digital age, we can easily be overwhelmed by the amount of information that is constantly available at our fingertips.  This is undoubtedly true when it comes to corporate training. Especially when starting at a new company, it may seem daunting to learn all there is to know about a new job, new coworkers, or an unfamiliar industry.

This information overload is only amplified by the Internet, which provides information about companies on blogs, social media channels, and mainstream media outlets. Despite this potential flood of information, employing a bite-sized learning strategy can help your corporate learners focus on the facts that matter most.

We’re honored to announce that the Blackboard Professional Education team was recently awarded the 2012 Institute for Excellence in Sales & Business Development (IES&BD) Award for Sales & Business Development Training! IES&BD serves to develop excellence in sales and business development across industries, and is generally considered a preeminent group that recognizes excellence in organizational sales and business operations.

For this reason, we are not only honored to have received the award itself, but are also proud of the many ways our solutions drive results in the corporate and sales industries. This is our second IES&BD Excellence Award, following on our 2011 Excellence in Customer Partnering Award. Customer partnering is a form of collaboration that combines Blackboard solutions with the customer’s specific needs to deliver the optimum results in development, integration, and ultimately, outcomes.  As a customer-focused and results-driven organization, we were thrilled to have been recognized for our achievements in this area!

Recently, my colleague Paul Terry was featured in TrainingIndustry.com to discuss how to effectively leverage training for sales. In his article, Paul describes how companies are only beginning to understand the ways integrating sales training into an existing customer relationship management (CRM) solution can simplify and enhance the learning process.

By bringing together training and the CRM, he argues, sales teams will better align sales training with business goals and account needs, while maximizing retention of critical information. What’s the end result of this integration of training and the CRM, Paul asks? Better preforming sales reps!  Below is an excerpt from the article that focuses on measuring sales training effectiveness:

Measurement should be meaningful and demonstrate improved sales performance. With this insight and ability to tailor training, a company can train better prepared sales reps in the field. Sales managers can measure the affect of training on sales growth, certify reps on new products, deliver training to geographically dispersed or traveling teams, and create targeted courses for reps needing improvement.

This year, The American Society for Training & Development (ASTD) is hosting their annual conference in Denver – will you be there? If so, be sure to add Blackboard booth #425 to your conference agenda so you don’t miss out on any of the fun!

1. Find out how to take your training & development programs social and mobile At the Blackboard booth, you’ll find out how to use the latest technology to add a more social and mobile experience to your training programs. We’ll showcase: • Sales Training Integration with salesforce.com • Mobile Training • Live Virtual Training Sessions