A Canadian company hopes its e-learning program will take flight by tapping into the nature of sales people.
London, Ont.-based Juggernaut Studios Inc. is providing online learning for Xerox Corp.'s North American sales force. Sierra Hernandez, North American training manager for agent operations at Xerox, says the 24/7 accessibility of the Web enables agents to learn and refresh when they want to, and the information can be updated more easily and frequently.
"They had the expertise in-house and the knowledge of the latest technology to allow us to enable delivering interactive multi-media training presentations to our field sales population," Hernandez says.
To Juggernaut CEO Jeff Forbes, it's more than interactive.
"We're creating more of an entertainment experience while they're going through the training. It involves animation, streaming video and some games. They can also compete against each other for prizes," Forbes says. "We kind of made it like a game, but they're being tested all the way through."
The program is built on Microsoft's .Net platform with a predominantly XML and Flash front end. "We're not going for the kind of information dump-in text," says Forbes. Juggernaut is also in charge of hosting the modules, which is done in San Antonio, Tex., on SQL servers.
Forbes says Xerox is a fairly representative customer of those seeking its services. High-tech companies make up most of the clients as they tend to have large mobile sales forces.
Though the rollout will be phased, Hernandez says about 3,000 Xerox employees will be required to complete the training.
"We signed a one-year contract (for) four specific learning modules and the first module is just now rolling out of beta mode," Hernandez says. "This is a first pass, and we want to determine the success and the payback from this investment before we make any future decisions to continue on."
If all goes according to plan there could be more opportunities within Xerox for Juggernaut. For example, the content, which took about a year to develop, according to Forbes, will have to be altered if the system is to be re-purposed.
"It's very specific to our organization (sales), but there's nothing to say that this couldn't be picked up and replicated--obviously with some modifications to the content--and be delivered anywhere else inside our organization," Hernandez says.
FACT SUMMARY
Xerox e-learns
* 24/7 availability enables North American sales agents to learn and refresh at their leisure
* Program is built on Microsoft's .Net platform and uses XML and Flash on the front end
* About 3,000 Xerox employees will be required to complete the training
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