SaaS Webinar - Link to Archive

Here is a link to the archived webinar featuring David's discussion of the impact of SaaS on learning & talent systems research:

http://www.cornerstoneondemand.co.uk/landing/on24/files/lobby.html

(updated link)

SaaS Core Insights paper announcement

Elearnity examines Software-as-a-Service impact on Learning & Talent Systems
Elearnity | Cirencester, UK

14-May-2009 » Training Press Releases » Elearnity, Europe's leading Corporate Learning Analyst, today announced its latest research on the impact of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) on the Learning & Talent Systems market.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), the provision of software applications as an Internet service, has become a major force in the business applications market. This Elearnity Core Insights paper explores the growing impact of SaaS on applications for managing and delivering learning and talent processes within a corporate environment.

"Software-as-a-Service is a very relevant approach for Learning & Talent Systems and we are seeing rapid growth in its adoption in both the Enterprise and Mid-tier markets.", said David Wilson, Managing Director of Elearnity. "Our research highlights the benefits and barriers of SaaS for corporates, and explores these specifically in the context of Learning & Talent Systems."

The research paper looks at the evolution and specific drivers/barriers for SaaS Learning & Talent Systems. It also provides guidance and key questions for corporates to ask internally when considering SaaS Learning & Talent solutions, as well as a checklist of questions to ask to potential suppliers.

"The benefits of SaaS are particularly attractive in the current economic climate, but not all SaaS solutions are suitable for large complex organisations." said Wilson. "Overall, Elearnity expects SaaS to grow significantly as a proportion of the market, and pressure on vendors to offer more scalable Enterprise-class SaaS solutions."

The SaaS paper is available immediately for download from Elearnity's Knowledge Centre at www.elearnity.com along with other Elearnity research papers and presentations

Link: http://www.elearnity.com/EKCLoad.htm?load=ByKey/DWIN7RZCUJ

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): the Impact on Learning & Talent Systems

A Webinar featuring David Wilson, of Elearnity, will explore how investing in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based talent management solutions is helping organisations increase productivity and ensure high performers are engaged, developed, connected and retained – while also lowering costs. The complimentary session, sponsored by Cornerstone OnDemand, is entitled “Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): the Impact on Learning & Talent Systems” and is scheduled for Thursday, 14th May from 3pm to 4pm GMT.

According to analyst firm Gartner, the global enterprise market for SaaS will rise by nearly 22 percent in 2009, as companies turn to Web-based applications as a way to reduce costs during the economic downturn. This includes increased adoption of on-demand human capital management applications by organisations seeking economical yet effective ways for managing and developing employees.

David Wilson, Elearnity’s founder and Managing Director, commented, “SaaS is having a significant impact on the learning and talent systems market, both for enterprise customers, as well as the mid-tier market. We also see it as being particularly attractive in the current economic climate.”

Learning and human resources (HR) leaders participating in Thursday’s Webinar will:

• Discover why leading organisations are turning to SaaS to accelerate change and deliver more value for the business from their learning and talent systems
  
  
• Explore specific HR business drivers – including cost/time savings, scalability and flexibility – that make SaaS a superior technology option
  
  
• Learn the key questions to ask when considering potential SaaS-based learning and talent solutions

During the session, Wilson will preview analysis and recommendations from Elearnity’s latest research. Elearnity’s research and analysis focuses on the key innovations challenging corporate learning organisations, including e-learning and blended learning, learning management strategy and systems, the impact of learning and increasing value-add, and integrating learning with human capital and performance. Elearnity’s research process is designed to develop deeper insights into corporate realities and best practice, and an independent understanding of vendor capabilities and performance.

To register for the Webinar, visit: https://event.on24.com/eventRegistration/EventLobbyServlet?target=registration.jsp&eventid=127366&sessionid=1&key=CCF502FDC19380DB30AA8825ED3B21B8&sourcepage=register

Impact of SaaS on Learning & Talent Systems

On 14th May, David will be previewing a new Elearnity research paper on the impact of Software-as-a-Service on Learning & Talent Systems at a Webinar hosted by Cornerstone OnDemand.

Click here for more information and to register for the event. The paper will be made available after the webinar.

Human Capital Reporting - Don Taylor

Don Taylor has posted an interesting discussion of the state of human capital reporting. A very interesting post/article and quite thought provoking, and some useful references too. I agree that the lack of real metrics is a big limitation in moving the perception of people value in business. Our research also shows that most organisations do not even understand their basic data very well, let alone be sophisticated enough to really understand added value in either performance or human capability.

But even if the lack of metrics is a problem (which it is), I do not believe it is the cause of the problem, just an effect. The real challenge is in getting business leaders to truly understand the relationship between human capital (if that is the term we want to use) and business performance - both current and future.

In the majority, business leaders are simple animals. Their behaviour (as opposed to rhetoric!) is largely linked to what will drive results. If they definitely know that investment in people improves bottom line results more than cutting costs or increasing marketing then they will do it more often. Unfortunately they don't really know that, although plenty of people may try to tell them. In this sense, the human capital debate is in more of the "faith" business (like marketing in some sense) than it would like to be.

Metrics and models help to develop the discussion and start to provide a robust basis for moving from faith to evidence. But this is a long road, and, at least in the short term, basic is better!

David

Corporate e-learning trends - headlines for Europe

I know it seems a bit early to start the "what's the trends for 2007" stories, but someone just asked me for such a view based on our corporate research. Thought you might also be interested in the answer. As always, happy for feedback.

For 2007, we expect the key developments for corporates to be around a) reconstructing and expanding the e-learning supply chain, b) reengineering and integrating learning management processes, and c) a diversifcation of e-learning content including experimentation with alternative delivery approaches.

A big part of a) is adoption of rapid e-learning inside corporates, and we expect most organisations to acquire tools and grow activities (if they haven't done so already). But we expect corporates to also start to realise the limitations of the rapid model, not least, the challenges for managing quality, educational value, and technical assurance. Whilst we are advocates of rapid e-learning, we also believe it is significantly over-hyped currently, and more sophisticated approaches are required. In addition, we also expect to see more changes in the ways corporates use external custom e-learning developers with increasing pressures for lower-cost, more rapid external solutions as well, and for self-maintenance.

b) Many corporates are reevaluating their LMS strategy going forward, and now increasingly interested in integrated talent and performance management. Although consistent with the grand ERP/HRMS story, and often the overall direction for extending use of their ERP platform, the HR sub-functions are sceptical of the fit of these products to their specific functional needs. We expect to see tactical successes for the LMS vendors in the performance and talent space, although longer term we still expect to see pressure from IT for a single integrated HR/ERP solution.

c) Although Wikis and podcasting maybe very trendy currently, most corporates are not really using them. We expect to see more experimentation in 2007, and some very interesting project successes, but we do not expect this to become truly mainstream in corporate usage. We also expect to see a shift away from traditional large e-learning course-based content towards smaller, more granular just-in-time e-content and performance support. We also expect to see referenceware growing in popularity relative to traditional e-learning courses, and greater adoption of virtual meeting/classroom technologies, which have now matured and are more widely available.

Across all of the above we expect to see more externalising of the infrastructure to deliver it, i.e. further growth in ASP or Software as a Service delivered infrastructure and solutions.

Key corporate drivers: immediate solutions, lower cost, more flexibility, more connected/aligned, bypassing internal constraints