Training companies must focus on the global and virtual markets if they are to succeed in 2004 and beyond, it is claimed.

International business management consultancy The Ken Blanchard Companies said its research showed that training support for organisations managing virtual and global workforces would be a key trend.

And it warned that if trainers didn't adapt, the trend for outsourcing to cut costs, could expand to the training sector.

The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Office of the Future - its development arm - said that 200,000 jobs were expected to be outsourced, and predicted that more higher-paid, higher-skilled white-collar administrative and technical facilities would be re-located to hotspots such as India.

Blanchard described issues such as working with virtual teams around the clock, communicating with people who don’t speak English as their first language and colleagues working 11 time zones away as ‘monumental’ challenges for managers.

The Office of the Future report, Outsourcing – Could Your Job Be Next? concluded these are all challenges that training companies will have to address.

But it warned that if companies outsource administrative jobs to reduce labour costs, they may well do the same with training, unless UK training organisations can create and manage cultural diversity and develop a global language in order to get virtual teams working towards peak performance.

Blanchard sees flexibility in training as the key to maintaining competitive advantage in this area.