Hi all, I have recently been involved with implementing Resource+Time+Expense Management system at a leading UK organisation which supplies Courses for all kinds of different areas of expertise. I wanted to see whether the experience this company is having is typical, as it may be an area for me to get more aquainted with and perhaps write a case-study/white-paper about. (But only if it is an area which is worth exploring in more detail... hence this post). This company manage each course as a Project and are really find it really important to be able to maintain a database of Trainers, with their Areas of Expertise, Location, Availablility etc as they have a large range of courses and have a very large pool of internal and contracted resources to pick from. Without a system like the one we are implementing, they would find it really difficult to manage (they're struggling with Excel at the moment). They also find it equally important to track to Time and Expense incurred against these courses (to report on profitability etc), which they need our system for too. Could anyone let me know if they have similar experiences or requirements in their organisation and if/how you have managed it? Thank you in advance and for context please take a look at our website at www.atlantic-global.com so you can see the type of system I mean. Regards, Neil
3 Responses
Bespoke database
One of my contacts wrote a bespoke database to tackle the issues of keeping track of associate trainers, their skill sets and availability. There’s also software out there for managing training (including resources, roi etc etc) such as Course Manager. I can put you in touch with these folks if of interest.
I guess the scale of the problem depends on the size of the organisation, and their culture. If ‘last minute change’ is the accepted norm, then arranging training is going to be a nightmare.
Good luck with your research!
Carolyn
reply
I only just joined Training Zone (finally). In a previous organisation (global) I worked in, Oracle was used to do time/cost management systems for training. Expensive, needs support of IT experts to set up but works. Sounds like you may have the latter. I am interested in replies you get in to this.
In-house Access system
Hello, we had the same experience within our training company.
As well as keeping track of all trainers/courses/clients, we wanted to look at getting ISO9000 accreditation for our systems, so we pulled them all together and came up with a plan.
Originally we had a paper based system, along with card indexes for CRM and excel for some other parts.
We developed an Access database in-house which covered the following areas:
Store trainer information – including areas of expertise, costs etc
Client relationship management – including quote/invoicing system, records of past training, contact history etc
Sales statistics
Training resources – all course competency/learning outcomes, including book references
Training administration – booking courses, liaising with company contacts/trainers to arrange details, registers, course feedback analysis, ‘to do’ tracker to ensure all steps are followed, expenses tracker.
Course development – tracking what needs to be done in terms of development and when by.
It took a couple of months to put together. We’ve been using it for around 5 years now, and although it was quite a change to move from paper to PC, none of us could imagine life without it now. The plus side of developing in-house is that the system can grow organically without incurring huge consultancy costs, and it is totally tailored towards our company. The downside could be time/money spent training a member of staff in developing databases using Access – although this does have its pluses too! On-site IT help…
I can’t recommend implementing a system like this enough – the benefits in terms of time/money saved are huge.
Polly Pomfrey
Synergy Training