The cloud is more than just coming of age. It is beginning to dominate
all aspects of our personal and professional lives - transforming our
workplace, what and how we buy, and our social interactions.
But what about how
we learn?
Traditionally, formal educational establishments have
not been known for embracing new technology – the famous bricks and mortar
classroom, lectern, and blackboard were commonplace for decades, used well past
the invention of the computer and beyond its introduction into the classroom.
For a long time the business world followed a similar tack.
Training small
groups of learners in this classroom format – albeit replacing the blackboard
with a whiteboard and marker -- making the best use of the technology of the
day, including overhead projectors and PowerPoint slide presentations.
However, the traditional classroom format has
presented and continues to present several problems for modern business
efficiency, including:
Employee Time Away
Unlike
academia, most firms do not have learning as a core activity.
No matter how
badly employees need to learn about new or changing business policies and
processes, or update skills, no manager likes to have an employee –or worse, a whole department –out of office for 5 days for training purposes.
Planning and scheduling classroom training sometimes
months in advance can become a logistical nightmare; it requires juggling business
priorities to ensure training can take place during periods of relative
business calm.
But even with the best laid plans, these training windows never
quite turn out to be as quiet as expected: learners are interrupted by frequent
phone calls, urgent emails, and business-critical tasks that sometimes pull
attendees out of training for a day or more.
Expensive Training Overheads – Trainers,
Facilities, Travel, and Accommodation
And
then there’s your classroom training budget.
- How many employees need to be
flown in from other locations and put up in hotels?
- What is the cost of hiring
training facilities?
- How much do individual training instructors cost - with their travel and accommodation included?
And
besides, how many employees can you comfortably fit in a single room to allow
for optimal training and personal engagement?
It all adds up to an expensive
per-participant training cost.
Maintaining Currency of Content
As
the pace of doing business accelerates, a carefully crafted classroom course
may become irrelevant by the time of delivery.
Business policies change,
processes are reengineered, and systems are upgraded. How will changes to course
content be handled?
How will employees who have already been through training
be retrained?
Building and disseminating
content on an agile platform becomes a requirement that live classroom training
cannot scale to provide –without multiple
instructors and an endless budget.
Accounting for Learning Differences
Lastly, learning efficiency is hindered by the
one-size-fits-all component of classroom training.
Consistency in learning is
certainly important for business cohesion; however, individuals learn at
different paces, have different learning needs, and may find particular hours
or even days of a classroom training too advanced, too simple, or indeed not at
all relevant to their job function and duties.
Enter Cloud-Based Learning
Today’s cloud leaders have long been championing the
benefits using Cloud as a learning tool.
According to research from the Harvard
Business Review, training is currently one of the top five overall functions
for cloud use – and number one among cloud leaders and cloud followers.
For the modern professional learner, the cloud offers:
- Flexible
education: learn whenever, wherever, and for as long as needed – from any
device, and at your own pace.
- Just-in-time
learning: instant accessibility to the specific content needed to solve the
business task at hand
- Up-to-date
content: incorporating the latest product releases and features
- Hands-on lab
environments to practice and reinforce key concepts
- Collaborative
learning: easy to share relevant content with colleagues
For the modern enterprise, a cloud
learning solution offers:
- Reduced costs–
considerable savings in per participant costs; eliminating travel and
accommodation
- Easier
administration– simplified planning and monitoring of training
- Smooth
integration with various Learning Management Solutions
- Standardized
learning across the company – adapted to individual learning needs
- A digitized
training solution without needing to invest in infrastructure
- Minimal business
disruption; more convenient learning for time-constrained employees
- Increased
employee engagement and retention
The trend towards cloud-based learning is now so
prevalent that even traditional educational establishments such as schools and
universities are rapidly coming on board.
They're following in the footsteps of
organizations like Open University and the Khan Academy to bring early
learning in the cloud to today’s young students and tomorrow’s business leaders.
Treat yourself to a modern education. Reach for the cloud.
Oracle
Universityprovides all the benefits of
learning in the cloud described above, and also offers:
- A comprehensive range of courses in
the latest Oracle technologies
- Global partnerships that bring cloud
learning directly into your SaaS application
- Digital, virtual, and live training
depending upon your needs
- Courses tailored to specific job
roles
Explore our wide range of cloud technology courses.
If your E-Business Suite Release environment is configured to support Daylight Saving Time (DST) or
international time zones, it's important to keep your timezone
definition files up-to-date. They were last changed in October 2016 and
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