Colgate Palmolive turns to Tata Interactive Systems' e-learning
When Colgate Palmolive (CP), an organisation with operations in 60 countries around the globe, wanted to roll out a new corporate strategy - called GtMS (Go to Market Strategy) - it turned to e-learning and e-learning developer Tata Interactive Systems (TIS).
Paula Disberry, customer marketing director, global sales, for CP, revealed that GtMS is a new, company-wide marketing and sales initiative designed to help the organisation manage an increasingly complex trade environment. She added: "Our job was to effectively communicate our new philosophy and practices to a large and diverse sales and commercial community.
"We realised that traditional classroom based training would not enable us to roll our GtMS as quickly as we needed - and so we needed to find an e-learning provider with the resources to deliver the project cost-effectively and quickly. TIS demonstrated both the commitment and the credentials we needed."
TIS, which is among the world's largest designers and developers of custom e-learning solutions, has a reputation for delivering complex, Internet-deployed training programmes on time and within budget. An ISO-9001 certified company, TIS extensively uses Six Sigma techniques and is certified at CMM Level 5 and PCMM Level 5. It is one of only six companies in the world - and the only e-learning provider - to have reached the top level of the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute's CMM levels.
For CP, a $9bn company known for dozens of successful brands, TIS knew that a standard, consistent, approach to the project would be vital for the e-learning programme's success.
"CP's primary goal was to ensure their global sales and marketing organisation understood GtMS well enough to begin applying it," said Sambit Mohapatra, vice president of TIS in the UK, Europe and Middle East. "Since our target audience included CP staff at subsidiaries around the world, including some who speak English as their second language, we had to make sure our material was comprehensible to an unusually broad group of learners."
TIS's 35-minute e-learning solution for CP used a highly visual, interactive teaching method to explain the six-step process of GtMS.
"We used a non-linear navigation strategy which allowed learners to click on a topic at random," said Mohapatra. "That way, users could finish a few topics, go back to their daily tasks, then come back to finish the rest of the course.
"Right from the outset we emphasised the importance and benefits of GtMS to the individual's everyday work, so they would remain engaged despite their busy schedules."
Each module of the course was followed by multiple-choice or drag-and-drop exercises that are mapped to the objectives of that module. Clearly articulated learning outcomes, defined at the recall level, ensured that knowledge transfer was taking place.
Since the rollout of GtMS was not dependent on live training events but rather on the '24/7', on-demand advantages of the Internet, CP's new sales and marketing strategy was disseminated faster and more consistently.
"TIS is unique in its project management capability, its communication skills and its commitment to completing an assignment properly regardless of its intricacy," commented Jean Heinzelmann, CP's channel manager, global sales.
"In partnership with TIS we have developed a new way to communicate in simple terms with our organisation," said CP's Disberry. "The product has been praised by management and users alike, and will become the template for communication going forward."
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