Transition Associates wins 3rd Beacon award for e-learning solutions at IBM's Lotus Software User Conference
ORLANDO, Florida, January 29, 2002 --- At the Lotusphere conference for IBM Business partners in Orlando this week, IBM Corporation announced Transition Associates as winner of a third prestigious Beacon Award for its e-learning initiatives in the strategic cultural change program at leading global insurance company, Royal & SunAlliance.
The annual Lotusphere conference is rated by IBM's Lotus Software users as one of the most valued user conferences in the industry. This year's Lotusphere, in Orlando at the end of January, was no exception.
One of the most eagerly awaited sessions during Lotusphere was the announcement of the coveted Beacon Awards. This year, Transition Associates were outright winners of the Best e-Learning Solution. Presented by Lotus' General Manager, Al Zollar, and Ken Bisconti, Vice President, Worldwide Channels and Alliances who co-hosted the ceremony, this award recognised the year's most notable, online, learning solution built using IBM Lotus LearningSpace.
Royal & SunAlliance, one of the world's oldest and largest insurance companies called upon Transition Associates Ltd (of Westerham, Kent, UK) to build a strategic, global e-learning initiative to drive its corporate program of cultural change. Based on Lotus LearningSpace, the solution has been an ideal answer to the distributed nature of this global business of 50,000 employees. The solution proved during the first 12 months that the organization can achieve a noticeable cost saving over traditional learning techniques.
Miles Corbett, who received the award for Transition Associates commented, "I am absolutely delighted to receive this recognition from IBM. The Royal & SunAlliance project has shown how effective e-learning can be in helping a major organisation to achieve its strategic objectives."
The Royal & SunAlliance Solution
Late in 1999, the Royal & SunAlliance with its global, widely distributed organisation, decided to opt for an e-learning approach to the on-going development and learning needs of the business, as an alternative to setting up a corporate university.
R&SA decided to focus on five key areas of skill requirements to support the organisation in its goal to be the leader in the sector in the 21st Century:
- Customer Relationship Management
- Understanding of the business
- Technical skills
- Enterprise Awareness
- The application of knowledge
The decision was taken in January 2000 to launch a proof-of-concept e-learning system known as R&SALearning.com, focused exclusively on these five areas.
Transition Associates were selected to provide consultancy on the approach to implementing e-learning and to develop one of the first e-learning courses. This enabled R&SA to quickly utilise their investment in Lotus products and to gain substantial advantage from Transition's skills.
Says Mike Fitzgerald, Royal & SunAlliance Director, Global Learning and Development, "The consultants at Transition Associates were able to provide expertise across the whole platform of e-learning, from the technology infrastructure right through to e-learning courseware and participant guidance. The company's experience working with other clients and its status as a Lotus Premier Partner meant that Transition Associates was able to give us very specific guidance - and help us to avoid many pitfalls."
Transition initially developed two important e-learning programmes for R&SA, based on two of the Group’s key financial performance measures --- 'combined operating ratios' and 'risk-based capital'. Around two essentially difficult financial and technical topics, Transition Associates wrote courses which are totally engaging to those participating. The combined use of multimedia, business simulations and modelling meant that the participants were involved in a high degree of interactivity and were channelled into learning by doing.
Says Mike Fitzgerald, "The thing that impressed us about Transition Associates was that in its programmes, it has clearly melded together the whole learning design and the technical programming processes. Transition started the process by thinking about the courses from the learning perspective, and as a result, the company has been able to provide us with a complete e-learning solution."
R&SALearning.com goes much beyond individual courses, however. R&SA has implemented a powerful knowledge management tool called 'The Learning Assistant' to build on the worldwide infrastructure of Lotus Notes and Domino and to supplement the formal e-learning courses. People with common learning interests can get in touch with each other with one mouse click. 'The Learning Assistant' has improved knowledge management in R&SA from a hub and spoke sharing network to a much more valuable peer to peer transfer and application system."
Mike Fitzgerald is able to point to several situations where direct, measurable, cost savings have been achieved. However, R&SA expect the biggest benefits to be the capabilities that enable the organisation to continue with its global programme of cultural change and knowledge sharing. These are expected to have enormous potential for the organisation as it drives towards its leadership position in the new millennium.
The full Royal & SunAlliance Case Study can be accessed on the Transition
Associates Web site.
Notes to the editor
Transition Associates boasts a world-leading team of e-learning, e-business and knowledge management consultants which has been providing winning solutions to leading organisations for two decades.
Transition Associates is focused on four synergistic areas of business activity:
- E-learning
- E-business
- Knowledge management
- Mobile information solutions
Based in the United Kingdom, Transition Associates provides solutions to organisations worldwide, by creating Web-enabled 'any time, any place' solutions.
Today's businesses need to embrace the potential of the Internet to reduce geographical boundaries, extend reach and maximise productivity. Transition Associates specialises in delivering solutions which exploit Internet technologies to the full - to create solutions which can be assessed at any time from any place, using a standard Web browser.