Case Study: Produce Interactive Online Training Videos for the Enterprise

by TMT Editor

Large companies often wrestle with how to make employee training not only cost-effective and easy to execute, but also -- and, perhaps, most important -- compelling to the employees who must participate. Faculte provides organizations facing this dilemma a way forward: interactive online training presentations. Following is a case study describing how one company, the Minneapolis-based software developer International Decision Systems (link leads to audio/visual presentation), was able to use Faculte's new solution, Broadcast Studio, and manage the online training of its workforce across several countries.

Case Study: International Decision Systems Uses Faculte’s Broadcast Studio to Create Online Training – In-house and on a Budget

Video-based e-learning offers numerous benefits. Folks find it ideal for absorbing information on the go and are fond of its ability to tailor information based on individual needs. Additionally, the video component makes person-to-person instruction possible despite temporal and geographical displacement. However, as long as the space is limited by the length of production time and cost of quality content, it may yet be viewed as being in its infancy.

Training professionals still rely on expensive outside vendors/producers to create compelling viewing materials. Once created, training videos are quickly outdated, leaving the option of either using antiquated training pieces or sinking more cash into new ones. Because of its TCO and inflexibility, video-based training in some cases becomes burdensome to an organization. This is obviously problematic for the company with a small budget. Aside from cost, however, turn around time is an additional concern for organizations of all shapes and sizes. What, for example, does a company do that is consistently updating information for its sales team? Or, what do you do when you urgently need to train employees on using new proprietary applications, or procedures, etc.?

Factor into account that many companies now span continents and the need for new solutions becomes even more apparent. Fortunately, tools are emerging that will dramatically reshape workplace training, making it easier and less expensive than ever to create engaging, interactive training/learning video presentations.

Take for instance a software company based in Minneapolis named International Decision Systems (IDS). The thirty-year-old provider of asset finance software has a globally dispersed workforce with additional offices in London, Bangalore, Sydney and Singapore. According to Gerry Perham, the company’s VP of Products and Services, they needed a solution that would enable them to capture sessions from ConnectionPoint, the company’s annual user conference, and make them available to all employees who could not attend the conference in person. Furthermore, IDS wanted to enable its employees to engage in the sessions along their own schedules, rather than disrupting their workflow.

In the past, IDS had tried recording its training sessions. However, they soon realized that they lacked the infrastructure to create content compelling enough to entice people into actually watching it, and the recordings usually wound up going “straight to the closet.”  Additionally, as they lacked an economical option for securely distributing the training videos online, they had to schedule team viewings, which proved logistically problematic.

In order to solve the problem, Perham turned to Broadcast Studio, a beta-mode platform created by Faculte, Inc., that enables business professionals to easily produce, publish and manage interactive presentations. By integrating video, images, audio and other content with tools such as narration and annotation, the platform made it easier to retain employee focus, without requiring the installation of software or mastering difficult applications.

Using Faculte, IDS created numerous training session videos from ConnectionPoint that ranged from keynote addresses to product-specific training. The sessions, captured in Faculte “broadcasts,” combined the presentations with various audio and video elements to further engage the viewers.  The broadcasts were made available to all global IDS employees, including the offshore R&D team, via the company’s internal web portal.

According to Perham, the solution was much more effective than anything they had tried in the past, and created a personalized instructional atmosphere that made people feel as if they were sitting in the room with the instructor.

“People were a little skeptical at first, thinking that the final product would be nothing more than video recordings of training sessions,” explained Perham. “Nevertheless, our team was sold on the value once they saw Faculte’s ability to mix different media streams together and assemble a story board beyond just a real time view.”

Additionally, Broadcast Studio enabled IDS to make the material available on demand without any infrastructure needs on their part, giving employees the flexibility to participate in training on their own schedule. The platform also offered security features enabling Perham to strictly control who viewed the training broadcasts – a necessary distribution feature in light of the fact that the company did not want all of its training information made public.

Furthermore, using Broadcast Studio, IDS has the option of quickly and easily updating training materials to reflect the latest policies and practices. They’re not stuck with outdated training materials, but rather have communication assets that they can continually refine and update.

According to Perham, the company plans to expand its use of Broadcast Studio. For example, IDS is considering using the solution for external customer training, and may begin making content available to customers for a fee.