BOC Group Case Study: Creating Cost Effective E-Learning

Date posted: 14 Oct 2004

BOC Group Case StudyGlobal gases giant BOC Group has been using e-learning for about eight years, mainly to give sales staff the technical product knowledge they need to understand their customers’ requirements.

Until a few years ago, it had used a specialist consultancy to create bespoke courses that included plenty of video, Flash and other specialist techniques. These courses looked great but took a long time to produce and were very costly. That was fine for training in areas of the business that didn't alter much, but not cost effective for more short-term training goals.

It was a chance encounter that put BOC global knowledge manager Derrick Hilton onto the idea of self-authored e-learning. "I heard a training services guy from Cisco Systems explain how, every Thursday lunchtime, they'd have a number of product developers be interviewed for half an hour to update people. I thought that I could take that approach with sales training for a particular product," says Hilton. "We decided to use WavePool to create the interactive discussion. I interviewed a colleague who was experienced on this topic and then the appropriate parts of the manual were added to the training. It was very simple, very quick. It took just four or five days in total. It was a bit rough, a bit ready, but it worked."

When another, much larger project came up to launch a new set of fuel gas equipment into South America and Canada, WavePool again seemed like the ideal solution. "Everything was self-authored and written in Word to begin with and then sent out be translated," says Hilton. That meant it was first time BOC could simultaneously launch in French, Spanish and English, and the whole project - involving 150 pages of technical information - took just four or five weeks to complete.

The results looked great and the training was much more effective than using PowerPoint, which had also been suggested as a solution. But, as Hilton points out: "That would have required three separate courses, and with the size of the files in PowerPoint it could make the running very slow."

Using WavePool also meant that it's easy to centrally make any minor changes or additions.

"Because can do a lot internally, it becomes cost-effective enough for lots of different areas," adds Hilton. "My firm belief is I will go on to utilise this - I would now struggle to justify the bespoke costs."

The route to great [DIY] content

The route to great [DIY] contentSelf-authoring tools offer an alternative to expensive custom-made content, but in the wrong hands they can do more harm than good.

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Notes to Editors – About Brightwave

Brightwave is a specialist in integrating communications, learning and performance in the workplace. Our approach is highly collaborative, innovative and all our projects leverage technology to deliver efficient and effective training and ongoing support. Whether your needs are induction, compliance/regulatory, IT systems, management/sales skills or product/process knowledge, Brightwave has the skills and experience to help you. We have developed over 300 solutions that are used by more than 500,000 people in the UK and internationally. We work with a broad range of clients from a wide variety of industries. Our clients include BT, Bupa, Cable&Wireless, IKEA, T-Mobile, AIB, Swiss Re, The Royal Bank of Scotland, British Red Cross, First Choice and Sky, as well as public sector organisations such as the Healthcare Commission, City of Edinburgh Council, and West Sussex County Council.

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Jade Moore
Marketing Coordinator, Brightwave

+44 (0) 1273 828421

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