IBM & learning organization

IBM & learning organization

IBM & learning organization

Introduction

IBM is the world leader in middleware and the second-largest soft ware company, overall. The world leader in server sales, the company also leads in the area of supercomputers, with 237 of the top 500 systems. In addition, IBM is the market leader for:

Information management soft ware, all application integration and middleware categories;

Instant messaging soft ware for corporations;

Portal soft ware; and,

Systems management and systems operations soft ware.

With more than 355,000 employees worldwide, IBM serves customers in 170 countries. IBM is also the world leader in IT services and consulting. With approximately 200,000 services professionals globally, the company's offerings include data center outsourcing, business transformation services, consulting, systems integration, application management services, infrastructure, and systems maintenance and web hosting.

Discussion

IBM has a long history of using technology in its training strategy. More than 35 years ago, IBM set out to strategically transform internal training from predominantly face-to-face classes to online programs. In the 1970s and 1980s, IBM sales representatives used mainframe training programs and simulations to learn how to market, sell and support mainframe systems and soft ware. Along this journey, IBM implemented standards-based design and development tools. Through internal development and the use of technology from Lotus Soft ware Development and others, the company built development tools, virtual classroom systems, assessment systems and internal learning management systems (tip.psychology.org). As these strategies evolved, IBM recognized that funding would become an obstacle. To facilitate the technology investment by business units and product specialists, key funding for systems, content development and procurement was moved to a shared-services organization. The costs were not charged back to the business units, which enabled departments to utilize e-learning without impacting local budgets - as well as encouraging usage of the enhanced systems and services.

The Learning Challenge

As the on-demand business philosophy was evolving, IBM was rapidly hiring new people and expanding into an ever-broadening set of services and technologies for a range of industries. The company's substantial training expenditure was primarily focused on traditional learning delivery, which was becoming less relevant as consultants, salespeople and service representatives required increasingly rapid access to the information needed to successfully perform their jobs. In addition, the learning organization needed to keep up with the vast array of industry, management, process and technology training needs of the fast-growing global workforce. IBM realized that it needed a completely ...