Thought Piece

While schools, colleges and universities are increasingly tapping into the most up-to-date technology to develop new ways of learning, many corporate trainers are unaware of the new resources available to them. Being behind the times in their knowledge is costing companies time and money, as well as frustrating employees.


Business trainers need to start talking to university e-learning teams so that they can learn from each other. This would lead researchers to a better understanding of corporate training needs, and give trainers early notice of the latest technological developments.

The way people learn is changing rapidly, and it is no longer possible for trainers to draw on their own experiences of learning to inform the way they pass on new knowledge, Companies can spend millions of pounds setting up e-learning courses that fail to achieve their objectives because they are inappropriately designed. What tends to happen in corporate training is people set targets for x number of courses to be online whereas they should look at what kind of learning works with what kind of technology.

Banks are not charities. But they do calculate the lifetime value of the customer and they understand the reputational risk to themselves of the slash and burn exercises they are sometimes accused of.

That brings us to the role of the banks, so often the largest creditor and certainly the one with the most intimate knowledge of how a company is faring. We all love a stereotype and the heartless, faceless bank pulling the plug on sound businesses over a minor blip sits deep in the business consciousness. But not all banks fit this caricature. "We want to work with management of a business facing difficulties to help identify the issues and provide solutions to get them back on track," says a senior manager with a leading retail bank. "We can make the most impact when the problems are identified early. We are keen for management to be open with us."

Banks are not charities. But they do calculate the lifetime value of the customer and they understand the reputational risk to themselves of the slash and burn exercises they are sometimes accused of. Most solutions to business difficulties involve access to more funds and/or different products (hedging, leasing, factoring) and that all adds up to continued and profitable involvement for the bank.

A Repositioning Turnaround may mean divestment of a troublesome subsidiary. It may mean embarking on (yet another) cost-cutting exercise, including turning away revenue opportunities if they are not of a sufficiently high margin. It most certainly involves a first step of getting an impartial and pragmatic overview of what the problem actually is, from Turnaround Professionals who also know the kind of language with which to talk to banks. The moment you take this kind of decisive action, you're likely to discover that there's no crisis, no drama, only urgent action that must start now.

Peter Charles 2010