LearnSource
781-891-2185
info.@learnsource.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE


LearnSource Helps Companies Find Learning Solutions!

Massachusetts, September 30, 2003 -- LearnSource today announced a new service that connects companies to quality learning solutions. LearnSource lets corporate training professionals and business manager easily connect to a variety of specialized learning providers. The learning industry has become increasingly complex with new types of delivery methods and thousands of new learning providers each with different specialties. It is often a difficult challenge to define the best solution for a particular learning need and then find the best provider to deliver that solution.

LearnSource offers an easy way for companies to define their requirements, and then quickly find providers who can cost-effectively deliver quality solutions to meet those needs. Rather than contact vendors individually and deal with tons of unsolicited call-backs, companies can use LearnSource as a single source for all their training needs. Much like a travel agent, LearnSource provides a single source for finding the best way to meet a customer's needs.

LearnSource has created an easy-to-use website that facilitates the definition and collection of learning requirements through a series of on-line templates. These templates give the training professional, or the business manager less acquainted with sourcing training, a simple method for defining and submitting their learning requirements.

LearnSource reviews all requirements for completeness and works hand-in-hand with requestors to ensure requirements are complete. The more detailed requirements, the better results companies will receive back from providers.

Once learning requirement are submitted, LearnSource advisors - based on their industry knowledge - hand pick a short list of qualified providers who can meet those requirements. Within 2-3 days, the customer receives back a completed set of customized proposals to select from. The time consuming process of performing a comprehensive search is completely eliminated.

In addition to taking the leg work out of performing vendor searches, LearnSource can help companies make more cost-effective use of their training budget by giving them competitive bids from multiple vendors.

Why LearnSource is Unique?

According to its founders, LearnSource approaches its business in a way other learning companies have failed to do over the last couple of years. "The approach that e-learning portals used to aggregate choices and let the customer browse through hundreds of choices for what they need is not what most customers want." LearnSource focuses on delivering a very small list of qualified solutions to the customer to make the selection process easier and quicker.

LearnSource is different from other services in three key ways.

1. Requirements are reviewed for completeness. Some on-line services distribute incomplete requirements to vendors, and often suffer a "garbage in, garbage out" syndrome in the results they provide to customers. LearnSource professionals have years of experience sourcing learning solutions for Fortune 1,000 companies, and use that expertise to personally review requirements submitted by requestors; highlighting options and making requestors aware of how their choices will impact quality and cost. This can be especially useful when non-training professionals like business managers are frequently involved with submitting learning requests.

2. Only Qualified Providers are used. Some services are just leads generators for training suppliers, representing their suppliers' needs more than their customers. Customer requests are distribute them blindly to hundreds of providers. This approach results in more proposals than needed and often ones of poor quality. Also as a result, the customer is inundated with phone calls and e-mails from vendors, many of whom are not qualified. LearnSource only invites a short list of very qualified providers to participate in any given opportunity. LearnSource hand picks the providers to receive any given request based solely on the providers service offerings and how well that provider has delivered services in the past. For classroom training, LearnSource will go to local providers first to minimize the travel expenses the customer needs to incur.

3. Proposals are reviewed. When proposals are received back from providers, LearnSource reviews all proposals first before delivering them to the customer. This ensures only the highest quality solutions are considered. When proposals are delivered, LearnSource provides its customers with all the information needed to make an informed assessment of the solution, including provider qualification, customer references, instruction bios, training methodology and price. LearnSource also encourages its customers to talk with and meet providers before making a final purchase choice to ensure they are comfortable and confident with their final selection.

What learning solutions does LearnSource focus on?

LearnSource focuses on three types of learning solutions.

- Custom Classroom Training
- Off-the-shelf E-learning Courses
- Custom E-learning Development

LearnSource provides expertise to customers in each of these areas. Custom Classroom Training allows for the curriculum to be customized, delivered date specified and can bring per seat costs down as low as $150. LearnSource makes sure requestors know what their learning objectives are, where and when the course is to be delivered, whether 1/2, 1 or 2 day sessions are preferred and understand the benefits of selecting local providers.

With E-learning Development Services, companies often try to create courses themselves only later to realize the complexity of needing instructional design and authoring software skills in the same set of resources. LearnSource staff helps requestors understand the complexity of e-learning development in defining their requirements, including knowing whether off-the-shelf or custom content is required, whether asynchronous or synchronous delivery is desired, how much multimedia can be used based on the company's infrastructure and number of remote employees, if course hosting is required, the importance of tracking, and compatibility with any existing tracking systems that are in place.

LearnSource has also launched a new Resource Library where whitepapers and articles on e-learning can be researched, including tips on how to get started. The Resource Library can be accessed using the Resources button on LearnSource's navigation menu at http://www.learn-source.com.

How companies can use LearnSource?

    Companies can use LearnSource for a number of purposes:

    1.) To find more cost-effective solutions.

    2.) To find solutions which are difficult to source.

    3.) To validate choices a company may already have from its preferred providers, and ensure those choices are the best ones available.

    4.) To give business managers across the company a standard way to sourcing learning solutions.

    LearnSource will also work with companies to support whatever decentralized sourcing processes they want to support. For example, LearnSource can be used if a company wants its business managers to source learning solutions directly or alternatively, LearnSource can support a process that collects requests from business managers, waits for corporate training to approve those requests and then sources the need. In either case, LearnSource provides the corporate training department with on-line reports to track what the training is being sourced across their company.

    In the past, companies have tended to use a very limited number of preferred providers to meet all their learning needs. It is typically too cumbersome to develop relationships with and manage hundreds of vendors. With greater specialization occurring in the learning industry, LearnSource now makes it possible for companies to work with multiple providers for 'best-of-breed' solutions in topic areas and modes of delivery without needing to manage all those vendor relationships. LearnSource acts as a single resource for billing and scheduling for companies to use across all their learning providers; both expanding the choice companies have and simplifying their administrative overhead.

    Pricing and Availability

    There is no cost to use LearnSource's service. All of LearnSource's fees are paid by providers in exchange for identifying new learning opportunities. LearnSource acts as an supplemental marketing channel for learning providers, who typical incur new business acquisition costs through more traditional means such as advertising, conferences, direct marketing and networking. LearnSource gives its provider partners a cost-effective way of finding new learning opportunities, and lets them focus more time on their core competency of delivering learning solutions.

    LearnSource is currently available for corporate human resource, training professionals or managers to submit learning requests at http://www.learn-source.com.

    LearnSource Providers

    LearnSource is currently partnered with over 100 learning providers, offering classroom training across the United States, a wide array of off-the-shelf e-learning courses, and in-depth expertise in e-learning course development. If our provider partners cannot meet a particular request, LearnSource uses its industry expertise to contract new learning providers who can meet those needs. We are not restricted to our network of providers. Click here for a sample of LearnSource's provider partners: http://www.learn-source.com/learn/ls.nsf/providers.

    About LearnSource

    LearnSource can currently be accessed at http://www.learn-source.com. LearnSource helps companies source learning solutions for classroom training or e-learning through its network of over 150 qualified training providers. Companies can save the time they typically spend searching for vendors, receiving sales e-mails and calls, attempting sales meeting and qualifying vendors. Companies can reduce their training costs as well by comparing competitive proposals from multiple training providers. The learning marketplace contains a large base of highly fragmented vendors of varying size each offering different types and quality of learning solutions. LearnSource helps companies navigate this complex landscape quickly and easily.

    For learning solution vendors, LearnSource offers an additional marketing channel to find new training opportunities. FindLearning helps vendors learn about new training opportunites form both centralized HR and training professionals, and business and IT managers distributed across organizations.

    LearnSource has successfully delivered solution proposals to CEOs, CLOs, HR Executives, training professionals, and business and IT managers at all levels. Our professionals have connected companies with a multitude of learning solutions; from onsite instructor-led training, multi-user licenses of CD-ROMS, off-the-shelf e-learning libraries and e-learning course development. FindLearning.com was developed and runs on Lotus Domino, and is hosted by eApps (formerly Strategic Systems Consultings, Inc.) based out of Norcross, Georgia.

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