Dive Brief:

• There are several benefits to using business intelligence to stay ahead of the competition, including where it concerns e-learning programs, says Christopher Pappas, founder of The eLearning Industry’s Network. He advises that companies use business intelligence data to track trends and cut costs — including tracking the effectiveness of online training programs. 

• Pappas says that business intelligence can determine the need for additional training, such as sales and product knowledge. Sales numbers and customer surveys can be indicators of corporate learning success, and can identify any company weaknesses that need to be addressed.

• The use of a learning management system that includes analytics is critical for gathering real business intelligence. Combining and comparing this with other metrics, such as customer satisfaction surveys and marketing intelligence, can tell the learning team if employees are getting the right kind of training. Knowing what the competition is using can be a step in the right direction, too.

Dive Insight:

Perhaps the best point that Pappas makes is that learning data is easy to obtain and is a direct way of measuring a company’s overall success in a number of ways. From sales performance to customer service ratings, how well employees are trained and how well they progress through their training can be evaluated for future improvements.

So too, employees can be placed into the right jobs based on their skillsets and how well they perform in specific learning activities. New strengths can be identified, which can then be turned into new initiatives that the company can leverage to stand out in the industry. Over time, learning data becomes a valuable component in spotting trends in the workplace that can lead to bigger and better developments.