Steven Franklin

The article presents information on the business strategies of the Great-West Life & Annuity Insurance Co., a leading life and health insurer. The company historically relied on costly classroom training to prepare its new sales representatives. Great-West concluded that the portion of the classroom training that focused on products was too costly and failed to optimize learners' time. The company decided to pilot its CBT initiative and began looking for a low-cost alternative to enterprise learning platforms. It selected Trainersoft, a product of Boston-based learning software company OutSrart Inc., for authoring and deployment of e-learning courses that would supplement classroom training. Great-West began by pushing the product-information portion that traditionally occurred in the Denver classroom back into the field, using e-learning. That allowed a reduction to just one-week training event, giving sales representatives more time in the field and greatly reducing travel and classroom expenses. In the first year, Great-West estimates it saved at least U.S.$100,000 by eliminating a week's worth of classroom training that was able to happen in the field. The success with Trainersoft made it an easy sell to management on the value it brought the company and built a business case to grow the Trainersoft initiative throughout the enterprise.

A VendorProvided Case Study

October 2025 - TD Magazine

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The article profiles the strategic enterprise learning and development of Becton Dickinson and Co. (BD) in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey. It is a global medical technology company that manufactures and sells medical devices, instrument systems, and reagents, that enthusiastically embraced the leader-as-teacher model for seven years. Ed Ludwig, the company's chairman, president and chief executive officer (CEO), stated that when they recruit people, they wanted them to know that teaching will be part of their success factor, and they will be expected to take time to develop people and to get into a formal training mode.

Steven Franklin

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