RECENTLY ADDED RESEARCH

Posted 20 March, 2011 - 22:44 by admin

The Extended Enterprise: Six Steps to Gaining a Competitive Advantage

AUTHOR : Richard Nantel, Co-CEO, Tom Werner, Chief Research Officer, Brandon Hall Group w/ Contributions from NetDimensions

A generation ago, organizations were partially defined by their physical locations. Going to work meant actually commuting to a building made of bricks and mortar. Consumers bought items from `neighborhood’ retailers and ‘corner’ stores. We read what was for sale in local bookshops or city library.

The idea of the enterprise has changed. Organizations are viewed less by where they are located and more by what they offer. We purchase items from online stores such as Amazon knowing full well that Amazon is more a company made up of relationships with suppliers and resellers than a physical warehouse of goods.

These relationships with partners, suppliers, retailers, and consumers go beyond the shipping of goods and delivery of services. Learning and development initiatives, too, have broken free of bricks and mortar boundaries to include now all members of the value chain.

The premise of the Whitepaper is to offer key advantages and critical steps in illustrating how the extended enterprise learning initiatives help to ensure that customers receive the highest quality experience.  NetDimensions has contributed to development of this report by providing client perspectives and insight.

Posted 20 March, 2011 - 22:25 by admin

Executive Interview: David J. DiStefano, President and Chief Executive Officer, Richardson

AUTHOR : Michael Rochelle, Chief Consultant and Analyst

Executive Interview of David J. DiStefano, President and Chief Executive Officer, Richardson as interviewed by Michael Rochelle, Chief Consultant and Analyst, Brandon Hall Group.

David DiStefano is a proven leader who, since 1992, has been instrumental in transforming Richardson into an industry innovator in the fields of sales training and performance improvement. He has held C-level positions in finance and operations at Richardson and, in 2006, was named President and Chief Executive Officer. Under his leadership, Richardson has achieved significant growth and was listed among "America's Fastest Growing Companies" as in Inc. 5000 Company for three consecutive years, 2006-2008.

David remains an active force with Richardson clients, providing advice on strategy, sales leadership, best practices, and sales processes. He has been the driver of such key Richardson innovations as the Richardson Sales Performance System and Richardson's eLearning platform, Richardson QuickSkills™.  He has also championed Richardson's expansion into European markets. In 2006, David led the successful effort to attract a major private equity investment by ClearLight Partners. Today David leads the Richardson executive management team and sits on the Board of Directors.

In 2007, David was named a "Top 20 Most Influential Training Professional" by Training Industry and a "Best Executive - Business Services" finalist by the American Business Awards. He has been a featured guest on Selling Power TV numerous times, addressing such topics as sales performance improvement, coaching, employee engagement, sales enablement, Sales 2.0 technologies, and negotiation skills. In 2009, he launched the RichardsonConnect™ Webinar series, with "Return on Engagement: Getting Salespeople into the Game Increases Revenue."

Prior to joining Richardson, David spent nine years with PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he was responsible for client relationships and engagement management. He is a Certifed Public Accountant and holds a Bechelor of Science in Accounting from Drexel University.

Posted 14 November, 2010 - 20:33 by admin

Bertelsmann Code of Conduct Introductory Course

AUTHOR : Bertelsmann

2010 Excellence in Learning Awards entry in the Best Results of a Learning Program category.

The Learning Content is the Bertelsmann Code of Conduct Introductory Course, which pursues two central goals. These goals are to provide colleagues with knowledge and tools to enable them to:

• Act ethically and in accordance with the law; and 
• Respond effectively should they observe compliance violations in their workplace. 

The audience is all Bertelsmann employees worldwide.   Bertelsmann employees are very culturally and functionally diverse, living more than 50 countries around the globe and contributing in diverse ways to commercialization of media, e.g. as a book or magazine editor, a TV show producer, printing machine operator, bookbinder or a sales manager in a media store, to name a few possibilities.

The learning content is highly customized to closely reflect the Bertelsmann corporate culture and Code of Conduct.  Some of the memorable customized features are 12 videos that have been implemented into the course and three photographic scenarios.

Two of those videos feature the Bertelsmann CEO.  Bertelsmann CEO speaks directly to colleagues in both an introductory and closing video. In the introduction, he welcomes training participants and sets the tone by explaining why Bertelsmann has adopted a Code of Conduct:  “Economic success and good corporate citizen go hand-in-hand.”  In the closing video, he emphasizes that Bertelsmann promotes open and honest dialogue and that employees who become aware of a violation of the Code of Conduct should have a trustworthy person to whom they can turn. 

Seven video segments feature colleagues from all five Bertelsmann divisions and nine countries who speak about the Bertelsmann Code of Conduct.   In an interview setting, these colleagues speak candidly about why different topics from the Code of Conduct are relevant to the work they do.  In turn, training participants encounter messages from their peers who represent a range of job functions, from a printing press operator to a managing director.  Various perspectives on key points are presented, stimulating training participants to formulate their own point of view, rather than just adopting a straight forward, spoon-fed message.  Colleagues speak in their native language and learners understand the messages through voice-over in the respective module language.

Posted 14 November, 2010 - 19:53 by admin

Vintage Gallo: The Gallo Leadership Development Series

AUTHOR : E & J Gallo Winery, Korn, Ferry Leadership and Talent Consulting

2010 Excellence in Learning Awards entry in the Best Results of Learning Program category.

To tackle the broad subject of leadership development, Gallo decided to develop two parallel learning tracks: Gallo Management Fundamentals (“GMF”), and Gallo Leadership Fundamentals (“GLF”).  GMF focuses on the skills involved with optimizing performance in existing systems, while GLF focuses on the work leaders do to drive change.Gallo Leadership Fundamentals, which focused on the more visionary and strategic leadership role of a manager, was launched at the senior level first.  

Gallo’s desire was to create a customized program that leveraged the strengths of the first 76 years of Gallo’s history, modernizing the tool kit for VP’s and Senior Directors.  The first step was to define what makes Gallo, Gallo. The deployment now of 75 clips of senior leader storytelling videos has given Gallo a powerful library of highly personalized and highly transferable visionary communication messages that has preserved and extended Gallo’s legacy in-person way of collaborating and embracing strategy and mission, while allowing that communication to reach every part of the organization.

Both the video library and the on-going Work Plan Projects that have emerged from the Leadership Forum are serving to make deep changes in how Gallo leaders perform and how everyone in the firm communicates and understands the firm’s value proposition, its strategy, and its vision.  Refreshing Gallo’s traditional face-to-face communications program with a collection of leader-storytelling-videos that have immediate application to the overall work environment has served to enhance Gallo’s competitive position.