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E-learning News and More

Issue # 070902

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This issue of Competence News contains:

• News Item - E-learning Predicted to Exceed $20 Billion
• Editorial - Enron and WorldComm- The Impact on Training Priorities
• Special Offer - Celebrating the 10th Anniversary at Competence Software
• Contact Us

e-learn·ing n. Learning that is assisted by using computer and information technology as a tool to help transfer knowledge.

Visit our sponsor — Competence Software, Inc. Over 500,000 e-learning courses in Finance, Investing and Computers delivered to individuals and corporations large and small. Our online training tutorials (also known as "e-Learning") can train virtually anyone to be competent in these three areas:

• Understanding Computers — the basics of computer technology
• Financial Competence — the basics of business finance
• Investment Competence — the basics of investing

According to a recent article in Information week, the world wide market for e-learning is predicted to exceed $23 billion by 2004 - up from 2.3 billion in 2000. This is explosive growth by any standard.

What is driving this growth?

Savings over conventional training in terms of time off the job, travel expenses and, best of all, substantial improvement in worker productivity.

Toyota Motor Sales USA, for example, deployed an e-learning system across 8,000 dealerships for 88,000 employees. The company reported savings of $5.7 million in time and training expense savings over five years. It also reported an additional $6.2 million in soft savings from improved worker productivity.

"As e-learning moves to the head of the class, IT pros had better sit up and pay attention." according to Information Week.

Every training professional in corporate America should take note of what is happening with the fall from grace experienced by these corporate giants.

How many of us really take the time to ensure that our employees can read the annual reports our companies publish? How many take responsibility to ensure that our employees understand at least the basics of investing and thus have the competence needed to make intelligent decisions on their self-directed retirement plans?

Pick up an annual report and browse through the numbers. This exercise is enough to give a statue a headache. Terms like asset, liability, debt, equity, key performance ratios, revenue, net income, earnings per share etc. and the blizzard of numbers and "footnotes" at the bottom of the pages give anyone pause or prompt the reader to send the report into the nearest waste basket.

(For definitions of these terms and some short, fun tutorials click here)

Certainly a course in ethics is needed as a prerequisite to employment in corporate Finance departments - given the revelations in recent months on America's financial irregularities. But even if the reports are honest and accurate, some basic Financial literacy skills are needed. One could envision some corporate criminal joking, "No one can read and understand the financial reports, so what difference does it make what numbers we put on the statement?"

We should not and cannot wait to be told to take proactive responsibility for this situation. The saber rattling in our litigious society is building and you can bet that there will be new rules and regulations issued from the government effecting every boardroom and management in the country. Already, Chief Information Officers are finding themselves in the legal cross hairs as can be seen from a recent article in Information Week:

"But, particularly where CIOs have greater authority, their responsibility goes deeper than ensuring that systems work, says attorney Joseph Rosenbaum, a partner at Reed Smith LLP and head of its E-commerce practice. The CIO holds "a significant degree of responsibility to work with internal and external auditors to ensure a high degree of integrity, that the information is secure, and can be authenticated and reliably reproduced in real time."

For full article - click here:

http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20020630S0014

As trainers, we can help reform and improve this area. How? By embarking on an evolution to bring some basic literacy and competence to our employees in the subjects of Finance and Investing.

Every man, woman and child in our society is to some degree the effect of money, Finance and Investing. Yet how many of us really understand even the basic terms used every day?

If this article seems self serving it is only because it is self- serving. (We offer financial and literacy courses.) But whether one uses our products or some one else's financial training, it is imperative that we start to take responsibility for giving our company's stakeholders the basic skills they need to understand business finance and investing.

We'd love to get feedback on this issue, so please feel free to email us. If you wish to get your feedback in print, send us an article with permission to print it and we'll get it into futures issues of Competence News.

All the best!

Larry Byrnes
Editor
Competence News

Visit our sponsor — financialcompetence.com — provides a thorough understanding of the basics of business finance.

Special Offer - Competence Software Celebrates 10th Anniversary With Deep Discounts

In July 1992 we "opened our doors" with the purpose of helping to bring financial literacy and skilled competence to employees of business enterprises.

Actually we opened one of our downstairs bedrooms in our Chichester, New Hampshire home and set up a home office. We have since moved our operations to Clearwater on the golden "Suncoast" of Florida.

Believe it or not, we developed our original products on a Macintosh Quadra 950 which, at the time, seemed like enough computer power to rule the world. Today it is outdone by any handheld personal digital assistant. Times and technology change but basics of key subject material like business Finance do not - as was recently re-discovered by numerous dot comm addicts. One cannot lose money and "make it up in volume".

We'd like to take this opportunity to thank the more than 500,000 individuals and the thousands of corporate trainers who have helped us over the years and who have agreed with us that the basics of business Finance and Investing are vital skills that, once learned well, stay with one forever.

Thank you!

As a token of our appreciation and to help ensure that we continue to succeed in our "Financial Literacy" mission, we are offering mind-boggling 10th anniversary discounts on our courses that help make anyone competent in the area of Business Finance, Investing and basic Computer Technology.

Call Jessica Byrnes atand ask about our great anniversary discounts or email [email protected].

Contact Us

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