When Oracle University had to integrate its curriculum with offerings from PeopleSoft and Retek, its students won! "We've expanded the availability of all our educational programs," says John Hall, SVP of Oracle University. Because no two customers are alike, Oracle has developed learning methods to fit every business need, budget and schedule. Education and training programs can be tailored to address very specific needs and delivered in many different forms, from CD-based training and internet classrooms to private onsite classes. Find out the role training plays in business success and learn what you should keep in mind when planning your business education and training strategy.

As Published In November 2005

One Campus, Many Solutions
By Marguerite Rigoglioso

Tailoring training for Oracle students

John Hall, senior vice president of Oracle University and a board member of Oracle Japan, started out with IBM 28 years ago and became an instructor at one of IBM's data storage facilities in San Jose, California. A lot has changed in the field of technology training since then. Classroom and book-based training has been supplemented with educational media that run the gamut—from CD-based training and internet classrooms to private on-site classes.

Tips for Designing an IT Education Strategy So you're doing an apps implementation and have to get this behemoth called IT training off the ground. What are the essential pieces to keep in mind? Michael Weiss, a director at Oracle University, offers some pointers: Don't underestimate the importance of training. Budgets have a tendency to shrink, and, when they do, people are always looking for an easy way to reduce expenditures. Training ends up on the chopping block in a lot of cases, but that leads only to lengthened implementation timelines or failed implementations. Think about training early on. The earlier in the lifecycle of the purchase you consider your training needs, the better off you'll be. Considering them will give you a sense of costs and benefits up front, and you won't have sticker shock after spending millions of dollars on an implementation, only to find out there's a huge training need on top of that. Be aware that one-size-fits-all solutions don't always work. The training needs of executives, high-level managers, IT managers, end users, and implementation team members can all be very different. It's extremely valuable in the long run to evaluate each major group's needs separately. Get outside help. Find a high-quality training partner to work with that can help you figure out what you really need. Choose your education provider carefully. Price is not the only factor that should play into your decision. Look at what the providers offer, the quality of their services, and how customers rate them. Also make sure they're up-to-the-minute on new technology and have training options that fit your specific requirements. Don't let your knowledge walk out the door at the end of an implementation. If your primary expertise on Oracle products comes from consultants, you may be putting yourself at risk. Implementation is only the first step. Make sure permanent IT and end-user employees are properly educated.

But it's the latest educational revolution that is changing the way businesses approach the challenge of training. "We're offering tailored training that really meets the individual students' and individual organizations' requirements," Hall states. "We take classes and expand them, if necessary; we compress them; we add components from multiple classes and put those together. We offer them in our facility, but many of our customers like to engage in detailed training at their own location. This is a chance for them to really optimize their training, by having a senior instructor from a local Oracle University come in and share knowledge with a lot of students, who don't have to travel."

Coming Together

This personalized approach to training has come into play as Oracle University has faced the challenge of integrating educational offerings from PeopleSoft and Retek. There's general agreement that the benefits that have resulted from the mergers have been tremendous. "The good news is that what we've done is expand the location and availability of all our educational programs dramatically around the world," states Hall. "We are now in more than 72 countries and have more than 500 education classrooms. Training that was available previously from these other companies is now widely available globally."

Another benefit? According to Michael Weiss, a director at Oracle University, "When we release new versions of any of the software, we ramp up our instructors and curricula; deliver new classes; and create on-demand Web-based training, CD-ROM-based training, and a variety of other education solutions, according to customer needs. We're a fully integrated team." And Hall is pleased to report that students who have just started with Oracle, after participating in educational programs with other companies, have been very pleased with the new facilities and the high quality of the instructors they've encountered. "I'm delighted that our instructors are viewed very highly by the students; in fact, the average score our students give our instructors is more than 95 percent," says Hall. "This is really encouraging—we've got great instructors, and great instructors lead to really great students."

Customizing for Excellence

Customers who are new to Oracle can now benefit not only from Oracle University's instructional expertise but also from its world-renowned customized approach to training. "Every organization is unique in terms of the kind of training it needs," says Weiss. "There are so many variables—the industry you're in; the kinds of products you need training on; and the various levels within the organization that need training, from executives to IT managers to your end users. Oracle University education advisers help you figure out what you need, whether it's a single class or a broad education solution and whether you're an individual learner or a large-scale enterprise."

Snapshot University Hospitals Health System www.uhhs.com Year founded: 1993 Headquarters: Cleveland, Ohio Revenue: US$380 million in FY2004 Number of employees: Nearly 25,000 physicians and other employees Size: More than 150 locations throughout northern Ohio Products and services: Oracle Database; Oracle Application Server; Oracle E-Business Suite, including iRecruitment, Financials, Purchasing, Grants; Oracle University Select Comfort www.selectcomfort.com Year founded: 1987 Headquarters: Minneapolis, Minnesota Size: Close to 350 stores in 46 states Products and services: Oracle Database; Oracle E-Business Suite, including General Ledger, Assets, Manufacturing; Oracle University

The first step for any Oracle University training plan is what Weiss calls a training risk analysis. "We look at what you're putting at risk if you don't properly train your people," he says. Among the many aspects at stake are productivity and bottom-line earnings—and, sometimes, your job, if the project doesn't meet its objectives or fails completely.

"When implementations fail, the cause is commonly one of two things," he explains. "Either the organization worked with an implementation partner that didn't do what it was supposed to do or the organization didn't invest in educating its people and therefore wasn't able to successfully implement or maximize the potential of its Oracle investment."

Education and training on new applications and hardware are critical components of any successful technology acquisition or upgrade. Oracle University helps customers identify and implement education solutions offered on all Oracle- supported products, and such solutions cover a wide variety of delivery methods and training formats. These can include instructor-led training or special in-house arrangements. If a customer's situation calls for it, courses are commonly tweaked to fit individual requirements, and train-the-trainer options are available to empower companies to teach their own people. Oracle University can even provide training coordinators for long-term engagements and has had great success with creating and deploying on-demand Web-based end user training for customers on their own in-house learning-management systems.

Trainees can also tune in to Oracle University's Web-based simulcasts to take live classes over the internet. On-demand, self-paced programs in online or CD formats offer flexible and cost-effective options as well. "Essentially, there are learning methods to fit every business need, budget, and schedule," Weiss says.

Getting to the Core

The University Hospitals Health System (UHHS) is just one customer that has found Oracle University's solutions-based training approach extremely valuable. "At the start of our implementation, we sent our core team to Oracle University," says Liz Novak, UHHS's vice president of technology projects. "The courses enabled us to create special training manuals tailored to our specific needs. We had a tremendous amount of intense instruction on a personal basis for all our employees using the Oracle application. It helped us learn to use and leverage the Oracle technology to its fullest potential."

UHHS's experience echoes that of thousands of other customers. "Our intimate connection to Oracle product development allows us to know the hardware and software inside and out," Weiss points out, noting that members of Oracle PartnerNetwork also regularly call on Oracle University to provide training for solutions with their own clients. "It's a business in which technology changes constantly, so we're right on the cutting edge with all our classes. What differentiates us from other software training organizations is our people's expertise and our vast resources."

For More Information Visit Oracle University

Weiss emphasizes that by implementing proper training in a timely manner, organizations reduce their risk of failure and increase their return on investment. An independent survey conducted by KnowledgeAdvisors, a consulting firm that helps enterprises measure the success of their training efforts, concurs: Proper training can increase productivity by 20 percent and reduce cycle time by 24 percent.

Resting Easy at Select Comfort The Minneapolis, Minnesota-based mattress company Select Comfort knows that no two sleepers are alike. That's why the country's top bedding retailer, as ranked by Furniture Today, invented the Sleep Number system, which allows each side of the mattress to be adjusted independently to match two sleepers' preferences for firmness and support. Oracle University knows that no two customers are alike, so when Select Comfort called on the education enterprise to help users take full advantage of the company's upgrade to Oracle E-Business Suite 11i, Oracle University got to work customizing a training program that made sense. To coordinate its sophisticated made-to-order manufacturing operations and keep mattress orders flowing smoothly, Select Comfort had moved away from hard-to-maintain legacy systems to integrated applications from Oracle. "We wanted to find out what was new and use the functionality fully," says Tom Wysocki, Select Comfort's director of strategic systems migration. Wysocki wisely started the education process early, putting 150 employees through their paces. Classes were conducted both on-site at the company's headquarters and at Oracle University Education Centers around the country. "We trained many people with the idea that they could come back and become the in-house experts," Wysocki says. For the big Oracle E-Business Suite 11i upgrade training, Oracle University conducted customized, private, on-site classes that lasted eight days. Close involvement with experts at Oracle University helped dispel Wysocki's concerns that the new version of Oracle E-Business Suite might disrupt existing interfaces with legacy systems. "Our point-of-sale order- capture system at the stores was still homegrown, but it was also where 70 percent of our orders came from," he says. "The instructor did a great job of answering those interface questions—or finding out how to get answers." The training also helped users get up and running fast. "You don't have all year to upgrade your apps," Wysocki says. "We wanted to be quick to market in terms of getting applications out, defined, and into users' hands. And we wanted to take advantage of out-of-the-box functionality." Wysocki also reasoned that in-depth Oracle training would give his organization the skills and confidence for making optimal use of the applications once they were installed. "We found that the more training we could give our users," he says, "the more effective they'd be in taking advantage of the applications in their business." For Wysocki and his implementation team at the fast-growing mattress giant, the security of having Oracle University as a training partner helped keep sleepless nights to a minimum.