The excellent integration of data, communication, service delivery and management information facilitates key efficiency improvements. Savings are not limited to the cost of training courses, but include savings on operational costs such as consolidated monthly invoicing and significant savings in staff time spent on sourcing, booking administration and vendor management.
WDR Managed Learning Service & Learning Management System Case Study
WDR wins national framework agreement to supply vendor neutral Managed Learning Service and Learning Management System to local authorities in England
The situation
The contracting authority for a specific borough council in
England undertook this tender through a procurement unit, a shared
service covering four councils. They required a vendor
neutral managed training service which would generate savings on
externally procured training for participating councils. The
managed service provider was to source a wide range of training
from the market, including but not limited to ICT, management
development, customer service, HR, finance, legal, construction,
health and safety, care services, education, planning,
environmental health, housing, leisure and
sustainability.
It was intended that the contract should become available over a period to local authorities across England. Vendor neutral managed training service provision is uncommon in local authorities and so this contract will be a "pathfinder" which, if successfully implemented and developed, could attract a great deal of interest.
The solution
WDR set up a service which helps to efficiently manage the
sourcing, scheduling, administration, monitoring and reporting of
training for all types of council or local authority and delivers
significant net savings. The service is able to aggregate
training spend and secure high discounts on a wide range of
training. As there are no upfront investment costs and
service fees are taken as a percentage of the discounts secured on
training, the implementation and operation is self-funding.
Individual councils start to see net cost savings as soon as they
are produced.
Only minimal information is required to enable the service to be configured and implemented. Individual councils need to provide: standard employee identification and contacts; training approval authorities; existing branding/logos; and recent history of purchased training and/or future requirements.
The WDR service effectively leverages investments in council information and communications technology. The excellent integration of data, communication, service delivery and management information facilitates key efficiency improvements. Savings are not limited to the cost of training courses, but include savings on operational costs such as consolidated monthly invoicing and significant savings in staff time spent on sourcing, booking administration and vendor management.
The service provides on-line access to training catalogues and schedules, ease of booking, automation of the approval workflow, integration of individual training records, comprehensive management reporting, together with on-going advice and guidance from experienced training consultants. These combine to offer added-value for all stakeholders: end-users, administrators and managers.
The 'vendor neutral' service model does not rely on delivering proprietary training products, but on selecting the best available products in the market, including existing suppliers, where appropriate. The outcome is the optimization of cost, quality and utility of training to meet individual council needs. The combination of service quality, cost and process efficiency has been consistently demonstrated with existing large and small client organisations.
Our own powerful Learning Management System (LMS) software at the heart of the service is an inclusive component. It provides web-based end-user access, management of data and training records, comprehensive administration functionality, and management reporting. The LMS requires no client installation beyond the web-browser. Unless councils have already invested in an alternative LMS, the quality and service level delivered by the WDR service should significantly improve on the current end-user experience and administrative efficiency.
The Result
As originally indicated this has been a "pathfinder" contract
which has taken some time to filter through to various councils in
England. Those that are using it already have made
significant savings. WDR continues to promote the service
within councils and present to those that are keen to find
efficiencies in this area.
