Trammell, Lincoln and KPMG Are Serious About Training

Change Costs Real Money ... Jim Groch, President, E-commerce and Corporate Development at Trammell Crow, caught the audience's attention last week at Commercial Property World in New York City when he stated that his company spends $600-700,000 per year implementing SiteStuff's e-procurement services across his portfolio and training his staff.  That's a serious response to the complex issues of changing an organization.  In fact, Groch predicted that the real benefits of change would not be realized until 18 months into the program.

And then last week Gary Brandeis, Senior Vice President - eBusiness at Lincoln Property Commercial in Philadelphia wrote me regarding online training: "I was wondering if you know of any company that is working with the real estate industry on on-line education programs.  We are interested in developing programs or using existing programs for the training and development of our staff (mostly technical).  This is especially critical for our corporate services group in working with our corporate clients.  For example, we have over 400 people working on a single client account spread across 5 states.   These people need on-going training and education programs, which if done over the web, could reduce costs and increase the benefits of such programs.  Is there anyone out there?"   Good question.  See below.

I had written in the February 9, 2001, Dispatch about the Mortgage Bankers Associations very serious online education program, CampusMBA. ... And that triggered this interesting response from Bruce Klein with KPMG Consulting in New York: "At KPMG Consulting we make very heavy use of online training.  Partnering with DigitalThink, we have rolled out web and CD-based online training to our entire consulting body at a fraction of the cost of classroom training.  We use this training as a way of keeping our people current on the latest technologies and trends.  We have run a series of Internet and eBusiness online courses and have recently rolled out Wireless 101.   Feedback has been terrific and people say they get more out of the online courses because they can be done when it is convenient for them both with regard to time and location, a key factor for people who are on the road a lot.  The courses have been so successful that we have packaged some and rolled them out for clients."   If you're interested, contact Klein. ...   Has your organization experimented with online training?  Tell me your story.   Thanks!

--Peter / ppike@pikenet.com