Taking It To The Bank
e-learning magazine (US)
July 2002.
Why Build Rather Than Buy?
In 1999, when the Royal Bank of Scotland rolled out its Training
and Communications Network (TCN), the term learning management system
was just entering the trainer's lexicon. 'At the time, there were
only a few products in the marketplace,' says Dave Buglass, manager
of learning infrastructure for Royal Bank of Scotland Group. 'And
we weren't confident in what was out there.'
Rather than buy an off-the-shelf system and spend additional time
and money customizing it, the bank worked with Epic,a custom online
learning developer, to build a system that combined Active Server
Pages and an Oracle database.
The system, which uses a Crystal Reports facility on the front end,
can track online and offline training and show how HR and business
units manage differences in performance at the regional, branch,
and individual levels. 'The system didn't offer the full range of
functionality written on the advertisments of a lot of LMS vendors,
but it met 80 to 90 percent of the bank's actual needs,' says Lars
Hyland, account manager for Epic.
The bank's IT department was able to connect the LMS to its PeopleSoft
HR system, which can tell the LMS on a daily basis who is working
for the company and in what capacity. 'It's very much one way,'
says Buglass. Although the bank intended to use the homegrown LMS
for only a short period, Buglass says it has been rebuilt to add
functionality and to make it work on a larger scale.
Will it last forever? 'I don't think so,' says Buglass, who is looking
into whether to rebuild the LMS again or buy one that can work with
the Web-enabled PeopleSoft 8.3 system the bank is installing.
But shopping for an LMS hasn't gotten easier. Just before the bank
purchased NatWest in 2000, Buglass says it took a second look at
the marketplace. 'There were 145 LMS companies,' he says. 'Which
ones are going to last? Which ones are going to fold? Which ones
are going to integrate with each other?' Those are questions the
team from RBS - and others trying to understand the LMS market -
are still asking today.
Tales From The Vault
Learning Management Systems are discussed in a white paper by
Donald Clark, Epic. Click
here for a summary.
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