Epic's track record in consultancy
Epic's work with world-leading organisations has ranged from developing
an e-learning strategy for the UK's largest government
department to defining a best practice sharing model for a global
telecommunications company.
Here you can read about consultancy projects we have carried out in:
Learning strategy development
Business case building
Training needs analysis
Blended learning design
Implementation support
Internal capability development
Learning evaluation
Learning strategy development
Epic's experienced consultants have helped to decide (or refine)
organisation-wide learning strategies for numerous global organisations
- and in one case for a whole country!
On behalf of Scottish Enterprise we produced a major strategy
report on e-learning for Scotland as well as a series of support
services for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs).
We helped with strategy creation for a new government-funded international
educational portal by researching best practice models for virtual
universities.
We are currently engaged in helping to define e-learning strategy
for a number of National Health Service Trusts and Workforce Development
Confederations (WDCs) across the NHS.
Our consultants have also successfully advised many clients on
integrating knowledge management with learning delivery to build
the organisation's intellectual capacity.
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Business case building
We have built many compelling business cases for both e-learning
and blended solutions which have helped win commitment from
key stakeholders for major projects.
A global initiative in which we played a significant role was the
world's first international
virtual medical school (IVIMEDS), an ambitious plan to bring
new learning technologies to bear on the field of medical education.
Epic provided the business case for the initial feasibilty study.
In our building of business cases we draw on unique research data
from both public and private sectors, and Epic's proprietary analytical
tools.
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Training needs analysis
We have had years of experience in needs analysis and will help
you define learning outcomes for any potential learning programme.
We undertook a significant project on behalf of the NHS (the world's
third largest employer), analysing requirements in induction and
communications skills. This involved running focus groups and individual
interviews to assess what end-users, as well as the organisation,
needed from this area.
And on behalf of a global airline we provided a complete analysis
of requirement and recommendation for their cargo centre - advising
them on a blended solution to train this group of employees.
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Blended learning design
Our unique model for blended learning centres on the concept of
optimal blends, as explained in our white paper Blended
Learning. Creating an optimal blend involves identifying blend
components and the criteria which will govern their combination.
The Epic model describes four different categories into which almost
all blended programmes fall. Using this methodology helps clients
to define the most effective blend of learning activities to match
their learning needs, target audience, resources and infrastructure.
Through our work with a major UK government department and a global
financial services firm, we developed the Blended
Learning ROI Calculator, a powerful tool for modelling the cash
implications of different blend compositions. Our consultants now
use this tool widely in their work with clients.
Read more about how to calculate return on investment (ROI) in
our free white paper, E-learning:
return on investment.
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Implementation support
Much of our recent work in consultancy has centred on the change
issues around implementing e-learning. In many cases this has also
involved helping with the marketing and branding issues in making
it work.
On behalf of a government department, we created internal marketing
strategies for specific e-learning programmes, a project which led
on to more work supporting e-tutoring skills within the department
as part of their first fully e-moderated blended solution.
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Internal capability development
Where a client needs to build the internal teams and structures
that will move new learning practices onto a 'business as usual'
footing, Epic can assist with developing the necessary internal
expertise.
For one public sector client, we provided the methodology for their
e-learning production teams and ran workshops to build up skills
in e-learning for development teams and project managers. As a next
stage we went on to create processes and procedures for their in-house
development teams to follow in the future.
We have completed numerous similar projects, including skilling
up the e-learning team for a major high street bank. In many such
cases we have also provided these teams with authoring tools and
templates to enable in-house creation of e-learning content.
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Learning evaluation
Independent evaluations of learning development projects can be
extremely valuable in ensuring that an organisation continually
improves its learning provision.
For one high street retailer we produced a comprehensive review
and recommendation about the introduction of e-learning within the
company. This enabled a significant refocusing around the role of
e-learning within the company as a change management issue.
Other research projects have been similarly wide-ranging in scope:
for a major financial services client we helped to reconceptualize
learning within the organisation - looking at different ways of
grabbing the imagination and commitment of learners and their managers.
We also carried out a quantitive survey on the use of e-learning
for a major government department.
Read more about evaluation of learning in our free white paper,
Evaluation
and e-learning.
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| Some recent
consultancy clients |
| American Express |
Goldman Sachs |
| B&Q |
Inland Revenue |
| Barclays |
Kimberly-Clark |
| British Airways |
NHS |
| CIPD |
NHSU |
| Croner |
Orange |
| DfES |
The Rank Group |
| DWP |
The Royal Bank of Scotland |
| Eli Lilly |
Scottish Enterprise |
| GlaxoSmithKline |
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