Choosing to embark on a change initiative to implement a new PLM system in your business is one of the biggest projects that a company can take on. Very often, despite the large amount of financial resources and time invested, and despite their expectations or best-laid plans, organizations can still fail to leverage the promised benefits of PLM – 7 out of 10 fail, actually. It’s crucial that your PLM project is planned and communicated correctly from day one, and this means developing an effective training plan. Although your team can envision the desired outcome, developing training for a change initiative of this size and importance may require some specific skills or resources that you don’t have available in house. That’s why it can be a huge benefit to outsource your PLM training.
When implemented correctly, PLM will connect your processes, data, and—most importantly—your people. However, many neglect this key element of the implementation process and don’t provide quality training for their employees. Instead of chancing whether your users become knowledgeable and efficient in your PLM system or not, you can hire external experts whose job is to ensure your team is trained the right way.
Let’s take a look at some of the greatest benefits of outsourcing your PLM training.
#1 – You will get a professional result which will lead to a better outcome.
We’ve all seen the Powerpoint presentations thrown together by management that are as equally boring as they are visually appalling. To be fair, those people have full workloads and “training designer” isn’t exactly in their job description. So why do companies make them create their training? They wouldn’t have anyone but a web design expert make their website, for example, so why is training any different?
If you work with training experts you can expect a professional product. The better the quality of the training program, the better the outcome of that training will be.
In the end, you want your users to be experts in your PLM system, so hiring experts to train them is what makes sense.
#2 – PLM training specialists have pedagogical knowledge so they will follow the best learning techniques when developing your training.
There are learning principles that pedagogical experts will be able to apply while creating your training program to make it the most effective for your users. They know how to build a program that accommodates their different needs and habits so that they learn faster and retain more of the information.
For example, training specialists will design your lessons to be the correct length, vary in learning styles and media, build on the most relevant material, and they can help you plan the training sessions so that they reinforce the information at the right time. Most likely your organization is unaware of a lot of these tricks and knowledge and that can affect how well your training program performs.
#3 – You can take advantage of all the latest digital learning tools and technology.
Besides the benefit of pedagogical knowledge, outsourcing will also allow you to design more engaging materials by using the latest technology. You can take advantage of an assortment of interactive e-learning tools, such as system demos, video tutorials, online courses, software simulations, process libraries, webinar breakout rooms, interactive images, etc.
All of these tools can be customized to your system and business processes so your users won’t have to waste time going through boring, irrelevant “out-of-the-box” system guides. You can save time and make the experience more enjoyable and relevant for your users. For example, with system simulations your team can practice real-world tasks they need to learn in the PLM system without the fear of making mistakes and distributing workflow.
#4 – The process of developing your training program will be more time efficient.
Another obvious benefit of outsourcing your PLM training is that you will save a ton of time in the development of your training. Designing, structuring, and creating a training program that will ultimately be effective is a huge project. When it’s done internally in a company, the project must be completed on top of all the normal day-to-day tasks.
When you outsource the work, you will only have to spend time collecting the needed system manuals and current materials to send to the other company and then review the final outcome. After a few feedback sessions you can have your finished materials.
Plus, if the company is in a different time zone, you may also have the added benefit of getting work done even after your company’s work hours end!
#5 – Your PLM initiative will be prioritized and will stay on schedule.
When you hire an external company to design your training materials, you will both agree on set deadlines and on a final delivery date. The external business will make your project their priority and work to deliver it in that time frame. That means your initiative will have a strict plan, which will help everyone on your side stay on schedule too.
On the other hand, if you choose to develop your training materials on your own, the project is more likely to get delayed as other things inevitably come up. It’s easy to put off your training development as more urgent or demanding tasks appear.
#6 – PLM training experts will audit your existing documentation and create materials that you’re missing.
It’s hard to know what you don’t know.
By outsourcing your PLM training development to PLM training specialists, you may discover unexpected gaps in your PLM concept.
In the case that you find that your existing documentation is missing materials, PLM training experts can create new content for your program.
You don’t have to worry that your documentation is too technical and won’t be adapted clearly in your training program, either. If you hire training consultants that specialize in PLM systems, they will be familiar with a variety of software solutions and can expertly translate the materials into your training materials.
#7 – You will save a lot of money on operational costs and other expenses in the long run.
According to Harvard Business Review, outsourcing can cut your business’s costs by 20-30 percent!
Of course quality training comes at a price, but nothing is as expensive as wasting your organization’s time and resources. What if you invest all of this in this change initiative but your implementation begins to fail due to lack of user acceptance? Then your business would need to pay to fix what could’ve been done correctly the first time around.
Instead you can shift the workload of this project to the most efficient location, outside of your organization entirely. Then you can set a fixed budget for it and track investment costs as well.
There are so many savings and benefits to outsourcing your PLM training. Maybe you’ve been weighing those benefits for a while and want to see how your business can use outsourcing to your advantage.
Ready to bring your PLM training to the next level? Go ahead and schedule a quick call with us to see how we can help! There’s no better time to start than now!
