Features

Published May 2007

Operational Efficiency: Lessons from Global Enterprises

Kellye Whitney and Amy Wilson

As companies grow from national businesses to global enterprises, they can encounter myriad international challenges. From language and cultural differences to the difficulties deploying programs and initiatives to a widespread workforce, global corporations need efficient solutions to remain internationally competitive. We spoke to three global enterprises - Holland American Line, JP Morgan Chase and Genpact - about their strategies to ensure operational efficiency across international lines.

Holland America Line: E-Learning Efficiency Steers Learning to Affordable Waters
The Holland America Line (HAL), a fleet of cruise ships under the Carnival Corp. brand, has carried more than 10 million passengers in its 135 years of service. HAL operates in every ocean and continent, in more than 100 countries, with more than 280 ports of call.

When a new CEO came onboard in 2004, Capt. Christian Volkle, former deputy director of fleet training, had to adopt efficiency as a kind of mantra to train the roughly 15,000 fleet members he was responsible for educating every year.

Volkle used a three-pronged approach to make training more accessible and available to employees while simultaneously reducing vendor overhead. The first step was to develop computer-based training.

HAL had used many instructor-led programs, in which trainers came aboard ship and traveled with the crew. The company also sent many employees to specialty schools around the world for hands-on, interactive simulator training on the multimillion-dollar systems that mimic the bridge of a ship.

The second prong of the HAL learning strategy entailed installing training rooms on all ships, and each onboard training room was built to convert easily from multiple PC stations to an instructor-ready format in five to 10 minutes.

The onboard training rooms also helped bring blended learning to the forefront. For example, some learning such as the operator course for tenders (the small boats used to ferry passengers back and forth when the big ship can't get to port) requires employees to complete an e-learning course with a minimum score before they qualify for hands-on training.

"The people who operate tenders have to take an eight-hour online course on things like the theory of small boat handling and boat maneuvering, collision regulations, who's got the right of way in different situations, how to read weather and currents and things like that," Volkle explained. "If they pass with a minimum score of 90, we allow them to go on to the hands-on portion, which will be another three weeks of hands-on training actually operating those boats with the direct supervision of a licensed officer. We've got self-paced materials, workbooks that they have to fill out for some courses - a variety of everything."

Third, Volkle said HAL needed a learning management system (LMS) to launch and track its new computer-based training modules. It partnered with SumTotal and installed one training server and one LMS on each ship.

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