Executive Briefings

Published January 2007

Global Collaboration and Outsourced Learning

Kellye Whitney

Modern, global business practices and interactions between employees and employers, as well as customers and the organizations that serve them, demand a concentrated focus on collaboration and cost-efficiency. The learning and development industry found a viable solution to the latter in outsourcing. Yet, collaboration remains an issue, one that can guarantee the success or failure of outsourced initiatives and consume any cost savings that an organization might have enjoyed otherwise.

Michael Balanoff, Global Collaboration Partners LLC senior partner, said when people think about outsourcing learning, they frequently look at other countries as a place to provide cheap labor, a solution to get a job done while taking advantage of economies of scale, etc. But as companies develop partnerships throughout the world, it's important to remember there also is a tremendous amount of learning taking place internationally.

"We looked at our partnerships overseas and how the information was being generated and said, 'You know, it makes a lot more sense here. Instead of taking U.S. intellectual property and training and going overseas and then bringing it back to the U.S., it makes more sense to bring that information back here in the first place,'" Balanoff said. "That exchange of information opens up the global dialogue within companies that we serve and certainly within the industry as a whole - how do we have more of a cross-cultural, global dialogue as it relates to training and learning and development, and how do we really have a successful conduit to bring in best practices not just from the United States outward but from outside the U.S. back in?"

The CLO can do quite a few things to facilitate that type of global dialogue and collaboration, while simultaneously boosting the chances that an outsourced learning endeavor will be successful and cost-effective. Balanoff said the simplest solution probably is "to get your butt on an airplane and go there."

"We use technology, video conferencing, conference calls, all sorts of Internet connections and collaborative tools and everything else, but I think, at the end of the day, the only way to really get this moving properly is to have established relationships," Balanoff explained. "The way to establish a relationship that truly has value is to meet with someone face to face. The reason why these types of relationships fail overwhelmingly is because everything is being done remotely - it's being done with e-mail, instant messenger and video conferencing. We know people who have had relationships have literally invested millions of dollars in technology, but they refused to invest the five days it takes to fly to another country to have those face-to-face meetings to start the basis of a relationship."

After the CLO has made that worthwhile, if time-intensive, investment to initiate and build outsourcing relationships face to face, those relationships must be maintained.

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