Case Study: Capital Blue Cross

The proliferation of new technologies at Capital Blue Cross (CBC) required the company to reconsider its delivery methods for continuing education. “We had many people transitioning from mainframe terminals who had never even used a mouse,” said Jennifer Kell, manager of IT Skills Development. “Although we had provided some initial, high-level training, we needed to supplement that education and empower our employees to strengthen the skills sets they needed to perform their jobs.”

With so many people requiring education in such a short period of time, CBC quickly discovered that self-paced, web-based training offered the only viable, cost-effective solution for ensuring continued education for such a large number of employees.

“From a price perspective,” said Kell, “traditional training techniques for nearly 2,000 people would have been cost prohibitive. Especially if you figure the price to be about $250 per person per day.” Multiply those figures by the amount of in-depth education required for a large number of people and costs would soar exponentially.

“Our employees no longer have to wait for the IT Skills Development unit to schedule a class,” said Kell. Equally important, she emphasizes, because all education is self-paced, staff members can learn what they need, when they need it, progressing to the next level within a course title whenever they feel they are ready. “We can learn what we need over a period of time instead of cramming it all into a single classroom session,” said Kell.

According to Mark Ferraro, Internet Training Specialist at CBC, one of the first questions asked by many during the evaluation of the e-Learning solution was “Who was going to support this product? None of us have any extra time on our hands.” In addition, CBC laid out major requirements that included ease of installation, no additional software costs, simple navigation and course registration, and most important, content that matched the educational objectives of the entire organization.

Furthermore, because all courses are primarily written in native HTML, operation and execution through the standard Web browsers installed on each CBC PC was fast and efficient.

Another important item to note, Kell emphasized, with 24x7 availability through the Web, the courses are always available for all employees regardless of work schedules.

While helping CBC leverage its investment in its employees and new technologies, the e-Learning solution has also proven to be one of the most cost-effective methods of assuring continuing education. According to Kell, the cost benefits alone have helped the company realize a comparative savings of over $32,000---all within the first few weeks of implementation.

“Even if each one of the completed courses were just a local one day class,” she explained, “at the traditional average of $250, that would mean we have realized $35,250 worth of training in a little more than two months.

“The value [of e-Learning] for CBC has proven enormous,” said Kell. “We’ve been able to increase our investment in our employees and technology which, in turn, increases the value of our business and our service to our customers.