Spring 2007 CAC: Black and Decker

Greg Walsh presented a presentation called “Going to the Dark Side: Out Sourcing e-Learning”

He described the environment in which outsourcing takes place at Black and Decker and how his group transitioned from an internal group to primarily an external group. Of the 22 courses his group is doing this year, 21 of the courses will be done externally and only one done in-house.

He discussed some advantages of outsourcing:
-Lower Cost–actually equal cost
-Freedom/Flexiblity
-More courses at one

He also discussed some disadvantages:
-Stressful to lose people you worked with due to layoffs
-All new processes (new authoring environment, new bug tracker)
-Work being donee off-site, can’t see what is happening
-Quality is suspect until products are produced and seen to evaluate

Lessons Learned

1) Nothing beats sitting next to your co-workers (when on a project team
Vendors: be available or give schedule of availability

2) Buyers: A a clear change-management plan and prepare for new processes.
Vendors: Ask lots of questions. Some clients doen’t even know what they need to tell you.

3) Not every vendor wil work out/fit it.
Vendors: Make your clients feel like they’re the only ones.
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