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The Measurable Impact of End-User Training on an Oracle EBS Implementation
Our training team was deployed at a multi-national mining and manufacturing company that had implemented Oracle Financials a year earlier, and was in the process of rolling out Purchasing and iProcurement to the business units over a 15-month period. Our team joined the implementation team early in the implementation cycle.

Our training team was deployed at a multi-national mining and manufacturing company that had implemented Oracle Financials a year earlier, and was in the process of rolling out Purchasing and iProcurement to the business units over a 15-month period.  Our team joined the implementation team early in the implementation cycle.

The team developed training materials for 30 different business units, each with its own business processes.  We trained the user acceptance teams of several business units.  The remaining business units chose to train the teams themselves (or not bother).  The difference was stark.  The client's project management office reported that where we had trained the teams, the acceptance testing was accomplished in less than 50% of the time it took the other units who had trained internally or failed to train. 

Subsequently, we trained the end-users. We were able to use the same training materials with few modifications - just the changes from last-minute changes in the implementation.   Again, where we trained the employees, the post-go-live calls to the help desk were 80% less than where the business units' own people delivered the training. 

We rolled the same training out to employees in Europe (France, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Romania, Benelux, Scandinavia and Russia), using multilingual trainers and localizing materials as required.  We also delivered training in Latin America, and the Far East.  As a consequence, the client was able to accelerate the world-wide roll-out and enjoy the savings that the Oracle system provided earlier than they had expected.

Whether the applications are financial, supply chain, planning, manufacturing, customer service or CRM one of the keys to success is bringing our team in as early as possible.  We can then start the development of training materials for subject-matter experts and acceptance testers.  If the testing team is well-trained, acceptance testing time can be reduced by as much as 50% - a great return on a modest investment!  Then, training of end users can proceed smoothly, re-using most of the materials that have already been developed and setting the new system up for long-term success!