The Value of Training

“So you think you know it all?”

Last week I was teaching a group of implementation and pre-sales specialists from an international vendor. We breezed through the material as the knowledge level in the room was extremely high and most of the subjects from the ECM Practitioner already known to the participants.

At the end I asked the group about the value of such a training, considering the vast amount of experience already present. The answer was a very strong yes, the training is important and valuable.

Here are some of the reasons why even experienced operators should consider our training :

• Confirming what they already known, but also confirming the things they didn’t know because it doesn’t touch their daily jobs
• Building a common vocabulary with the rest of the market - Most of the people have a mixed bag of experience and names and abbreviations have changed or have been added to over time.
• Looking beyond technologies to processes and strategies – especially for the group of pre-sales and technical consultants this was important addition to their skill set.
• Independent accreditation – with AIIM quickly become the number one provider of independent industry certification it is important even for experienced operators to get this
• Evaluating the training for channel, customers and less experienced colleagues – the conclusion being that if pre-sales and implementers now have this common vocabulary, then direct and indirect sales need to have the same knowledge.

And I would like to add one additional factor to this : For vendors that move from traditional vertical software markets like Document Management or Workflow and now are slowly moving towards a more universal and strategic approach and Enterprise Content Management, our trainings form an ideal basis to start from and to get to grips with everything that is involved in ECM.

And now, with the expanded offering we cover an even wider range of subjects, including ECM, ERM, BPM and IOA, it is time to reconsider your own skill set and maybe add some AIIM certificates to your knowledge.

Interested ? Then check our one of our classroom courses on www.aiim.org/education or www.aiim.eu/training.

By Hanns Köhler-Krüner