Knowledge-based economies are the ones poised to win the race for world dominance in terms of economic efficiency, productivity and competitiveness on global scale, while IT training can be among the decisive factors in achieving the above goals. From the view point of sustainable long-term business development, continuous professional education and IT training should be considered major success drivers of knowledge-based economies, which therefore makes investments in technology training mandatory in the context of technology-driven business development.
Actually, training courses in technology-related disciplines are quite widespread across virtually all industries worldwide, thus creating a more success-driven business environment. Nevertheless, a good number of enterprises still rely on outdated beliefs that the average employee would be able to cope with the average business software application, a fallacy that may result in financial losses due to worsened employee performance and increased number of software faults due to human errors. Moreover, present-day sophisticated business software platforms, including widely used customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, require special attention to be paid to proper IT training of all personnel to get best results from the implementation of such relatively expensive applications.
While the average employee would be familiar with the basic functions a CRM or an ERP can perform, operating such a complex system in a manner to take utmost advantage of its functionality requires IT training provided by either the vendor of the software or a reputable IT consultancy firm. Both types of businesses provide training services, while the price of IT training is often included in the business proposals of reputable software vendors worldwide.
What is not included in the price of software implementation, however, is the understanding of the need to invest in further education beyond the basic course aimed at familiarizing the employees with the essential functionality of a particular business software application. Today’s economy is increasingly dependent on knowledge and no reverse trend can be observed in the Western hemisphere, nor will it be observed in the years to come. Knowledge and investment in knowledge is the key to success in a technology-driven business environment, and, surprisingly, a fair number of Europe-based and U.S.-based enterprises fail to realize that their corporate budgets should be adjusted accordingly to set aside more funds to be invested in IT training. Alternatively, companies in Asia/Pacific and Eastern Europe, investing smartly in technology-bound education, now boast better business environment in terms of well-educated labor force and established practices in the field of continuous IT training of personnel.
Of course, the above samples are mainly on governmental level and official policies cannot be automatically transformed into policies to be widely applied by enterprises. Nevertheless, adopting a policy of ongoing training in the field of information technologies is a wise move anyway. One should not possess the qualities of a prophet to forecast a brighter corporate future for an enterprise that bets on continuous education of its employees as compared with a business where owners and managers do not care if their employees are equipped to face the challenges posed by a technology-driven society and the respective economic framework.
That said, IT training should not be considered a one-time investment in training courses related to the adoption of a particular software application, but part of a broader corporate policy to invest in the future. Investing in the future of employees through IT training would help an enterprise witness its business flourishing in hard times when even the simplest trade requires in-depth technological knowledge. Finally, IT should be considered an investment wisely made, not an expenditure that prevents an enterprise to invest in other spheres.
This is a guest post written by Rajesh S Ullal
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