Aliber Learning Center Essay, Research Paper
Caliber Learning Centers Online
22 April 2001
In late 1996, an entreprenuer that had previously run Sylvan Learning Centers decided to start a new venture. The result was Caliber Learning Network, the brain child of Chris Nguyen, who guided Sylvan into one the education industries greatest successes . As stated from thier website www.caliber.com, Caliber is a leading provider of e-Learning infrastructure for strategic
corporate initiatives. Its interactive e-Learning is delivered either live or OnDemand
directly to individual workstations, anytime, anywhere or through a network of
classroom-style learning centers. Caliber enables Global 2000 companies to increase the
reach and reduce the cost of traditional training programs through a host of services,
including Internet, Intranet and digital satellite. Founded in 1996 and headquartered in
Baltimore, Caliber has production facilities and Internet-ready learning centers
throughout North America and Europe.
Caliber s success or failure will be affected by it s surronding environmental forces. The path Caliber has chosen is that of an e-learning provider. Teaming up MCI Systemhouse was the first in a long succession of good planning and decision making. Mr. W.R. Hambrachts is quoted in an article by Kristen Hirst titled Online Training saying Coporate e-learning is one of the fastest growing, and we believe, one of the most promising markets in the education industry. It was this vision that Chris Nguyen has pioneered.
This vision did not come without deliberate planning on the part of Caliber s management staff. First, the management had to develop scenerios that would point the company to a path of success. After participating in Sylvan s Learning Network and being part of the general education industry, management could see a trend in the United States of booming educational services. The next step was being able to recognize that the future in education was going to be on-line. On MSNBC in early April 2001, Janice Chen produced an article outlining the future trend of education, she wrote that by the year 2004, 87% of American colleges and universities would be offering training and academic courses on-line. Clearly on-line training was the wave of the future in education and they wanted to be the first to offer it. That is when MCI Systemhouse came in to offer Caliber with the services they needed so that they could concentrate on their core competencies.
At this point the downside of becoming an on-line organization for training needed to be accessed. As stated earlier, Caliber would be joined by a great deal of competition. Also, the cost of new equipment, software, and personnel to drive the technology would be tremendous. Then, once on-line, would any corporations that already have their own training departments want to outsource that function? After deciding to go forth, Claiber had to strategize on how to hold off the competition. Again, MCI Systemhouse would be there to provide up-to-date management services to keep Caliber s technology ahead of their competitors capabilities.
In order for Caliber s management team to make the decision to outsource or not, they had to brainstorm the issues, opportunities, and advantages of doing so. The issues before them were as follows: What are our technology needs?, How are we to meet those needs?, How are we to maintain those needs?, and Who is going to run these systems? The opportunities of outsourcing their network functions included: no equipment costs, no upgrade and/or maintenace cost, greater potential for accessibilty, potential market kead against those that have to develop systems in-house, and most importantly, allows the company to concentrate on its core compentencies. The potential drawbacks to outsourcing would be reduced control over network systems, lead time required to request a system change, training that could be required to operate software packages, and unexpected system failures.
After all the brainstorming had been accomplished, caliber then had to relate all of the possible causes and effects in order to gain a full understanding of the task they needed MCI Systemhouse to accomplish. They studied all of their data, user, communications, and facility concerns. These concerns were relayed to MCI and a network system was designed to meet Caliber s unique requirements. That system, once brought on-line through a process carefully planned out and diagramed, is then continually benchmarked against internet industry giants such as Amazon.com, Ticketmaster.com, and Macromedia.com.
In conclusion, Caliber Learning Network was put together through a series of decision making processes and aids to become an industry leader. The future for Caliber is bright, providing services to businesses. This is stated well on their website www.caliber.com, e-learning saves businesses the expense of bringing employees to training, when the training can be brought right to their desktop.
Works Cited
Technology Overview. John C. Gebhardt. 2000. Caliber.com. December 2000.
Caliber Releases Enhanced Learning Technology. 2001. Caliber.com. 6 March 2001.
University of Cyberspace . 2001. MSNBC.com. 4 April 2001.
Managed Services. 2001. Worldcom.com. 20 April 2001.
Hellriegal, Don, Susan E. Jackson, and John W. Slocum Jr. Management. 8th ed. Ohio: South-Western College Publishing, 1999.
Online Learning. Ed. Kristen Hirst. 2001. Distancelearn.com
334