Worldwide Learning Partner Organization Focusing on Business Outcomes: Partnerships Aligned with Business Goals By moving forward with Business Transformation training, organizations can maximize efficiency, productivity & ROI The convergence of market transitions, ranging from collaboration and video to virtualization and cloud-based services, is fundamentally changing the way customers acquire and use technology. As new advanced services and products are introduced, organizations that strengthen their competencies in key areas will be positioned to thrive in today's evolving business landscape. Training provides a solid foundation of skills and resources to enable professionals to design, implement and manage the latest converging technologies and deploy end-to-end solutions with confidence. Today, having the right individual with the right skills is critical. It is especially relevant when considering businesses don't just want to buy technology anymore; they want to buy business solutions with business outcomes. IT companies need to move away from selling hardware to selling solutions that solve business issues. Once this transformation is made, partners need to follow suit and customers have to be willing to trust partner's new roles in their business operations. An ecosystem must be built that brings value to everybody. © 2014 Cisco. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public. Page 1 of 3 New Skills for New Demands Investment in staff builds trust, engagement and loyalty. We're all busy getting our work done, but successful companies value a well-trained staff. Successful companies support them in this effort by providing time to gain necessary skills and giving them the resources to do so. Advanced training enables organizations to deploy technology and business solutions with greater confidence. Enabling and identifying those with unique skills leads to business benefits. This in turn helps individuals achieve successful careers and their employers to profitably grow. To sell business solutions, individuals are going to need new selling skills, and the behavior of sales teams will need to change. The most successful organizations are using training to evolve their practices to capture market opportunities, increase profitable growth and ensure relevance to their customers. With these new "Business Transformation" skills, individuals can apply solutions to the customer's long-term strategic objectives - the true business need. Those with Business Transformation skills will also be more effective in supporting pre-sales conversations, further empowering professional services. Future of Training When discussing training, it is important to acknowledge the future of learning. The entire business of learning is changing and evolving. Learning providers of the future are going to be significantly different than today, as millennials interact in different ways: as-needed and in-time with social communities on mobile devices, for example. The when, where and how of learning are changing. Learning today is event driven; in the future, learning will be a continuous process with longer term mentoring. In addition, not all learning will be instructor led or through eLearning channels. Visual and mobile learning will see strong growth as learning consumption methods, as well as individual mentoring, onsite coaching, job aides and social communities. Bite sized chunks of content will be available to learners: 30 minutes of a 60-minute lesson will be available on mobile devices for consumption when and where the learner wants. In order to deliver the Business Transformation skills necessary for growth, organizations must deliver training in a method that individuals have come to expect. Business Transformation Benefits As Business Transformation comes into focus, partners and customers will need to shift their conversations to revolve around business outcomes. Partners will need to establish that they are not only experts in technical training, but also experts in leading conversations around business outcomes, services-led outcomes, etc. In addition, IT companies will need to become trusted business advisors, as opposed to parts providers. © 2014. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public. Page 2 of 3 As customers continue through their Business Transformation, partners will notice a straightforward benefit: they have become relevant business participants. Conversations between partners and customers will carry a higher level of trust, and partners can discuss what customers want to accomplish versus what they need to do. By moving forward with Business Transformation training, any organization can maximize its efficiency, productivity and ROI on technology investments. After their training needs are determined, employees will gain access to education that is suited to a business's particular requirements, ensuring they attain the knowledge and expertise needed to be successful in today's competitive IT business environment. Published July 24, 2013 Reads 1,718 Copyright © 2013 SYS-CON Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author. Printed in USA © 2014. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public. CXX-XXXXXX-XX 10/11 Page 3 of 3