New Horizons Rotterdam Center Leverages Metrics that Matter® (MTM) to Validate Knowledge and Skills with Strategic Clients
Company Overview: New Horizons is the world’s largest independent IT training company worldwide. The New Horizons Rotterdam center started in 1999 with 2 classrooms and 6 employees. Today they have quadrupled in size by using innovative tools and working hard to deliver high quality training that returns significant on the job value to customers.
Description of Learning Program: New Horizons Rotterdam provides both application and technical training to over 12,000 students annually.
Business Cases of using MTM: In the beginning, the goal was to streamline the evaluation process for trainers and courses. What was once done manually, taking significant time on a daily basis, is now just a single mouse click to get insightful information on the performance of products and services. Not only has MTM streamlined the evaluation process, it created unique opportunities to show clients direct results of quality and learning impact. This is a very convincing and credible element to the evaluation process and the customer relationship. In today’s economy customers are asked to do more with less and justify the choices they have made. Ultimately, MTM helps the end customer measure their investment and manage constrained resources appropriately.
MTM Success: There are several applications of MTM in the center. First, MTM is used in the pre-sales process. Measurement is stressed as a valued feature of the training solution. New Horizons Rotterdam reviews measurements and goals with the prospect and points out the importance of measurement to the success of the training. Then, once training occurs the actual measures can be reviewed against the goals set up during the pre-sales process.
On a more tactical level, MTM is used to report trainer performance on a daily basis. This helps improve the quality of training offerings through real-time, comparable metrics. The Account Executives (AE’s) review evaluations, class summaries, and client aggregate reports as critical tools in their account management process. Client reports are excellent job aides to use as pre-sales tools to differentiate the center from others. The approach is to let clients know that if you cannot measure your learning investments you cannot manage them appropriately and we help provide that service through MTM. Leveraging these measurement tools is an ideal way to build life long relationships with customers and let the client know we have a vested interest in their learning solutions.
Future Plans for MTM: MTM has changed the way we do business. Building and maintaining relationships grounded in value is a goal of our learning organization. The MTM tools allow our organization to back up our value proposition and marketing and communication messages with real, quantitative results. It will be a key differentiator. In the next annual budget, we anticipate more new business driven by MTM whereby 1) it was the difference in winning the training contract and 2) it is another service we can resell to our customers who want direct access to the data online.