Success Stories: Acer eLearning

Fully Integrated Acer eHRM and eHRD Systems.
CyberLink eHRD Solutions has accelerated Acer’s engagement of e-learning.

Acer’s New Learning Model

As Acer has re-focused its business model from manufacturing to IT services, they have faced different challenges for global operations and competition. e-learning has played an important role in developing more talent for business growth, by providing just-in-time learning anytime, anywhere.

Like other international companies, Acer has encountered many obstacles in delivering e-learning within its organization. The greatest trouble they faced was a technological issue: their Learning Management System (LMS) could not be integrated with the eHRM system they had developed internally. Training results could not be consolidated for management purposes, and the value of an e-learning system could not be recognized and maximized by managers and employees.

Integrating two systems smoothly: Acer's eHRM and eHRD

In the Internet age, knowledge and key talent represents an important intangible asset for enterprises. To make the most of this asset, many enterprises start building online systems for employee training or Human Resource Development (eHRD). HRD, or talent development, is also an increasingly important function of the HR department.

In Taiwan, with the government promoting the need for improved methods of training, many enterprises have built LMS or e-learning systems in order to reduce training costs while improving employees’ productivity. Unfortunately, some enterprises have not achieved their original goals and there are several major reasons for this. Firstly, many enterprises have found how hard it is to change their employees’ behavior, to encourage them to actively learn via their computer without first having to introduce new policies or incentives to encourage people to use the system. Secondly, the quality of e-learning content has a hug impact on the quality of the learning results. In the past, some content providers have not delivered the level of quality required for effective learning, and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) lacked the basic instructional design concepts and tools for creating effective learning materials. Thirdly, the difficulty of system integration has hurt many enterprises attempting to deploy LMS or e-learning systems. In fact, successful deployment of any e-learning system involves a good platform provider with strong technology skills, good e-learning content, and a good strategy to ensure management and employees benefit from the system.

The experience at Acer started off like e-learning projects at many other companies, but has now achieved better results for Acer and its employees. In describing his experience in developing an e-learning system, Gary Jian, Acer HR director, recounts: “The eHRM system developed by the Acer internal IT group improved Acer HR’s operational efficiency. To improve employee training efficiency and effectiveness, we tried to build our own e-learning system. We encountered serious integration issues so that the employee training system could not be integrated with our promotion, compensation, career development, and other HR functions.”

“After in-depth evaluation, we decided to replace our existing e-learning system with CyberLink CTMS. CTMS is a well-modularized platform and provides a complete interface to integrate with other systems. It’s developed using Java so the compatibility is the best in the market. Besides, CTMS supports e-learning standards such as AICC and SCORM; thus we can use excellent e-learning content globally.”

“CyberLink’s professional service also gave us the confidence to stop our existing system and transfer to CTMS. During the whole project, CyberLink has provided timely and high-quality service to ensure our success. In the future, we would like to cooperate with CyberLink to build Acer’s whole eHRD solution for Acer’s talent management.”

The system designed with users in mind.

Gary Jian had more to say about CyberLink’s system design: “I’ve seen many HR systems designed only from the vendor’s or IT technology point of view, not based on real users’ thoughts. That approach creates a lot of trouble when deploying to a whole company, and it’s hard to achieve planned objectives. But CyberLink provides a customized user interface that gives specific employees the functions they need based on their user privileges. The system operation flow is very smooth and easy to use. It not only provides HR administrators a good administration tool but is also our employees’ best knowledge and learning source.”

Easy-to-design blended leaning, and improved learning efficiencies

Referring to learning design, Gary Jian believes: “e-learning is more suited to structured courses that cover topics such as employee orientation, corporate culture, policy, internal processes, product training, etc. For the courses which need more interaction, such as management skill workshops, it’s better to design a blended learning structure to combine classroom training and e-learning.”

“CyberLink CTMS provides both e-learning and classroom training management functions. It’s very easy to design a blended curriculum to combine both. In the classroom training management, administrators can manage all operational tasks such as registration, leave, application approval, and cost control. CTMS provides the flexibility for us to deliver e-learning and classroom training via the same platform, and we can check all learning records together. It has saved us a lot of administrative effort.”

“In the future,” Gary Jian says, “Acer will work with CyberLink to build our whole eHRD system. As a leading software company in Taiwan, they have the best multimedia technology and very strong HRD experience. I believe CyberLink will be Acer’s best eHRD partner for our long term development.”