Case Studies
Alfred McAlpine Business Services
AMBS operates a positive employee culture where it is committed to delivering consistently high levels of customer service and is working towards its goal to become a UK top ten employer. In a focussed effort to meet this goal AMBS plans to provide its employees with positive and committed support to ensure that customer service achieves consistently high levels.
The Project
As part of AMBS' continual improvement in procedures, the need for a new business process management system was identified and Oracle eBusiness Financials and Projects was purchased in February 2006. By July 2006, system configuration was well under way, but with a Go-Live date of October 2006, Isobel Robertson, AMBS Business Applications Training Manager, faced a significant challenge if process based training material development and delivery deadlines were to be met before Go-Live. Around 300 core personnel needed to be trained before the Go- Live date. With a training team of only 3 and staff spread around over 240 U.K sites, Isobel quickly realised she had inadequate resource to deliver the development and training process required for this project.
The Solution
Having chosen Oracle to fulfil its IT solutions requirement, the next challenge was to secure an experienced partner who could Project Manage the design, development and delivery of training materials, as well as meet the timelines and budget. Following the selection process, Larmer Brown, a certified Oracle Partner was retained. Larmer Brown identified UPK as the tool that would meet AMBS' needs, with the added benefit of automatically producing blended learning and performance support materials. Isobel Robertson commented, "Larmer Brown were unperturbed by the challenging timeline, and had a firm belief and passion for the product".The Result
As the project developed through each phase, Larmer Brown was well equipped to guide AMBS through the full capabilities of the UPK tool. In addition to the creation of role-based process driven training materials, AMBS was able to utilise the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) Scripts as a way of verifying the training materials, overcoming the need for a separate Pilot Training Programme. The HR Director of AMBS added, "As changes to business processes were identified, the team were able to record information in UPK, which automatically produced a revised set of Process, Testing, and Training documents".
From the initial scoping of the project to the final handover, Larmer Brown worked continually with Robertson and her team, ensuring that they had the knowledge, skills and documentation to maintain and support the training content after the Larmer Brown team left site. The final Handover Report confirmed that Larmer Brown delivered both within the timescales and budget.
Isobel Robertson, Business Applications Training Manager, AMBS