Absorb LMS from Omniplex helps facilitate motor manufacturer’s global dealership training

Goodwood-based Rolls-Royce Motor Cars (R-RMC) is using the Absorb learning management system (LMS), supplied by Omniplex, to facilitate its global dealership training.

Staff at R-RMC’s 84 dealerships around the world – including those in China, Japan, the Middle East and the USA – selling the Rolls-Royce brand, along with the growing number of ‘service facilitators’ which offer servicing but don’t sell Rolls-Royce cars, now have access to specialist product knowledge, sales and after-sales related e-learning materials via the Absorb LMS.

Johannes Wentzel, Aftersales Training Manager at R-RMC, explained: “We realised that we needed to begin using an LMS when we expanded our product range - around 2008/09 – notably with the launch of the Ghost model range. A growing product range, allied to a growing number of outlets for our products around the world meant that we needed to communicate more frequently and in greater depth with everyone – throughout the world – who is connected with R-RMC.

“Principally, the LMS offers us an excellent – and highly efficient and effective – way of providing product knowledge updates along with systems and other training on a worldwide basis,” he continued. “It’s particularly useful for getting information to our international partners.”

R-RMC is using the LMS as part of a blended learning approach, characterised by learners receiving access to pre-course work via e-media. They then attend a face-to-face training session and follow-up evaluation is carried out via a mixture of classroom-type and e-assessments – with all of the results being logged on the LMS.

“Everyone at every level of staff among our dealerships and service facilitators is able to access the LMS and its e-learning resources,” said Wentzel. “The learning materials cover every role in a motor dealership.”

To date, some 1,500 people have been logged in to the LMS. According to Wentzel, this number is set to rise dramatically as R-RMC expands its worldwide market.

“Omniplex hosts the LMS, with all its resources and data,” Wentzel explained. “Omniplex also carries out all the uploading of revised and new learning resources, as appropriate.

“When we want to update a course or publish a new one, we talk to our partners around the world whose job it is to produce the content – which is SCORM-compliant and adheres to other internationally recognised standards.

“They also translate the material – to make it applicable and appropriate to learners around the world. So, for example, when people in China log on to the LMS, they receive e-learning materials that are appropriate for them, in terms of both language and culture.”

Omniplex, the e-learning solutions provider, won the tender to provide R-RMC with an LMS. Its solution was to supply the Absorb LMS – developed by the Canada-based Blatant Media Corporation.

“In terms of adaptability, benefit and cost, Omniplex’s tender came out on top for us - and, since the LMS went ‘live’ in 2009, it has worked extremely well,” said Wentzel. “In addition, both Omniplex and Blatant, the makers of Absorb, continue to prove most helpful in terms of increasing the LMS’s functionality as and when we request it.”

Omniplex’s Stephen Miller explained: “One of the beauties of the Absorb LMS is that it evolves to match a client’s unique workflow - rather than forcing the client to adapt to the LMS. This has a great appeal for highly specialised, perhaps ‘elite’, brands which want an LMS that meets their operating requirements rather than vice versa.

“Last year, at the Brandon Hall Awards in the USA, Blatant Media Corporation’s Absorb LMS won the Gold Award in the ‘Best Advance in Learning Management Technology for Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses’ category and the Bronze Award in the ‘Best Advance in Learning Management Technology for External Training’ category for its Absorb LMS. This year, it picked up a Gold Award for ‘Best Advance in Learning Management Technology for Global Training’ and a Silver Award for ‘Best Advance in Learning Management Technology for External Training’,” he added.

“These Brandon Hall Awards aim to ‘spotlight the best and brightest in online learning’ and promote excellence in learning – and, in the case of the Absorb LMS at least, we wholeheartedly endorse the judges’ decision.”

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About Omniplex

Omniplex is a leading provider of e-learning and related tools and services for:
• informal learning (ad hoc, peer-to-peer, social learning),
• formal learning (authoring solutions, learning delivery and tracking, and learning reinforcement) and
• training, support, content development and integration services

Based in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, in the UK, and in Montreal, Canada, Omniplex supports clients across Europe and North America.

Further information on Omniplex can be found at www.omniplex.co.uk and www.omniplex.biz

Omniplex Ltd
Embassy House, 575-599 Maxted Road, HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, Herts, HP2 7DX, UK
tel: +44 (0)1442 275304/08444 120550
and
1000 de la Gauchetiere Street West, Suite 2400, Montreal, QC, Canada,
H3B 4W5
tel: (514) 448-2239
web: www.omniplex.co.uk and www.omniplex.biz
Contact: Matthew Lloyd, Omniplex Ltd, +44 (0)1442 275304 / 08444 120550; matthew.lloyd@omniplex.co.uk

PR contact: Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR, +44 (0)1727 860405; bob.little@boblittlepr.com

This release was published on openPR.