State of the Industry

For the first time in decades, training has become a mission-critical strategy for organizations—one that, when designed and implemented properly, can truly become a competitive advantage. Consequently, today's training professionals are moving rapidly into the corporate spotlight. They are now welcome additions to many boardrooms, where they've become an integral part of the teams that address business issues and develop solutions with the greatest impact on the bottom line. Here's what some individuals close to the issue have to say:

"Management can see the added value simply by each employee's ability to apply new or enhanced skills and knowledge in the achievement of organizational goals and objectives. No one is questioning the cost of training programs anymore."

—Phil Rutherford

Lecturer and Academic Director, Bungendore, Australia

"I've been able to use Thinq's learning infrastructure to actually quantify investments in training with increases in performance. Now we want to correlate increases in performance to revenue, lower turnover and bottom line profitability."

—Russell Campanello

Chief People Officer,

NerveWire, Boston

"Training has always been closely tied to the company's business objectives and profitability. What's changing for us is our business environment. We work very closely with senior line management from the business units, and training is key in keeping the whole organization sharp and in tune with our competitive environment."

—Nancy Perrison

Vice President Organizational Development,

Staples, Framingham, Mass.