Success Profile

Amway Ada, Michigan, USA www.amway.com

Providing Effective E-Learning for an Extremely Large and Global Distribution Channel
IMPROVE SALES READINESS AND RETENTION
How would an organization reach and effectively train a sales force of more than four million people while aggressively competing with new product rollouts? Amway is a leader in the $80 billion global direct-selling industry, offering people a distribution business of their own based on retailing products and recruiting others to do the same. Amway supports over four million independent distributors with a proven compensation plan and portfolios of quality products in health, beauty, and other consumer categories, along with the merchandising materials and the extensive training and education they need to be successful. The independent distributors provide guidance, advice, support, and mentoring of new recruits and receive monthly and annual bonuses and other cash awards and business incentives based on group performance. To support such a large number of people in 80 countries and in more than 30 languages, we desperately needed to leverage e-learning, said Randy Fingleton, Global LMS Manager for Amway. Our problem was, we werent reaching all of them quickly enough with individually targeted training. Some new applicants might even decide to leave the business before they could get trained in the areas that interested them. And we werent able to track learning activities or do business analytics, or even gather Level 1 Evaluation data.1 The problem of new-distributor retention is a big challenge for both Amway and the individual who recruited the new applicant to join. It increases the time and money spent on recruiting as well as hinders sales force readiness. We could launch a product in a given market, such as Japan, explained Fingleton, but it might be more than six months before all the people got properly trained. These problems not only affected sales revenue for Amway, but also reduced the potential for business growth with its distributors and adversely affected its brand. Another key challenge for Amway was keeping learning content consistent across global markets. Lack of consistency could put Amway at risk with regulatory compliance issues in different regions. We needed a platforma proven, highperformance learning solutionto design, develop, and implement learning globally in a more consistent manner, said Brian Heath, Director, Distributor Training, Amway, in order to improve sales readiness and assure our distribution force that the content meets all regulatory and brand standards.
1 Kirkpatricks Four Levels of Evaluation for assessing training effectiveness.

We needed to execute globally on a really large scale and in a compressed time period. In SumTotal we picked an excellent partner that could help us with the expertise and support we needed. Randy Fingleton Global LMS Manager

Fast Facts
Industry: Consumer Packaged Goods, Direct Sales Countries: USA and Global Users: 1.8 Million+ SumTotal Product: SumTotal Learning

www.sumtotalsystems.com

http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/k4levels/index.htm

BUSINESS CHALLENGES

Provide training to over 4 million

distributors around the world

GLOBAL LEARNING INSTALLATIONS

Amway turned to SumTotal Learning Management for its best-of-breed functionality and simple, easy configuration for administering a variety of learning activities. We were impressed by SumTotals stability as a market leader, said Fingleton, and also by its global support, multiple language packs, and ability to deliver blended e-learning. We needed to execute globally on a really large scale and in a compressed time period, so it was important to choose a mature, proven system. In what may be the single largest implementation of SumTotal Learning Management in terms of number of users spanning the globe, Amway deployed three separate on-premise installations of the Learning Management solution and IT infrastructure to manage learning activities in the Asia-Pacific continents, the Americas, and Europe. Each instance of Learning Management manages a set of separate domains for countries and regions, with learning management administrators for each domain. In little over two years the company has expanded its e-learning activities into North America, Latin America, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, and is currently rolling out the system through Europe with plans to expand to Russia next year. All tracking and evaluation data from all domains and instance of Learning Management are brought into a central data hub for business analysis and reports. Amway needed to address wide-ranging requirements of markets as diverse as Korea, which has a high penetration of broadband Internet access, and Latin America, which has a much lower penetration. The flexibility of domain management helps us manage different regions with different business rules, said Fingleton. Were able to roll out country by country according to our best practices, but with the flexibility to make minor changes and configuration decisions based on each market. For example, Amway didnt have a mechanism for bandwidth-constrained countries within Latin America to capture Level 1 Evaluation data, which is critical for evaluating training. With the flexible SumTotal solution, Amway is now gathering evaluation data using cell phones and SMS text messaging, with a back-end database to capture the evaluation results of each participant. Amway uses the Training Migration Utility (TMU) to bring that data into Learning Management on a daily basis. The solution enabled Amway to deploy a DVD-based training program that can be unlocked via cell-phone SMS messages to collect test answers, again to circumvent regional bandwidth problems. Another key feature is the ability to create virtual classroom sessions in Learning Management (using Microsoft Office Live Meeting) so that learners can access these classes using a single sign-on and one application. Learning Management complies with the Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) framework that enables sharing of learning objects among different management systemsan important capability for Amway to seamlessly integrate new course content. By applying standards to the way learning is developed and delivered, the company can continue to boost efficiency and reduce costs while improving content longevity and leveraging proven best practices. Learning Management also enables Amway to maximize the return on its investment by identifying the most relevant training audiences. The ability to create custom audiences within the learning system is a huge asset, explained Fingleton. This allows us great flexibility to isolate specific content for those who are allowed to see it.

Flexibly deliver consistent, highquality learning content in 30 languages retention of new distributors learning for effectiveness

Improve sales readiness and Track learning activities and analyze Manage learning across regions with
different regulatory issues SOLUTION

Amway deployed SumTotal Learning

Management in three separate on-premise installations to manage learning activities around the globe

RESULTS

Rolled out e-learning for over 1.8

million people in 2 years by 30%

Grew penetration to new distributors Increased satisfaction level with

distributors to 96%

Boosted productivity by 6% in less

than a year in one region alone issues across global markets business analytics

Reduced the risk of compliance Improved tracking, evaluations, and

www.sumtotalsystems.com

About SumTotal
SumTotal Systems, Inc. is the global leader strategic Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions that provide organizations with a new level of visibility to help make more informed business decisions and accelerate growth. Recognized by industry analysts as the most complete solution, SumTotal provides full employee lifecycle management, including a core system of record, from a single provider for improved business intelligence. The company offers customers of all sizes and industries the most flexibility and choice with multiple purchase, configuration, and deployment options. We have increased the performance of the worlds largest organizations including Sony Electronics (NYSE: SNE), AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN [ADR]; London: AZN), Amway (KUL:AMWAY), Seagate (NYSE: STX), Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). For more information, or to request a demo, please call +1 (866) 768-6825 (US / Canada), +1 (352) 264-2800 (international) or visit www.sumtotalsystems.com

ACCELERATES TRAINING AND REDUCES RISKS

Amway is now able to deploy training rapidly around the world and reach new distributors faster, with better support. It sounds simple, but the result has been sheer penetration, said Fingleton, citing a 30 percent increase in the number of people reached. To be able to roll out a system to three-fourths of the world over 1.8 million peoplein less than two years is nothing short of astronomical. With another vendor we could have been stuck, but with SumTotal were on an aggressive rollout schedule. Amway has reached a 96 percent satisfaction level with distributors for the training that helps them do their jobs. The company increased productivity six percent in less than a year in Latin America alone. We were never able to track activities, collect evaluations, or do business analytics before, explained Fingleton. SumTotal gives us the foundation to do this with our global data warehouse. Now we can see what were doing, and merge that with business data to see how effective we are and make adjustments as needed. The company at first realized an 18-month return-on-investment (ROI), but as it opened more new markets the ROI has shortened to ten months or less. Its a stable system, not plagued by problems, so we dont need as many IT people to manage the infrastructure, said Fingleton. In SumTotal we picked an excellent partner that could help us with the expertise and support we needed. The SumTotal Learning Management solution not only helped to increase retention of new distributors and improve sales readiness, but also helped Amway bolster its brand with distributors globally, providing one more excellent reason for people to choose Amway.

About Amway
With its affiliates around the world, Amway is a leader in the $80 billion global direct-selling industry. Established in 1959 and based in Ada, Michigan, Amway reported sales of more than $8.2 billion in 2008. The company is a leader in health and beauty products through its NUTRILITE brand of nutritional supplements and its ARTISTRY brand of skin care and cosmetics. Amway offers the opportunity for people to have a business of their own based on retailing products and sharing the opportunity with others who will do the same.

www.sumtotalsystems.com
Corporate Headquarters
SumTotal Systems, Inc. 2850 NW 43rd Street Suite #200 Gainesville, FL 32606 USA Phone: +1 352 264 2800 Fax: +1 352 264 2801

EMEA
SumTotal Systems, UK 59-60 Thames Street Windsor, Berkshire United Kingdom, SL4 1TX Phone: +44 (0) 1753 211 900 Fax: +44 (0) 1753 211 901

APAC
SumTotal Systems India Pvt. Ltd. 7th Floor Maximus Towers Building 2B, Mind Space Raheja IT Park, Cyberabad Hyderabad, AP- 500081, India Phone: +91 (0) 40 6695 0000 Fax: +91 (0) 40 2311 2727 2012 SumTotal Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. SumTotal, and the SumTotal logo, are registered trademarks or trademarks of SumTotal Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 012_0113LS