61% of Companies Expect Administrative Spending to Increase in Next Two Years

Mountain View, CA – March 13, 2007 – Expertus, a global provider of services that optimize the business impact of learning, and TrainingOutsourcing.com, a company that offers guidance and consulting to buyers and sellers of outsourcing services, jointly announced today the results of the fifth of six surveys designed to provide market data on all aspects of today’s corporate training challenges.

This latest survey focused on training administration and operations. Questions explored a variety of issues, including: administrative functions performed, percentage of current budget spent on administrative services, biggest challenges, management of services, use of outsourcing, and planned spending increases.

Following are survey highlights:

  • Results show that administrative expenses are high in most organizations: 7.3% of respondents said their companies spent more than 50% of their training budgets on administration and operations; 10% spent between 36 and 50%; and 30% spent 20 to 35%.
  • Interestingly, only 14.7% of respondents thought administrative-related spending was too high, and 65% thought it was “about right.”
  • Approximately 60% of respondents saw spending on administration and operations increase over the next two years; 15.7% projected spending would stay the same; 5.4% predicted it would decrease; and 18.4% said spending would likely fluctuate.
  • An overwhelming majority of respondents believed that the biggest administrative efficiencies could be gained by upgrading current technology (70.3%). Respondents rated adding additional staff (34.7%) and increasing staff training (28.4%) as other changes that could improve efficiency.
  • The most common administrative and operational functions used for training are program scheduling (83.8%), program evaluations (78.1%), material fulfillment (75.4%), registration services (73.7%) and student and program reporting (74.1%).
  • Administrative challenges most frequently listed by respondents are heavy workloads (57.4%), inadequate technical support (46.6%), limited budget (40.4%) and lack of qualified personnel (39.9%).

“Training administration consumes way too many dollars in most companies – and despite the spending, there are still high levels of dissatisfaction in the services provided,” said Mohana Radhakrishnan, vice president of client services for Expertus. “The even bigger problem is that every dollar spent on administration is a dollar less spent on actual training. Employee development has a positive bottom-line impact, while administrative expenses have no incremental value.

“We believe training administration and operations are areas where most companies – no matter their size – can gain significant efficiencies. As seen in this survey, most companies view these expenses as necessary and fixed. However, we’ve seen companies reduce administrative expenses by as much as 55 to 60% through the effective use of technology, personnel resources, and shared services.”

An analysis of all survey results is available at https://www.expertus.com/survey/results5/TrainingAdmin.pdf.

The final survey in the series, which will explore training analytics, will be distributed later in March. Go to www.expertus.com for results of past surveys covering use of consolidated LMSs for internal and external training; LMS implementation, integration, and maintenance; channel training; and global training.

About Expertus
Expertus is the leading global provider of services that optimize the business impact of learning. For more than a decade, the firm’s 500+ learning management professionals have defined and implemented plans, processes and technologies that transform training organizations – creating measurable value for the world’s most successful corporations. Clients include ADP, Cisco, ConocoPhillips, EMC, Honeywell and Lockheed Martin. Every day at these and other companies, more than a million employees, customers and business partners are educated as a result of Expertus’ innovative business strategies, outsourcing services and technology-rich solutions.

Based in Silicon Valley, Expertus serves its clients from offices in the US, UK and India. For more information, visit www.expertus.com, or call toll-free 1-877-827-8160.

About TrainingOutsourcing.com
TrainingOutsourcing.com offers guidance and consulting to buyers and providers of training outsourcing services with the goal of facilitating mutually beneficial economic relationships. Its web-based knowledge community offers a wealth of information resources and best practices to those interested in any aspect of training outsourcing. For more information on TrainingOutsourcing.com and its webinars and conferences, go to www.trainingoutsourcing.com.