Centra announced that BMW of North America, LLC, has selected Centra's leading eLearning and
real-time collaboration platform, delivered as an ASP service, to accelerate the introduction and effective use of its custom SAP system through interactive, online training. BMW will also use the Centra ASP to enable all employees, regardless of location, to receive required compliance training, including a Corporate Responsibility course in business ethics, which will be delivered online through Centra's virtual classroom application.
"With 1,100 employees and 15 offices located across North America, it is not cost-effective to fly trainers and employees around for every type of training," said Victoria Macdonald, Training Manager for BMW of North America. "With Centra-powered Web collaboration, conveniently accessed through Centra's secure ASP, we can quickly and cost-effectively deliver that training to employees when they need it, regardless of location."
Because BMW's SAP system is highly customized, the company could not rely on off-the-shelf training materials. With employees dispersed across North America, BMW needed a faster and more effective way to guide users through specific processes for creating and closing out purchase orders. Centra's application sharing feature will enable BMW to provide that hands-on expert guidance over the Web. With Centra's recording capabilities, BMW can record
real-time SAP sessions and Corporate Responsibility courses for employees to access at their own convenience when schedule conflicts prohibit their attendance at live sessions. In this way, BMW will not have to wait until courses are scheduled to offer training to new employees. With a goal of getting all employees through their compliance training within one year, Centra will play a key role in making that happen on time, and without strain on company resources.
With a number of employees working out of branch offices or from their homes, Macdonald could not guarantee that employees would have a second line available to accommodate both voice and data conferencing.
"With some employees communicating over dial-up phone lines, it was critical that the product we chose delivered full performance collaboration with integrated voice-over-IP over low-bandwidth connections," added Macdonald. "Centra is the only vendor on the market that delivers reliable audio and proved consistently capable of handling rich interactive experiences over dial-up, including application sharing - which is crucial to our Web-based SAP training program."
Scaleable Software Solution for eLearning and Collaboration Used by more than 850 companies, government agencies, and universities worldwide, Centra's scaleable software solutions are based on CentraOne?, an open and extensible Web collaboration platform. Leveraging the core capabilities of CentraOne, Centra offers a suite of compatible, real-time Web collaboration applications, content composition tools, and knowledge delivery systems that can be quickly installed on-site using Centra's rapid deployment methodology, or conveniently accessed through Centra's secure, full-service ASP. Centra's products - including interactive Web meetings, virtual classrooms, and large-scale conferences - ensure universal access to users through firewalls and proxy servers, and deliver full-performance IP audio conferencing, streaming video, application sharing, and dynamic multimedia over low-bandwidth network connections through a standard browser interface.
"Centra's mission is to deliver a rich, interactive collaborative online environment that addresses the realities of how people work, learn, and share knowledge," said Tony Mark, Centra's President and COO. "BMW exemplifies the typical Centra customer, looking to connect a dispersed workforce quickly and efficiently. This is a company that has limited
resources to spend on training, and our goal is to make it possible for them to easily overcome these barriers, directly address core business needs, and achieve the powerful benefits of creating a real-time enterprise."
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