Staff at the 107 year old prestige car maker'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 eLearning 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. It's particularly useful for getting information to our international partners."

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'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'.

It's rare that R-RMC - or any other prestige brand for that matter - allows its name to be associated, even loosely, with 'other' products, especially those in the learning and development world. This suggests that Absorb and, perhaps, Omniplex, are giving R-RMC not only what it wants but also helping it to create and maintain a global competitive advantage through developing its dealers' workforces.



For over 20 years, Bob Little has specialised in writing about, and commentating on, corporate learning - especially elearning - and technology-related subjects. His work has been published in the UK, Continental Europe, the USA and Australia.
You can contact Bob.