Boehringer-Ingelheim

Boehringer-Ingelheim is one of the top 20 leading pharmaceutical firms in the world. It aims to drive value through innovation, and has applied that innovative thinking within its training and development activities by adopting a proactive eLearning programme.

Andrew Young is Learning and Development Consultant for the Prescription Medicine Division. He works with a team of consultants who use Lectora from Trivantis to create training courses which are distributed via a learning management system (LMS) to around 500 divisional employees ranging from medics to sales representatives, most of whom work in the field.

"Having a single tool means we can exchange and share materials much more easily."

Two years ago, the UK and Spanish arms of the division started investigating eLearning. They piloted an LMS and have since commissioned consultants to create complex clinical courses. However, they knew that they would also need to create and distribute certain courses themselves "We needed an in-house content development tool because each team-member has particular brand responsibilities and knowledge, and so wanted to develop content specifically for their own brands."

They chose Lectora in part because the American arm of the company had already started to use it. However, this was not the only reason: "Here in the UK we wanted something that was easy to use, intuitive and quick to learn. With Lectora it is easy to create something basic while we are still learning, but it also has capabilities of producing something of very high quality if you have the knowledge. Also, having a single tool means we can exchange and share materials much more easily."

The courses are often converted from existing presentations using the Lectora Integrator for Microsoft PowerPoint, making Lectora an ideal rapid development tool for the brand teams. "At the moment we often take what used to be PowerPoint courses and simply make them a bit more engaging and interactive. Because we have the material, we can do that really fast." They are finding that even simple enhancements can add impact to courses "One colleague put a voiceover to explain a highly technical piece of learning around clinical papers. The result was something that could be sent out but was as good as a face-to-face presentation."

"We can now provide much more learning for the community both in terms of instructor-led and online training."

The learning community seems quite happy with the shift to online learning. "We did a survey a few months ago which showed a high level of satisfaction. With eLearning we can help the learner to take more responsibility and have more control over their own development by providing self-select courses that can be done in their own time, as well as mandatory training."

Perhaps most importantly, management is more than satisfied with the return on the investment in this first year of eLearning implementation. Andrew explains "We told our management early on that our aim was not necessarily to save money, but to be able to do more for the same budget. We can now provide much more learning for the community both in terms of instructor-led and online training."

In-house authoring looks set to continue to gather pace within Boehringer-Ingelheim's eLearning programme. Andrew concludes: "We now recommend Lectora within our division, and other countries are coming on board as we speak."