Lectora Provides Robust Functionality for Great-West Life's Computer-Based Training Programs

Profile

Great-West Life & Annuity Assurance Company serves millions of Americans with its full range of health care, life and disability insurance, annuities, and retirement savings products and services. It is an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of Great-West Lifeco Inc. and a member of the Power Financial Corporation group of companies.

Challenge

Great-West originally began creating computer-based training (CBT) programs with Outstart’s TrainerSoft authoring tool. However, they soon found that the tool couldn’t meet their needs. “Trainersoft wasn’t as robust as we hoped,” said Dave Iglicki, Trainer at Great-West. “We experienced several customer service issues and were not satisfied with the results.”

When technical issues occurred, Outstart was never available to help Great-West work through the problem. In fact, Iglicki often could not get in touch with a live support person at Outstart.

Solution

Due to the low satisfaction with Outstart’s Trainersoft authoring software, Great-West began investigating other authoring tools. Iglicki and his colleagues then narrowed their search down to three products: SkillSoft, Macromedia Authorware 7, and Trivantis’ Lectora.

“We chose Lectora for its ease of use, rapid development features, and robust capabilities.”

-Dave Iglicki, Great West Trainer

After thorough evaluation, Great-West concluded that Lectora by Trivantis was the best authoring tool to meet their needs. “We chose Lectora for its ease of use, rapid development features, and robust capabilities,” said Iglicki. “Lectora has advanced features that provide the flexibility for our technical employees to create high-end content, yet its ease of use enables our non-technical SMEs to create robust courses as well.”

Benefits

Great-West found Lectora to be an ideal tool for its organization. Currently, Great-West utilizes Lectora to create a range of training programs, including technical training, product training, employee training, and policy compliance and acceptance.

Great-West found that Lectora by Trivantis was 75% faster than Macromedia Authorware 7 in creating Computer-Based Training programs.

In developing these training courses, Great-West has found that Lectora provides many benefits. For instance, in an initial eight hour test conducted by Iglicki, he found that Lectora was 75% faster at developing content compared to Macromedia Authorware 7. In addition, “Lectora provides a variety of templates for faster development and has the ability to integrate different authoring systems,” said Iglicki.