CommLab India selected by Unilever as preferred vendor of eLearning; R&D Academy Learning Manager, Mr. David Bird visits CommLab India
Accenture, as the outsourced global provider of Learning Sourcing Services for Unilever, conducted a strategic review of Unilever's providers of learning, training and associated services and sent out a global Request for Proposal (RFP) to select the best providers for the Unilever R&D academy's current and future eLearning solution development, and to drive significant service metrics and savings in this area.
CommLab India has been selected as one of the preferred vendors of eLearning for Unilever R&D Academy.
The criteria for selections were:
- Ability to meet Unilever's stringent product/ service specifications and to minimize total cost of ownership (including product/ service price and other purchasing related costs such as distribution, packaging, taxes, etc)
- Highly competitive pricing - pricing reserved for the largest and most important accounts - both at the outset of the relationship and on an ongoing basis
- Sufficient resources (e.g. staff capabilities, product R&D, product range) to meet Unilever's needs
- Financial performance and customer references
The RFP also required the bidders to submit a prototype of an eLearning solution. The feedback on the prototype is:
- Represents excellent value for money based on quality of graphics & overall content in direct comparison with other vendors
- Navigation is simple & easy to use
- Screen layout is very good with excellent use of Unilever branding throughout
- Nice blend of static & animated graphics used during the modules
- Test for understanding exercise (Test Tube) at end of Module 2 is well thought out & creative
- Digitized US accent used for narrative is not particularly appealing although quality of the audio file itself is very good
- Introductory word search quiz is confusing & although in principle is a good idea it is too complicated to use & therefore adds no value
- Module 1 is very light in terms of content & has no real test for understanding or engagement
- Overall content needs development & enhancement
As a follow-up to selection, R&D Academy Learning Manager, Mr. David Bird, visited the offices of CommLab India on February 22, 2008 to discuss the projects awarded for the first half of 2008. The projects are:
- Legal Foundation Course for R&D
- Regulatory Course
- Information Services Course
- Issue Management Course
The courses are targeted at R&D across the 4Ds. This eLearning will be used in 2 different ways:
- within the R&D Foundation for which the audience is newcomers to R&D (up to 3 years in R&D)
- as a stand alone module for anybody within R&D wishing to get a basic appreciation of legal and how regulatory works with R&D
About Unilever
Unilever is one of the world's leading suppliers of fast moving consumer goods with strong local roots in more than 100 countries across the globe. Its portfolio includes some of the world's best known and most loved brands including twelve €1 billion brands and global leadership in many categories in which the company operates. The portfolio features brand icons such as:
Knorr, Hellmann's, Lipton, Wall's/ Ola/ Langanese, Flora/ Becel, Dove, Sunsilk/ Seda/ Sedal/ Hazeline, Rexona/ Sure, Surf and Domestos/ Glorix.
Unilever has around 174,000 employees in approaching 100 countries and generated annual sales of over €40 billion in 2007. For more information about Unilever and its brands, please visit (www.unilever.com).
About Accenture
Accenture (www.accenture.com) is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with net revenues of $15.55 billion for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2005 and with approximately 140,000 employees. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients to help them become high-performance organizations.
About CommLab India
CommLab India (www.commlabindia.com) is a Custom eLearning Solutions Company based in India. Since 2000, it has been providing state-of-the-art eLearning services to organizations across the world in the areas of Learning Consultancy, Custom Courseware and Learning Technology. Some of our reputed clients are BC Hydro, George Washington University, Kawasaki and Deloitte. We are preferred vendors to some of the Fortune 500 companies like Alcoa, Flextronics and Hill-Rom.