Return on Learning: Training for High Performance at Accenture

From one of the world's best-known corporations comes this in-depth, inside story of how Accenture revitalized its fabled corporate training organization in the midst of worldwide economic downturn and major marketplace change. The company did so by focusing on the "return on learning": how Accenture's investments in learning and knowledge management could be planned and managed to deliver measurable business advantage.

Like most corporations at the turn of the millennium, Accenture was dealing with business, economic, and operational changes that were profoundly affecting its internationally renowned internal training program, which shapes and supports the work of its more than 126,000 employees in 48 countries. Within a few short years, Accenture reinvented its training and development capabilities through effective planning and governance, strong leadership, groundbreaking ROI methods, operational rigor, and the application of advanced technologies, as well as what the company's learning team dubbed "phenomenal learning." The result: better learning programs with measurably greater business impact at less cost.

The Accenture veterans who tell this story take readers deep inside Accenture's operations and decision making, so other professionals and companies can benefit from these experiences in using training to achieve high performance.

Donald Vanthournout is chief learning officer at Accenture. Kurt Olson, John Ceisel, Andrew White, Tad Waddington, Thomas Barfield, Samir Desai, and Craig Mindrum are all with Accenture.