April/May 2002

CT Business Magazine
mPowerU: A Portal to Learning
By Sue Cornell

In March, DeSai Learning of West Hartford introduced mPowerU, a free access, employee benefit learning program developed to meet the learning needs of small to medium size businesses.

The mPowerU program offers supervisors and their employees single source Internet access to the firm's LeaPNet catalog of regional learning possibilities.

"mPowerU reduces total training expense, while providing easy access to a variety of online and classroom courses, consultative services, seminars, books, CDs and videos," says President and CEO, Jatin DeSai. Additionally, mPowerU manages continuing education credits and licenses for insurance and financial services professionals.

DeSai finds that small to medium businesses in Connecticut compose the largest segment of the business community that appears to be losing the competitive edge.

"If small to medium businesses don't prepare themselves, they will be at high risk," he said. "For me, it has become an issue of how to help these businesses retain and attract a good staff in an expeditious way."

DeSai observes that mPowerU is a facilitator a virtual mentor that brings managernent of small and medium size businesses together with the nation's leading learning content providers. In the past, the heads of many businesses encountered difficulty sourcing learning resources that offered both quality and affordability.

The mPowerU product serves to alleviate that problem. "In a nutshell," said DeSai, "mPowerU has been designed to serve as the learning portal for Connecticut businesses. That's the vision."

Managing Learning Internally

Stephen Urban, director of learning and development, U.S., for Alstorn Power, a DeSai client, said, "Because we're such a large company (143,000 employees), we needed to deal with someone who could deal with us locally. We needed mPowerU because it is geared toward smaller companies." Urban added, "We work with DeSai because of their customer focus and ability to work within the scope of our needs. They even went to Paris (Alstom world headquarters) with us.

"We see it as a tool to manage our learning internally. For us, it's specific training that can be delivered to meet specific needs of the business. We don't have to create anything ourselves through an IT group," he continued. "DeSai wants to make sure that what you're doing is valuable to you. It's a partnership."

DeSai Systems, Inc.

DeSai Learning's corporate parent, DeSai Systems, Inc., is a leader in maximizing business processes through strategic consulting, application development services, education and enterprise computing solutions.

DeSai Learning (www.desai.com) is a technology based education resource a corporate university system, so to speak - that supports high performance, enterprise-wide learning to achieve business objectives.

DeSai's learning management system creates an environment that matches learning to employee job roles and skill needs. The solution provides convenient access to standard or customized, cost effective learning to drive business.

Desai Learning customers are Global 2000 companies, including insurance, information technology, financial services, manufacturing, and services sectors.

The cornpany's expertise for outsourced training management services has enabled clients in a variety of situations, including team building, leadership improvement, sales and sales management, finance, customer service, project management, engineering, and technology.

Three types of corporate university systems are offered; each differs in levels of customization and support.

The Corporate University supports all learning management requirements including catalog search. registrations, approval, invoicing, learning plans, technical support, and client contributions.

The Corporate College, a business or functional area focused learning university.

"mPowerU" a regional, employee-benefit focused online corporate university.

LeaPNet Learning Provider Network

In October 2001, DeSai Learning introduced LeaPNet, a consortium of training and learning resources for growth businesses. LeaPNet is an integral element of Enterprise Learning Resource Planning (ELRP) that helps align employee, vendor and customer learning with business objectives.

LeaPNet, an established buying consortium with more than 160 training content providers, covers more than 60 subject areas, including networking, software productivity tools, customer service, operating systems, and management and communication. Volume buying power attained through the consortium ensures that DeSai clients purchase training events at the lowest price.

"LeaPNet learning events are provided by a variety of well known local, regional and national training providers, including UConn, Rensselaer, CESC (formerly IKON), Key Logic, and CBIA," says John Mele, director of LeaPNet Services.

"By establishing a consortium of learning providers, DeSai is able to offer discounts on most mPowerU learning events to member companies. LeaPNet has more than 3,000 learning events including business, technical, personal, and wellness topics."

Published with permission of CT Business Magazine: April/May 2002 (Page 83)