Per NelsonHall’s learning BPO market analysis and concurrent client interviews conducted as part of the NelsonHall Evaluation and Assessment Tool (NEAT), both providers and buyers (current and prospective), will be pleased to know that learning BPO is largely meeting and exceeding client expected benefits in six out of seven criteria sought by clients.

Based on interviews with LBPO clients across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, below is a summation of potential benefits, their immediate importance, client satisfaction, the delta of the aforementioned, and future importance:

Based on the above data, in terms of current importance, vendors are meeting and exceeding client expectations except for measuring learning effectiveness & analytics. Measuring learning effectiveness and analytics increases in future importance for a delta of -15% from current levels of satisfaction & should be a top priority of vendors.

Areas where vendors are doing well and should continue strong emphasis include:

• Linking learning to talent management, which needs to continue as an area of focus as future importance increases 9%
• Employee self-service, which increases in importance 10% for a delta of -7% from current satisfaction levels
• Cost savings, though strong in satisfaction, continues to be a high priority.

The LBPO tool is available to NelsonHall clients at http://research.nelson-hall.com/sourcing-expertise/hr-outsourcing/ and is also available for a limited period free-of-charge to strategic sourcing managers. The tool covers a number of learning business situations including organizations seeking talent development, learning process transformation, cost reduction and multi-country learning.

Twenty-one LBPO vendors are included in NEAT for NelsonHall’s “speed-to-source” initiative.  The NEAT tool sits at the front-end of the vendor screening process and consists of a two-axis model: assessing vendors against their “ability to deliver immediate benefit” to buy-side organizations and their “ability to meet client future requirements”.

The NEAT analyses themselves are based on a combination of vendor and client interviews. The vendors are scored against a wide range of criteria, establishing a number of scenarios, each with different weightings to represent a different business situation or client business need.

To add further value in speeding up the sourcing process clients are able to input their own weightings and tailor the tool to their requirements. So they might say:  “This set of weightings for this business need looks about right to me but I want to place more emphasis here". With this interactive tool, they can tailor the weightings to meet their own specific sourcing requirements.