Innovatia Training Blog

The conference kicked off on Monday morning with a great presentation from Chris McGugan, the Avaya VP and General Manager for Emerging Products and Technology. Chris discussed Avaya leading in times of change and how that will impact the customer experience through Contact Centers. This discussion tied in closely with the Innovatia presentation topic (provided by Director of Major Accounts, Rob Keefe)of “Technical Support on Their Terms”, which covered how end users are changing the support model requirements. Exciting times ahead in the world of Customer Experience Management!

The Innovatia team had the opportunity to introduce the new Innovatia logo and booth at the conference. We had a lot of complements on both, with an overall response of a feeling of fresh and new. This is fantastic feedback as our logo is meant to help demonstrate Innovatia’s position as leader in innovative, transformative knowledge management solutions.

On the morning of day 3, the Avaya Learning team spent several hours with the Authorized Avaya Learning Partners, and the business partners, reviewing current initiatives around the training business. There will be growth in training delivery options, which included a demo of AvayaLive Engage. If you haven’t yet had a chance to check out the Avaya virtual training environment, have a look here http://www.avaya.com/usa/product/avayalive-engage

Happy Birthday to Janice Hendsbee, one of our many values clients! We surprised her with a cake and had a Happy Birthday sing-a-long!

Tina Melvin
Product Manager – Training 

We’ve been doing a lot of industry research, but more importantly listening closely to our customers! It’s become clear that whether the knowledge contribution is Technical Support, Technical Documentation, or Technical Training, it’s all the same information; it’s just used in different ways. Keeping this information current, relevant, and in an efficient manner is going to continue to play a crucial part of the training equation.

As technical products become more complex and information grows in both volume and speed, training is no longer one-size-fits-all. Every day, we’re faced with:

• Shrinking budgets
• Remote employees
• Productivity and quality management issues
• Technicians being forced to maintain knowledge across many different product lines, sacrificing expertise

The training industry needs to adapt to meet the needs of students and provide module-based learning to give the answers when and where they’re needed.

Innovatia creates effective solutions that tap into the latest technology, techniques, and approaches to provide you with training solutions that deliver business results. They drive performance and maximize productivity using our suite of custom training solutions.

If you have any questions on how your business can achieve its training goals, please don’t hesitate to ask. You may also be interested in our new Avaya offer which can help you stretch your training budget even further!

I look forward to working with you soon!

Tina Melvin
Product Manager – Training

Skills-Gap Analysis helps you get maximum value and benefits from your training, and ensures that your management team and staff are developed in all of the areas key to success. An analysis of your skills will help to identify ‘what’s missing’ in your team’s performance and knowledge, and where training and development can help fill those gaps.

In order for this to be done correctly, a Skills Gap Analysis must begin with a true understanding of where a company is going and what skills are required to get there. The four step process involves:
<ul>
<li><strong>Assessing</strong> company</li>
<li><strong>Generating gaps</strong> and reviewing with your upper management</li>
<li><strong>Prioritizing gaps</strong> and developing an action plan, and</li>
<li><strong>Monitoring</strong> the plan</li>
</ul>
At Innovatia, we help our clients identify these gaps every day. We move quickly, zoning-in on the problem and offering smart solutions to help your team maintain customer satisfaction, keep support costs in check, and protect your brand. Identifying employees’ training needs and how to achieve them helps your managers to plan, manage schedules, and maintain budgets. With targeted training, you’ll see a boost in employees’ job satisfaction, human resources becomes more optimized, and production levels are likely to improve.

Have you had experience in identifying the skills gaps within your organization? How did you achieve your goals? Comment below! And if you need an analysis within your organization, and don’t have the first clue where to begin, give us a call – we’re here to help.

<strong>Tara Cameron
</strong><strong>Support Coordinator, Training</strong>

Day 2 at the Avaya Partner Community Council (PCC) Conference, and we’ve already met a number of Avaya Partners and Vendors visiting our booth and at the information sessions. Avaya and their partners have shared a wealth of information about the incredible advances in their products and services, as well as insight into what the future will bring.

Our focus is to align ourselves with the Avaya vision and move forward with this in mind throughout all of our areas including eLearning, Documentation and Technical Support. We look forward to working with Avaya and their Partners to provide value add to our customers as we strive for the future utopia.

Tina Melvin

Innovatia is at the Avaya PCC Partner Community Council conference this week in Chantilly, VA! This year, we’re going for gold by becoming a gold-level sponsor for the event. It’s a great way for us to connect with the Avaya community, gain new insights and share what we have to offer. We’ve got our trade show booth open and ready to showcase our latest products and services including E-Learning solutions, Documentation services and Technical Support Services.

I will be presenting to Executives, Partners, Vendors and Customers at the conference. The topic? “New Approaches to the customer experience” which will outline Industry trends in Knowledge Management, how Innovatia understands future trends, and how we are applying our business models to meet these trends. This talk aligns nicely with Avaya’s direction of Collaboration and “People First” technology. Avaya’s belief that technology should be focused on anytime, anywhere collaboration fits well with what we strive to offer our clients every day.

We’d love to hear from you! Stop by the Innovatia booth, visit Brad White – Director of Technical Support Services and I, and pick up some information on the latest Innovatia has to offer. Innovatia is a preferred vendor of Avaya and a proud sponsor for their partner conference.

Tina Melvin
Product Manager, Training

At first glance, your reaction to the title of this blog entry may be “So what?”.  On the surface, this doesn’t sound like much of an accomplishment. But when you pull back the curtain, there’s much more than meets the eye.

Preparing a quarterly schedule takes several weeks and involves input from every member of our Account Management and Operations team. Some considerations include:

• What requests do we have pending from our customers?
• Where is the best location to hold the training?
• Which weeks are already reserved for non-public classes?
• Are there weeks instructors are not available due to cross training, vacation, et cetera?
• Do holidays present travel challenges and/or render some weeks unfit for a 5 day class?
• How about logistics – can we reasonably transport equipment to the training site in time to support delivery?
• Does the schedule leave room for short interval requests from our customers?

Inevitably, it seems we field multiple requests to hold the same class on the same dates. When this happens, we are vying for identical instructors and equipment resources. This results in a lot of back-and-forth negotiating, strategizing, teeth-gnashing and hair-pulling. (Note to readers whom I have not met in person: Hair-pulling is something I can ill afford to do – I have to vigorously defend the little bit I have left!). But at the end of the day, we ALWAYS find a way to meet our customers’ needs.

No discussion of schedules is complete without mention of Jill Erb – our Master Scheduler Extraordinaire. Jill takes all of the requests, lines-up the resources to support them and somehow miraculously makes it all work. Here’s a tip-of-the-hat to an amazing friend and colleague!

Do you have any questions about course scheduling? We’d love to hear from you so please comment below! Also, stay tuned to our online course catalogue for the latest training courses into 2012.

David Kurtz
Senior Account Manager – Training

Innovatia was fortunate enough to attend the Contact Center New Brunswick event from November 2-3. My colleague, Nira MacRae-Kindred, and I worked the Innovatia booth in the exhibit area where we had the opportunity to meet a number of individuals we have had the pleasure of speaking with over the last few months; it was nice to put a face to a name!

While we made it to the daytime event, we missed the much talked about evening dinner. The entertainment was a hypnotist which we heard was fun and hilarious – right Mike Bacon?

Nira will be making follow up calls to all the friendly folks we had a chance to meet. There was lots of interest in Innovatia’s training portfolio, specifically the self-paced content, which is ideal for a Contact Center environment.

Keep in touch with what’s going on in the Contact Center industry in New Brunswick, www.contactnb.ca.

Tina Melvin
Product Manager – Training

Next week a handful of us from Innovatia will be heading off to Fredericton, NB to attend the ContactNB conference – Contact Atlantic 2011. This event is always so well attended every year, and only continues to get better and better. The agenda is jam packed with some very good speakers, as well as some great information sessions. I’m especially looking forward to hearing our keynote speaker Bernard Lord, as well as Jeff Roach from Sociallogical.

In addition to attending, Innovatia will also have a booth this year promoting our Contact Center training portfolio – drop by and say hello!

Tina Melvin
Product Manager – Training

It is the first day of the Partner Community Council (PCC) Conference, and what a great start! The Avaya Services Vice President, Mary Ann Littler, gave a fantastic overview this morning of the Avaya Client Services Portfolio. Attendees had a view into the roadmap and strategy for end-to-end collaboration services that is provided by Avaya Authorized Partners.

There are some interesting new offerings within the Professional Service, Support Service, and Managed Service Portfolios. One item that stands out for me is the built in diagnostic capabilities that is being installed up front in design and implementation of new networks. This will enable a more proactive approach to product support. Considering all the complexities in today’s networks, this is a great approach to being a leader in client satisfaction, which is number one priority for Avaya.

We are heading out for dinner with a few clients this evening. I hope to get a glimpse of the Parliament Building lit up at night!

Tina Melvin
Product Manager – Training