Plateau Systems, a leading provider of software for developing, managing and optimizing organizational skills and talent, concluded its 11th annual Insights user conference by recognizing customer organizations who demonstrated superior achievement in deploying talent management solutions. Organizations receiving 2006 Plateau Customer Excellence Awards were:
- The Walt Disney Company for Best Launch to the Organization
- The U.S. Air Force/Chenega and The Walt Disney Company for Best Business Solution
- The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) for the Best Overall Use of Product
The conference, held last week at the Disney Contemporary Resort in Orlando, brought together more than 300 Plateau customers, employees, partners and industry experts from around the world to discuss key talent management issues and trends and exchange best practices. This year's conference featured an impressive customer-focused agenda, with keynote presentations delivered by global Plateau customers including Barbara Howes, Vice President, Enterprise Learning Strategy, The Walt Disney Company; Jill Honerlaw, Program Manager for myLearning@GE; Colonel Thomas Giattino, U.S. Air Force, Chief, Aircrew Training & Standardization Division for Air Education and Training Command (AETC). Industry experts Claire Schooley, Senior Analyst in Forrester's Information Delivery Research Group, and Jason Averbook, CEO, Knowledge Infusion, presented about the requirements for next-generation workforce planning and the benefits of implementing initiatives that support a unified, holistic view of organization-wide talent.
"We are gratified that so many of our customers and partners were able to attend and participate in this year's Insights event, making it the largest user conference in the company's eleven year history," said Paul Sparta, Chairman and CEO of Plateau. "The record-breaking attendance coupled with standing-room only sessions, illustrate the momentum and demand we are seeing for solutions that help customers more effectively and strategically identify, optimize, and deploy talent within their organizations. By executing a roadmap that combines innovation with real-world application, Plateau continues to lead the market in developing flexible, intuitive talent management solutions that drive continuous ROI and deliver value to our customers."
Paul Sparta's opening keynote detailed Plateau's increased momentum, recent product announcements, geographic expansion and impressive market performance, all underscored by Gartner's positioning of Plateau as a leader in its recently published E-Learning Suites Magic Quadrant. Following Sparta's welcome, Plateau's vice president of product management, Joe Herman, provided a view into the company's aggressive roadmap, which reflects and reinforces the innovation and revolutionary thinking that has consistently defined Plateau. Shelly Heiden, EVP of Plateau's Global Operations, highlighted new service offerings designed to support customers as they develop and deploy effective talent management solutions.
In addition to more than 30 customer and partner-delivered "best-practices" presentations, attendees had the opportunity to visit several event sponsors, including Deloitte, Welocalize, WebEx, Adobe and Thomson NETg in the Partner Expo Hall.
Customer Excellence Awards
Plateau concluded the conference with a presentation of the 2006 Plateau Customer Excellence Awards, honoring customers who have demonstrated innovation and success in deploying talent management solutions. The final winners were selected by conference attendees from an impressive field that included more than 16 nominees across three categories. Plateau's top three Customer Excellence Award recipients were recognized for their extraordinary achievements in the following categories:
Best Launch to the Organization "" awarded to The Walt Disney Company, for the successful enterprise-wide launch and roll-out of its Enterprise learning platform, Disney Development Connection, to more than 135,000 employees and cast members across the organization. In evangelizing and building momentum for Disney Development Connection, The Walt Disney Company developed a creative marketing campaign focused on change management, communications, and training to raise general awareness and drive user adoption for the program.
Best Business Solution "" awarded to the U.S. Air Force/Chenega and The Walt Disney Company
In the wake of 9/11, the Control and Reporting Center (CRC) and U.S. Air Defense (ADS) missions expanded to include support for the global war on terror. To meet new requirements brought about by 9/11, CRC and ADS implemented Plateau's LMS which allowed them to achieve critical training management objectives "" from improving mission crew readiness and individual performance to providing effective, up-to-date training materials and web based access to 24/7 anytime, anywhere training, to reducing training time and costs.
The Walt Disney Company implemented Plateau to enable an automated, streamlined process for tracking Training Verification Statements. By using Plateau, the company is replacing hard-copy statements with electronic, significantly reducing the amount of time and labor required by the previous manual process. With Plateau's LMS, training administrators can run real-time reports that contain all required information. The new process will save The Walt Disney Company, on an annual basis, 400,000 "" 800,000 pieces of paper and $850,000 in labor and imaging costs alone.
Best Overall Use of Product "" awarded to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). ATF launched Plateau's LMS in June 2005 to support, track and report on every aspect of ATF training and development including, internal and external instructor-led, online, on-the-job, mandatory qualifications, self-study, exams and practical exercises for ATF's 10,000+ employees, contractors, task force officers, and ATF's external operation. To date, ATF has recorded 62,000 learning events in more then 2,700 different areas.
"These customers are clear examples of continuous excellence-in-action," said Heiden. "By innovating and executing programs that focus on investing in and maximizing talent, these visionary organizations are driving positive change and improving workforce productivity by elevating talent management to a strategic level within their organizations."
New Company Announcements
During the conference, the company announced the expansion of Plateau Global University with the addition of Plateau Blended Learning, a new training delivery model that replicates a classroom experience using interactive virtual learning technology. By expediting the delivery of complex training courses to distributed organizational users, this practical and productive approach to delivering learning simplifies training coordination, minimizes job interruption and decreases training expense for Plateau customers.
The conference also highlighted the company's debut earlier this month of iContent, a new industry paradigm for managing and delivering talent management content, and the introduction of Plateau Business Edition, the only performance management solution to combine performance and learning in a single product. Gartner's positioning of Plateau as a leader in its recently published E-Learning Suites Magic Quadrant, further demonstrate Plateau's ability to innovate and deliver services and solutions for enabling next generation talent management applications. For more information about Plateau's educational programs, please visit http://plateau.com/serve/kserve.htm. Information about Plateau iContent can be viewed at http://www.icontentportal.com
About Plateau
Plateau is a leading provider of adaptable Web-based software for developing, managing and optimizing organizational skills and talent to increase workforce productivity and business operations performance. Plateau's software is being used by some of the world's largest, most successful enterprises, including the American Red Cross, General Electric, Internal Revenue Service, and Wendy's International. Industry analysts, including Gartner, Forrester Research and Bersin & Associates, have rated Plateau a leader in functionality, technology, and customer satisfaction. The company is headquartered in Arlington, Va. For more information, please visit www.plateau.com
