SkillSoft Announces Perspectives 2010 Award Winners

SkillSoft PLC (Nasdaq: SKIL), a leading SaaS provider of e-learning and performance support solutions for global enterprises, government, education and small to medium-sized businesses, today announced the winners of its Perspectives 2010 Industry Awards at its annual user conference being held this week in Orlando. Winners are from a wide range of industries and were honored for various learning programs, such as Dunkin’ Brands successful use of custom SkillSoft courses to provide more efficient training and Fluor’s creation of an online university for global employees.

The awards were judged by a panel of industry experts, including: Mollie Lombardi and Kevin Martin of Aberdeen; Claire Schooley of Forrester Research; Josh Bersin of Bersin & Associates; Tim Martin of eLearning Guild; Mike Prokopeak of CLO; Jerry Roche and Catherine Upton of Elearning! Magazine; and Sally Hovis, SkillSoft’s vice president of learning design.

Perspectives 2010 brings together learning professionals and practitioners across business, government and academia to discuss best practices and trends within the technology-enabled learning industry. SkillSoft annually honors several companies for their notable efforts in e-learning, recognizing innovative ideas and inspiring leaders who are helping to transform the learning landscape.

“Each award recipient has been able to take their e-learning programs to the next level, dramatically improving their organization’s performance with innovative technology solutions for enhanced workplace training and education,” said Jerry Nine, COO of SkillSoft. “We’re excited to honor the achievements of these innovative companies that have not only established best-in-class learning environments, but also aligned learning with their businesses’ strategic priorities.”

The Perspectives 2010 Industry Award Winners are:

• Learning in Emerging Business Achievement Award: Hitachi Consulting Corporation, a global IT consulting company with deep industry knowledge and technology experience, worked with SkillSoft’s custom development team to create a comprehensive online learning program. Designed to keep its global staff updated on Hitachi Consulting’s proprietary project management methodology, the custom online courseware gave employees the flexibility to participate between client engagements and helped reduce overall training costs, while ensuring consistent content and messaging was disseminated.
• Best Technical Training: Recognized in this new category, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) demonstrated the best IT training solution with U-Learn, the Laboratory’s branded online learning center. LLNL, a premier applied science laboratory that is part of the National Nuclear Security Administration within the Department of Energy, leverages a suite of SkillSoft products to offer multi-faceted and multi-modal learning resources to a dynamic scientific and technical community. SkillSoft resources are at the core of this blended learning approach, and coupled with the Laboratory’s instructor-led training activities, are integrated with other modalities and are packaged and offered through U-Learn. The program uses a variety of learning tools including knowledge centers, Live Learning courses, instructor-led training, online courses, videos and books, that provides a tailored and cost-effective learning solution to meet strategic business initiatives such as Microsoft Certifications, Six Sigma, and ITIL.
• Integrating Learning into the Life of the Enterprise: NASCO quickly built momentum for its learning program that started in 2006 and was first geared toward instructor-led courses – an often costly investment. At that time, NASCO and SkillSoft partnered with two core goals: shift NASCO’s cultural expectations and understanding of contemporary learning programs from a single-mode model to a rich, blended model; and effectively scale learning to reach more people and target more key jobs/skills, while delivering ROI. NASCO is honored for implementing a just-in-time learning program using SkillSoft’s online courses, job aids, reference books and materials, simulations, and SkillSoft’s new social learning platform, inGenius.
• Custom Award: With more than 15,000 Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins franchised restaurants in 45 countries worldwide, Dunkin’ Brands is renowned for its leadership in the quick quality category. Learning is a key focus to ensure consistency and Dunkin’ Brands is recognized for its efforts to develop an extensive and comprehensive series of performance-based courses focused on crew members, restaurant management and network trainers using SkillSoft KnowledgeCenters. The custom online courses provide the ability to adjust course content and format based on learners’ results, and have therefore provided significant cost savings and increased efficiencies.
• Public Sector Excellence in Learning: Designed to meet the needs of today’s armed forces, the U.S. Army developed always-available online training courseware with SkillSoft. Through this program, the Army now provides access to a range of Web-based learning tools, including more than 5,000 courses and more than 16,000 resources through Books24x7, to help our armed forces better prepare and develop the skills needed to seek out job opportunities following active duty.
• Learning Professional of the Year: Lynn Monkelien, Avnet’s vice president of learning and talent development, was recognized for her vision and ability to develop an organization that is responsive, agile, transparent, and accountable to the businesses and functions it supports. Using an innovative approach to learning, she gained strong support from Avnet’s executive team and transformed the company’s approach to learning with a focus on the customer and process excellence.
• Program of the Year: Fluor, a FORTUNE 500 company that delivers engineering, procurement, construction, maintenance, and project management services to clients around the world, made training a focus since first implementing SkillSoft courses in 1999. The value of these courses was further leveraged with the formation of Fluor University in 2008. The university utilizes SkillSoft’s SkillPort learning management system to further their learning initiatives and deliver one-stop online training resources for employees.

About SkillSoft

SkillSoft PLC (Nasdaq: SKIL) is a leading SaaS provider of on-demand e-learning and performance support solutions for global enterprises, government, education and small to medium-sized businesses. SkillSoft enables business organizations to maximize business performance through a combination of comprehensive e- learning content, online information resources, flexible learning technologies and support services. SkillSoft is on the web at http://www.skillsoft.com.

Content offerings include business, IT, desktop, compliance and consumer/SMB courseware collections, as well as complementary content assets such as Leadership Development Channel video products, KnowledgeCenter(TM) portals, virtual instructor-led training services and online mentoring services. SkillSoft's Books24x7(R) product offering includes access to more than 25,000 digitized IT and business books, as well as book summaries and executive reports. Technology offerings include the SkillPort(R) learning management system, Search-and-Learn(R), SkillSoft(R) Dialogue(TM), inGenius™ and virtual classroom.

SkillSoft courseware content described herein is for information purposes only and is subject to change without notice. SkillSoft has no obligation or commitment to develop or deliver any future release, upgrade, feature, enhancement or function described in this press release except as specifically set forth in a written agreement.

SkillSoft, the SkillSoft logo, SkillPort, Search-and-Learn, SkillChoice, Books24x7, ITPro, BusinessPro, OfficeEssentials, GovEssentials, EngineeringPro, FinancePro, AnalystPerspectives, ExecSummaries, ExecBlueprints, Express Guide, Dialogue and inGenius are trademarks or registered trademarks of SkillSoft PLC in the United States and certain other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners, countries.