Mobile talent training 'game-changer'

A participant holds up her hand to answer questions during the ASTD 2013 China Summit held in Beijing, Dec 3, 2013. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

As winning the war on talents has emerged as a factor in determining which companies stand out in the marketplace, smart corporate trainers are now moving their talent training from traditional classrooms to mobile devices.

"The move to technology-enabled learning, such as mobile learning and social learning is a trend," said Tony Bingham, president and chief executive officer of ASTD, the world's largest association dedicated to the training and development profession.

"It speeds the learning distribution, the efficiency, the effectiveness of learning," he added. "And it shifts the model from the professional trainer being the only one who can train in an organization to one where everyone is considered a trainer. That changes the game."

The shift came as technologies, together with the increasing penetration rate of smartphones in China, both can act as big enablers to drive up the corporate training industry in the country.

According to industry insiders, by the third quarter of 2013 China accounted for nearly 40 percent of the global smartphone market.

Tony Bingham, president and chief executive officer of ASTD, the world's largest association dedicated to the training and development profession. [Photo by He Yini / chinadaily.com.cn]

IDC, a US-headquartered consultancy, predicted China's smartphone shipments will exceed 450 million by 2014, spurred by the information and communication technologies including cloud computing, big data and the 4G networks.

Earlier this month China granted high-speed fourth-generation (4G) licenses to the country's top three telecom carriers - China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom.

The coverage of 4G services will extend to 16 cities by the end of this year, according to China Mobile, the country's largest telecom carrier by subscribers. And that number will reach 340 cities in the world's second largest economy during 2014.

"There are 7.1 billion people in the world, and there's 7 billion plus mobile activations," said Bingham. "And that's a huge opportunity for the entire (training) field and for organizations as a whole."

Chinese companies have been stepping up efforts to create an effective learning environment, and invest in a more rigorous approach to train and develop their employees, in a bid to attract and retain talents from home and abroad.