The Corporate Learning Function’s Target Market
How does a Corporate Learning Function (CLF) understand and segment its market? How does it interface with the various businesses and functions and connect with individual learners and their managers? How are learning needs identified and anticipated, top-down and bottom-up, and how quickly does the CLF respond to new or emerging needs?
The Corporate Learning Function’s Target Market
The Corporate Learning Function’s Target Market is the second of five chapters of EFMD’s CLIP framework for excellence in corporate learning.
Once the CLF has formalised how it will contribute to the organisation’s goals and priorities, it needs to define what workforce segments it needs to target to do so. In other words, what is its Target Market? This chapter looks at the target market’s scope and segments, how the CLF connects with them and the integration of the CLF with the business.
Effective connections with the business and individual learners should enable the identification of current and future learning needs and the swift adjustment of services and programmes to evolving needs. Managers of learners should reinforce the learning by facilitating the application of new knowledge and skills. Adequate digital tools and communication should support the engagement of learners.
The CLF should mobilise a wide variety of resources from the business to ground its services and activities in business reality. This should include external resources able to provide thought leadership and expertise of international standard. When there are other learning teams within the organisation, the CLF should ensure clarity about their respective roles.
Market segmentation
There are many criteria to segment a CLF’s market, such as organisational structure (divisions, regions, external), seniority, talent status (new joiner, newly promoted, high potential etc.), job family, reskilling requirements etc. Having a clear and simple segmentation logic anchored in the CLF’s strategy is essential for effective coverage and penetration of the CLF’s target market, to be discussed in the following chapters.
For more information, visit CLIP – EFMD Global.
Comparing the time the Corporate Learning Function spends on each of their target market segments, to the importance those people play within the execution of the Organization’s strategy, is a good test to see how aligned the Corporate Learning Functions actions are to the Organization’s strategy. I often found that doing this exercise helps to adjust the projects and work loads of the Learning Team – ensuring that everyone is focusing on the important as well as the urgent.