Benchmarking

It is important to benchmark the e-learning system that we are proposing for Canro Exports

against the systems that the competitors use. Competition occurs among organizations that

produce products that have similar attributes. The main competition for Canro brand is the

brands which are currently dealing in the local coir fiber market. Heyleys, Vo Lanka, are the

main competitors for Canro while Musajee, Jafferjee and Manisha are also considered

competitors in the market. What should be noted here is the fact that many of these companies do

not even have a website Canro has the completive advantage of having a well developed website

where anyone can access information on the company and get into business.

Every company has their own health and safety systems and most of them are manual. But the

question is, does everybody aware of company health and safety policy clearly and do they know

what they have to do in case of an emergency. Therefore in order to avoid such circumstances

and also to reduce the large amount of money require to incur to train employees personally, this

proposed e-learning system will help to reduce cost of training and save the time to the company.

This will also be a competitive advantage over the rivals in the industry since Canro will be the

first company to use an e-learning system which will ultimately help the company to achieve

company goal and objectives while gaining above average returns.

Proposed E-Learning software The health and safety is a concern for the company which needs to be addressed. It was noted in

the visit to the factory that all though the people are provided with the necessary equipments

such as mask and gloves very few people use it. It is recommended that more of the staff are

given awareness and encouraged to use the necessary protection in order to safe guard them from

injuries that could potentially arise.

Therefore proposed e-learning system will be designed according to company’s health and safety

policy for all staff members. At the end of every learning module they will have to acknowledge

and do a test in order to assess the understanding of policies. We will be using Wide Area Net

work (WAN) to set up the new intranet, where the company staff can access the online portal to

do online e-learning modules, access information about health and safety policy etc. The system

will give access to the staff in two different ways which are manager mode and learner mode.

Learner mode will give the access to the current employees to login or register as a new user to

access the intranet and do e-learning modules, contact HR department or to access information

about company health and safety policy. Managers’ login will have the authority to assign

modules to the employees, review the understanding of employees with the test results, grade

them and give feedback for required areas or queries. The IT staff will have the access to all the

functional areas of the system and their duty would be to maintain, update, develop the system

and have a firewall system to safeguard the intranet from hacking, spamming or from

malfunctioning. This system will be mainly directed towards the health and safety of staff, so

that they can effectively learn the company health and safety policies. Therefore this system will

mainly include training materials in multimedia formats like video clips, audio files and images

to show necessary diagrams, charts etc.

Below ERD(Entity Relationship Diagrams) will give an over view how authorization is given to

different levels of staff.

Entity–relationship diagram

Uniqueness about the new system

a) Compared to some of the available e-learning solutions in other companies, this is a a highly

user friendly system, as it could even be used by people with little or no experience in IT.

b) The management of Canro will have the privilege of having a tight control over the training

program as this software contains an advanced reporting and tracking system. For example, you

will be able to identify specific areas which the employees are underperforming based on the

test results and try to improve on those areas.

c) The system can be customized to support multiple user roles based on their job roles.

d) In case of a system failure, you will be able to obtain professional online support on all business

days.

System Requirements

When purchasing new computers, it is important to make sure that they meet the following

system requirements.

1. Windows OS (Vista, 7)

2. 512MB RAM

3. 400 MB free disk space

4. Internet Access with Mozila Firefox

5. Sounds-Head phones

Barriers to implement the e-learning. One of the main limitations of implanting an e-learning system is the higher initial cost

that an organization has to bear. Canro would have to spend c as initial cost and the

Computers that would account for 67% of that amount. The cost-benefit would depend on

the number of users that is going to use this system. On the other hand, since the e-

learning system wouldn’t be generating any direct cash revenues the management might

get discouraged and vacillate between whether to go ahead with the project or not.

A cost benefit analysis could be utilized to measure the cost effectiveness of the system

through calculating the profit that could be generated through cost minimization as

mentioned in the financial analysis part. What the management should comprehend here

is the focal point of implementing an e-learning system is not only to generate profit

through cost minimization; but to help the organization to enhance its performance and as

a result generate higher profits in the longer run. Hence, if they are willing to take a

challenge to undertake this project this would provide more return in economic sense in

the long run.

The resistance to change can be seen among employees in every organization; especially

if the change is associated with new technology. Hence the employees might have

converse ideas about the system and detest its implementation. But in order to make this

project a success, Canro needs the countenance of its employees or otherwise it would be

a total failure.

By conducting a workshop or a 2 weeks training program for the intial staff, Canro can

educate its employees about its new e-learning system and the future benefits both the

company and the employees would get by implementing it. Therefore we will be using

less complicated and user friendly software that can be easily deployed.

The effectiveness of this system largely depends on the user’s ability to interpret the

learning materials and understanding of it. Therefore this system will provide hands on

experience to the staff and the employees to properly understand to get use to make use

of the system.

Since the software can be customized according to the needs of the customer, we can get

it customized to match their training needs. Rather than bombarding the software with

written instructions, we will be using video demonstrations to train its employees. In

order to maintain a proper flow of communication between the management and the

employees, the system will have a separate window to post their questions and clarify

their doubts.