New Team Offers Tech Training For Online Users

<B> New Team Offers Tech Training For Online Users</B>

Consultant Ralph Brown is teaming with a unit of national corporate training firm Sylvan Learning Centers to offer corporations employee training on the use of automated booking and expense reporting systems.

Working with Sylvan's Pace Group in Glen Ellyn, Ill., a unit that develops custom training modules for corporations, Brown has helped develop shell programs on electronic travel solutions that can be customized according to a corporation's needs.

"To date, there is no professional resource" to help corporations conduct mass training on new travel technologies, said Brown, president of R.D. Brown Consulting of South Elgin, Ill. "The Sylvan people can train 1,500 people around the country at one time." The company offers 1,300 training centers and more than 50 multimedia distance learning centers, and frequently trains employees at client sites as well.

Brown said that often, after he helped clients select travel technology, they asked for assistance with implementation as well. One client had three employees spend a year training its travelers on how to use a new expense reporting package.

Early adopters of automated booking systems are documenting lower ticket prices as a result of such systems, Brown said. When given timely information on fare options, employees are selecting low fares. But to drive those savings, corporations have to figure out how to entice more travelers to use the systems.