Succession planning and globalization are current priorities in companies. Online training can be used as a tool to help companies prepare for these concerns. Online modules not only help managers develop skills in a convenient setting, but also helps orient them to their new role. In other words, managers learn to execute—at home and abroad.

When managers participate in an online class with colleagues from around the world, strategic knowledge about what does and doesn’t work for organization change, people management, and other critical issues is generated quickly. This knowledge is valuable to managers because it provides them with the best information to perform successfully.

To generate useful and effective strategic knowledge, online learning must be designed properly. Important design elements include the following:

• A diverse audience. Enroll managers from different countries. These managers bring diverse perspectives that reflect the unique opportunities and challenges of their local environment.
• Expert instructor facilitation. Make certain that the class is facilitated by an expert instructor who helps managers learn concepts through one-on-one coaching and facilitates discussion so that managers share their own experiences and insights about how concepts apply to specific situations.
• Participant discussion. Allow managers to learn concepts by participating in discussions—based on their own schedules, providing them time to reflect and develop thoughtful comments. 
• Idea management system. Digitally record discussion comments from managers. Summarize and format information so it can be readily retrieved and used by managers as an effective management resource.

Here’s how these factors work in an actual course produced by Educasia Inc.

Each class consists of approximately 25 participants. These participants are middle managers from different countries, including the Philippines, Turkey, Malaysia, Netherlands, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Canada, Thailand, China, England, Argentina, Ukraine, Switzerland, Vietnam, Australia, and Indonesia. A screenshot of the class list is shown below.

Each participant is familiar with the company’s global strategy, mission, and values, as well as his or her local market environment. Using a template, participants are asked to develop and refine a proposal for how to arrange the company’s resources and competencies in order to discover a new business growth opportunity that makes good strategic sense.

Consider Tony from Switzerland. He develops his proposal based on the competitive strategy concepts introduced in the course (through interactive course content and customized mini-assignments submitted to the instructor) and his understanding of his local business. He submits the completed proposal to the instructor through the course platform. His specific proposal is to use his company’s logistics development and risk management competencies to build processing, storage, and distribution facilities to more effectively deliver sulfur products to customers.

The instructor’s objective is to help participants improve the logic of their proposals and facilitate participant collaboration on how to strengthen proposals, generate new ideas for business growth, and share best practices. The instructor is an outside expert who has a deep understanding of the subject matter and substantial business experience. The instructor’s familiarity with business issues motivates the participants to actively discuss organizational challenges and opportunities.

First, the instructor receives each proposal and reviews it thoroughly using an instructor guide and his or her own experience and understanding of competitive strategy. The instructor then provides feedback in the form of observations combined with questions about how each proposal might be improved. Sample feedback from the instructor:

• How sustainable is your proposed advantage? Can well financed competitors replicate this strategy easily?
• Please explain why competitor rivalry is strong. What can you do to overcome this force?

In our example, Tony receives and reviews the feedback from the instructor. He revises the proposal based on the feedback and then uploads it to the discussion board along with a brief description of what the proposal is about.

Once all of the participants’ proposals have been uploaded, the instructor posts a message providing guidance on how to analyze and critique the proposals. In this course, the instructor has encouraged participants to find information in the proposals that can be a source for revenue growth and best practices that can be used in a variety of other situations.

After participants begin posting comments about their fellow participants’ proposals, the instructor posts thoughtful follow-up comments to provide further analysis or ask a question to direct the discussion and establish key takeaways or lessons.

Participants use their new understanding of competitive strategy to analyze other participants’ proposals. For example, Tony reviews He-Leng’s proposal about the steel industry and encourages her to reexamine why buyer power is so strong.

In addition, participants use their personal work experience and knowledge of local markets to find new business opportunities in the proposals they read. Tony reads Iain’s proposal about the motor vehicle industry and provides him with several ideas for new revenue growth and best practices that might prove useful to his proposal.

Iain reads Tony’s suggestions, reflects on them, and also confers with his colleagues and managers about the applicability of Tony’s comments. He then responds to Tony’s posting, agreeing with and refuting various points. Through their collaboration, they identify a new revenue opportunity to supply a unique chemical product to tire companies in Iain’s regional area.

Participants’ managers have access to the proposals and ideas generated in the class discussion through an idea management system that is integrated into the course platform. The idea management system allows participants to publish their ideas for innovation, search and review others’ ideas, and collaborate around the ideas that have been proposed.

Managers can incorporate this information into business plans. Tony’s manager reads his proposal and is impressed with the ideas proposed. She offers some comments and sends them through the idea management system. She also forwards Tony’s proposal to another manager who may benefit by adopting aspects of Tony’s proposal. In addition, Tony’s manager can view reports on innovation activity that track and manage not only Tony’s proposal and ideas, but also those of her other reports.

Through the four design elements above, organizations can generate strategic knowledge quickly, not only in the area of competitive strategy but across multiple business and management topics. Certainly, strategic knowledge can be created through traditional classroom-based workshops, communities of practice, and other activities. However, given the speed with which a diverse class can be created and thoughtfulness with which new ideas can be generated through instructor-led online learning, this methodology deserves further exploration and investment.

Steve Choi is with Educasia Inc., provider of customized business and management training for global companies such as Bayer, Dow Corning, HP, HSBC, Hyundai Motors, Mitsubishi Corporation, NEC, Samsung, Visa International, and Volvo. Contact him at sychoi@educasiainc.com.