Reverse Auction Cuts Training Cost

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February 28, 2000 A new reverse-auction service offered on a training portal could lower customers' costs by as much as one-third, observers said.
RFP Exchange, launched earlier this month by TrainingNet Inc. in Billerica, Mass., functions like an online matchmaking service for buyers seeking training solutions. Using RFP Exchange, users can specify training requirements, such as how many people need to be trained and their budgets and schedules. Within a day or two, the user receives a list of vendors that matches his criteria with a comparison of vendors' prices and features.
Harold Cypress, national director for knowledge delivery at San Francisco-based Deloitte & Touche, said this kind of reverse-auction service could save him the several days it normally takes to identify and contact training vendors individually.
Over time, RFP Exchange may cut the cost of acquiring and identifying training vendors by as much as one-third, as vendors lower their costs to compete, Cypress said. He acknowledged that commodity products such as training videos and CD-ROMs will be more affected in price than training consulting services. Cypress used TrainingNet two months ago to develop an electronic-business curriculum for 1,600 Deloitte & Touche consultants.
Cushing Anderson, an analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass., said that while reverse auctions have emerged in other industries, it was a new development for the training market.
Clark Aldrich, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Group Inc., said he expects this type of matching service to heighten competition in the training industry and to "increase pressure on vendors to differentiate (products) significantly enough to create brand loyalty."

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