Why You Need a VP of Training

Earlier this week we released our new eBook "How to Build a Customer Training Team." We covered common roles found on training teams and why each one is important.In this post, we’ll specifically discuss the Vice President (VP) of Training and why your team may need one.As the leader of the team, the VP Training is responsible for all aspects of customer education. This role might also be titled as a VP Education or as a Director/Manager depending on seniority in the company, and where training fits into the broader context of customer success, implementation, and other professional services.The VP is measured on training activity, effectiveness and satisfaction, as well as being accountable for the training P&L (profit and loss statement). He or she may have other key performance metrics such as contribution to product adoption, renewals, and customer revenue.Working closely with other revenue-generating teams, the VP needs to identify strategic training needs and demonstrate contribution to overall business goals. Many training teams choose to offer paid training as a way to clearly recoup the direct costs associated with running a training organization. The VP must also lead decisions on delivery options, in-house vs. outsourced strategies, and international support, all while managing against corporate objectives.Larger training organizations have additional managers to assist the VP Training. Common Training Manager program areas including leading all eLearning or ILT/VILT, managing curriculum and content development, or responsibility for specific geographies and partners.Job requirements for the VP Training include:

• Lead and develop highly competent team (direct, contract, partner) to deliver training products (ILT, VILT, eLearning) to ensure high competence for customers and partners with the company’s products and services
• Develop and execute a strategic plan, comprehensive curriculum, and effectiveness assessments for all training programs
• Be creative about innovative ways to deliver training content and drive customer engagement - i.e., via hands-on experiential learning, video, and social media
• Be a product expert and go-to leader regarding all new feature releases and customer-facing impacts while also providing feedback to sales, customer success, and engineering teams
• Ability to understand a complex business, different audience perspectives and growth levers in order to formulate sound marketing and execution strategies via customer training that maximize business impact.

“My mandate is to drive customer success and adoption of the software through enablement. My team is responsible for defining the portfolio (this includes education in all forms), ensuring content is developed on time and to our standards, defining our global go-to-market strategy, defining our delivery strategy (partner vs. employee trainers), onboarding and enablement of trainers (partners and employees), and quality monitoring.”- Paul Sochan, Sr. Director, Global Education Services, Tableau

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