It is worth taking a more wide-reaching view of the benefits of e-learning. Sometimes it can work as a springboard to the introduction of a more extensive concept. The Valio Gefilus product school succeeded in encouraging a whole host of new users to visit the www.valiokanava.fi web service, which targets Valio's food, nutrition and healthcare professionals.
Measured by turnover, Valio Oy is Finland’s largest food sector and milk processing company. Valio receives 85% of all the milk delivered to Finnish dairies. Almost one third of the company turnover is generated by international business. In Finland, Valio is the market leader in all key dairy products and a global trailblazer in the development of products that are beneficial to health.
Valio’s Gefilus® products are health-inducing food products for daily consumption. Clinical trials indicate that they are beneficial to health. They have been proven to reinforce natural resistance and maintain well-being.
The first Valio Gefilus® products were launched onto the markets in 1990. The current product range includes yoghurts, sour milks, milks, energy drinks, juices, fruit soups, cheese and capsules.
The Valio Gefilus e–learning school
Valio and Prewise collaborated to create the 20 minute Valio Gefilus e-learning course, which was launched on the Valiokanava (Valio Channel) in September 2006.
- The core objective of the Valio Gefilus® e-learning course was to communicate to experts the various situations in which Gefilus products can be recommended to customers. Through the training we wanted to educate experts about the ways in which natural resistance builds up and how it can be influenced and boosted by LGG® lactic acid bacteria, explains Pauliina Pietilä, nutritionist with Valio Oy.
- We ended up exploiting the e-learning solution, because we were curious about trying out this new communication method to spread information about the Gefilus product family and the LGG® lactic acid bacterium, on which it is founded and which is the most researched bacterium in the world. We were also looking for interesting content and a kind of springboard for our new web service, the Valiokanava, aimed at experts in the field, says Pauliina Pietilä.
The Valiokanava is an interactive tool, accessible on the web 24 hours a day, and used by Valio commerce, the customers in the Food Service (industrial kitchens) and foodstuffs sector as well as specialists working in food, nutrition and healthcare sectors.
The Valio Gefilus® e-learning course served to promote the new www.valiokanava.fi service and develop it into the most important information and training channel that experts in the field can use.
Effective overall process
The Valio Gefilus® e-learning course was implemented using the tools of the Prewise Gimlet LMS e-learning environment. It was then integrated into the Valio Channel.
Because www.valiokanava.fi is an Internet service targeting professionals, it requires user registration. The users of Valiokanava had access to the Valio Gefilus® e-learning course without registration. On the basis of their Valiokanava user profile data, the users were automatically guided to the appropriate study group in the Valio Gefilus® e-learning environment.
Prewise compiled numerical feedback on the performance of the students who completed the Valio Gefilus® e-learning course. The open feedback received from the students, however, was directed to www.valiokanava.fi because the company wanted to respond instantly to any queries that the students might have.
- We wanted to introduce the students to the feedback system contained in Valiokanava, because we wish to highlight its use in the future. The numerical feedback, on the other hand, was for the purpose of getting quick feedback on the success of the e-learning course, and this was achieved, explains a happy Pauliina Pietilä.
The e-learning course brings new users to the Valiokanava
- With the Valio Gefilus® e-learning course, we wanted to increase experts’ levels of knowledge. So far, we have not been able to measure this, but we are very happy with the numbers of people who have completed the course. Completions amount to 16% of those registered with the service at the time. We have also received additional queries and feedback on both course content and other matters that have arisen as a result of the content. The e-learning course generated interest in www.valiokanava.fi and introduced hundreds of new users to the service, says Ms Pietilä, clearly delighted.
Information marketing and motivation
Because the Valio Gefilus® e-learning course was voluntary for the users, communication and marketing measures were employed alongside to motivate people. Valio produced various promotion materials about the Valio Gefilus® e-learning course, the product was marketed at seminars and written about in news bulletins. Potential students were motivated to participate with the offer of a lottery prize consisting of a free spa weekend for two, drawn between everyone who had completed the course.
- Our team at Prewise did have a few doubts about how many people would register for the Valio Gefilus® course, since participation was voluntary, says Prewise’s Account Manager Laura Antila. The target group was a challenging one, consisting of people working in the very busy patient and care sector, and not constantly connected to a computer terminal. How would they find the time to complete the course, and would the e-learning course even work for them? We were relieved to find that it worked extremely well!
- Valio focused admirably on the marketing and publicity for the Valio Gefilus® e-learning course. This was an illustration of how you can achieve a good result by producing a total package comprising different measures, content that engages the attention of the target group and implementing it all successfully.
- Co-operation with the Valio team worked extremely well in other respects, as well. The project team’s expertise was first-class, which meant that answers to even difficult issues were immediately available in the project meetings, says Laura Antila.
Keeping to schedule requires determination and self-control
- My principal job in the project was to act as editor-in-chief in respect of the specialists’ services. I adapted the e-learning course technically and visually to fit in with the needs of the service required. My secondary task was to contribute to content production, wearing my nutritionist’s hat, says Pauliina Pietilä.
- I congratulate the Prewise team on the excellent project co-ordination as well as on keeping to the schedule and the effective and flexible co-operation. At the start, the scrupulous approach might have seemed a bit inflexible, but towards the end even the client realised that the scheduling requires real determination and self-control from all the parties. Too often, when collaborating with partners, timetables tend to stretch on both sides, says Ms Pietilä.
- We were, however, taken by surprise by the amount of work that we were required to do ourselves in terms of content production. It is a challenge to produce text that serves the needs of the target group in a sufficiently specialised way, but still comprehensibly. Editing the text is a time-consuming business, and our people had to fit it in with their day-to-day work.
- In the future, I would prefer to have a closer dialogue with Prewise’s text producer. This would prevent misunderstandings and differences of nuance in the text. It would also save time.
- Co-operation will be smoother in the next project, because we will be familiar with each others' operating modes, says Pauliina Pietilä with a smile.
For further information on Valio Oy and Valio Gefilus® products, visit www.valio.fi or www.valiokanava.fi (specialist site).
Text: Jaana Raaska