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What is
Auxilium?
Gary C. Hinkle,
President, Auxilium, Inc.
When people ask me what we do at Auxilium,
I’m often under pressure to give my best “elevator pitch” – so I usually
say something really brief like, “we help product development
organizations improve processes and collaboration,” or, “we organize
continuing education seminars.” If I’m lucky, I get a few more
seconds to clarify.
It becomes more difficult to clearly state what we do in just a few words
as we grow. Since I have more than a few seconds to describe what we
do for those who are interested in reading further, here’s an explanation.
There are basically five ways we serve customers:
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On-site professional development workshops
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We work at customers’ facilities to help
improve business processes
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Assistance with product development projects
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Open-enrollment professional development
workshops in several U.S. locations
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We function as the “training and development
department” for technology companies
Auxilium’s main area of focus is product
development. Our goal is to provide comprehensive support for
research and development (R&D) organizations which includes continuous
improvement of business processes, developing technical staff, and
occasionally providing engineering resources. Customers for these
services are all over the globe, so our consultants travel frequently.
Within R&D organizations, many high-priority needs are related to
development of the softer skills such as leadership, communication and
teamwork. Because these competencies are important in every
organization, our instructors and consultants that specialize in these
areas are available to serve customers in any industry.
Our general approach to soft skills is rather unique due to the majority
of customers being engineers, scientists, and technical managers.
Case study exercises are used extensively not just because it’s a good
method for learning – technical professionals generally appreciate the
real-world examples, analysis, and practice opportunities that case study
exercises provide.
During an open-enrollment teambuilding workshop at a major aerospace
company, one of the participants said, “My manager doesn’t like us wasting
time in these touchy-feely classes.” This participant, fortunately,
understands the value of developing soft skills, and attended though his
manager resisted. His manager would have benefited from attending the workshop and
I think he would have been surprised by our general “un-touchy-feely”
approach to teambuilding. The class is a lot of fun, too, so he
missed out!
Auxilium's offerings are not limited to
our catalog
of workshops. The
workshop descriptions are generally used
as starting points for an on-site program. Workshops are rarely
delivered exactly as they are described online, and quite frequently we
develop solutions that are completely customized to serve customer needs.
We have immediate access to an abundance of top-notch trainers and
consultants that aren’t listed on our website.
The relationships we have established with so many top-notch resources
enables Auxilium to serve as the training department for companies that
aren’t large enough to adequately support their ongoing professional
development requirements with full-time “training” staff. Small
companies typically don’t invest enough in professional development, and
the “training manager” function doesn’t usually exist. We can
provide the training manager function, as-needed, for a fraction of the
cost of a full-time employee or the cost associated with Human Resources
staff balancing these responsibilities with many other priorities.
Medium-sized companies often have one or more full-time employees focused
on training and development (T&D), but there are significant challenges
related to managing many training suppliers and budgeting adequately to
meet all of the company’s continuing education needs. We can add
significant value in these situations by reducing the expense related to
researching and managing suppliers, and by providing economies of scale
benefits. Companies that employ training managers can reduce
costs by as much as 50%, or double the amount of training for the same
cost by utilizing Auxilium as the primary training provider as opposed to
managing the many providers that are typically necessary to cover the
broad range of professional development needs.
Even big companies that can afford a large full-time T&D staff are
moving away from the model of doing as much as they can in-house.
Several companies we work with outsource the entire T&D function, while
others outsource the training but employ a staff of training managers
focused on serving specific business units or business functions.
With adequate staffing of training managers, these companies can do an
exceptional job serving their internal customer needs and managing many training suppliers, and I view this as an
ideal model for large companies as opposed to compromising the training
management function to support a staff of trainers. In-house
trainers should be limited to expertise in proprietary functions such as
manufacturing processes, proprietary technology, and other intellectual
property.
If you think your company could benefit from outsourcing training and
development functions, please don’t hesitate to call me directly at
503-293-3557 or
email to discuss how we can possibly
reduce your T&D expenses and/or deliver more value from your budget.
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