What is a corporate university?

Very simply put it is a formal entity associated with an organization that is chartered with providing employees with the skills and understanding they need to help the organization achieve its business objectives, both short and long term. It is more broadly and strategically focused than a traditional training and development function, with a direct connection to achieving the organization's goals. An analogy may be made to bookkeeping as opposed to the function of the chief financial officer. One is short-term, tactical and narrowly focused; the other broader and more strategic.

What is the driver of the 21st century corporate university?

Corporate education is taking on new dimensions as we move into the 21st century. Over the 20th century, organizational education has moved through technical skills training and vocational training to a greater focus on managerial and leadership education. The focus of much corporate education has been to increase the number of managers, and improve their skills, for a manufacturing-driven business world.

Today's corporate university is emerging from very different motives and needs. Most organizations do not need more managers, per se, but they do need managers and employees who are better equipped to provide products and services that are compelling and profitable to a diverse community of consumers worldwide. This means employees need to understand the global business market, the trends and pressures that are influencing consumers and governments and they need to develop processes that can respond quickly to rapidly changing tastes and demands. There is a heightened need for better communication in a virtual world, and for more effective ways to organize work and improve productivity.

Employee skills are far more transitory than in the past. A large part of the knowledge an engineer acquires in school is largely obsolete within 5 years of graduation. Most employees find that they are continuously "going to school" or learning throughout their career. Markets are changing rapidly; evolutionary change is no longer as common as is revolutionary or discontinuous change. This means organizations are constantly in flux, and dealing with change, coping with new markets and products, understanding changing consumers, and learning to live in a multiethnic, multi-cultural, world are all drivers of a new way of learning.