Online training has become an efficient and popular way for Chinese enterprises to train their executives and will help managers catch up with their international counterparts.

C. J. Liu, president of the Pan-Pacific Management Institute (PPMI), one of the biggest management training organizations in China, made the claim in Beijing yesterday, at the launch of the institute's online management training platform with US software giant Oracle.

Liu believes the recent emphasis on the on-the-job training of executives of State-owned companies by the State Assets Regulatory and Management Commission will create a lot of opportunities for online training providers.

"China aims to push more businesses into the list of Fortune 500 companies, and network technologies will help train more qualified executives," he said.

Liu said the efficiency and low cost of online training are two major advantages for State-owned enterprises (SOEs).

According to the Ministry of Personnel, SOEs can allocate 1.5 percent of their employees' total salary on training and count the amount as tax-free costs.

Liu said for every 1,000 yuan (US$120) an SOE executive makes a year, his company can spend 100 yuan on his training -- a meagre figure compared with the amount spent by multinationals.

The average spending per executive at Motorola University, a training organization set up by the US telecom giant, is 7 percent of the trainee's salary.

Hao Yuming, manager of the training center of China Building Material Group Corporation (CNBM), also said although his company spends more than 1.5 percent of its employees' total salary on training, his company cannot afford to send all its managers to training courses.

The company has sent more than 10 managers to study an executive masters of business administration (EMBA) degree, which costs 180,000 yuan (US$22,000) per head every year, but CNBM has more than 200 subsidiaries and 300,000 employees.

However, with online training, most people will be able to receive training at less cost.

PPMI's new training program, based on Oracle's iLearning software solution, offers 21 courses for various levels of managers.

A trainee only needs to pay less than 1,000 yuan (US$120) every year for online training, but in-class training by PPMI costs about 1,000 yuan every day.

(China Daily August 7, 2003)