The Danish Confederation of Trade Unions Revolutionizes Member Services With Live eLearning and Collaboration Software from Centra
Centra (NASDAQ: CTRA), the world’s leading provider of software and ASP services for live eLearning and collaboration, today announced that the Danish Confederation of Trade Unions, the largest association of public and private sector trade unions in Denmark, has selected Centra’s real-time collaboration software to give their members access to information and skills on new technologies through live, Web-based training programs. As part of a special, two-year initiative to offer value-added services to their nationally dispersed membership, the Confederation will expand their use of Centra to facilitate improved communications through live, interactive Web conferences and online meetings.
The unionisation of the Danish labour market is at a very high level compared to most other European countries. It is characterized by a relatively large public sector, partly to the fact that several tasks which in other countries are handled by the private sector, are managed within the public sector in Denmark. With more than 2.8 million people in the Danish labour force today, over 85% of all wage-earners are currently affiliated with unions. And, as in other industrial countries, the service and high technology sectors have experienced gradual expansion while the number of workers in traditional industries continues to decline.
“We provide training for thousands of Union representatives each year. This training normally takes place at Union schools or Union offices, but we are experiencing an increasing demand for providing part of this training over the Internet,” said Kenneth Lovholt, a representative for the Confederation of Danish Trade Unions. “Many of our participants are living very busy lives handling their jobs and families along with the position as Union representatives, and they sometimes hesitate enrolling in the week long courses. Centra helps us deliver training to them wherever they are located, and without taking them away from their jobs and families. The ability to connect with educators and fellow representatives live over the Internet is a significant advantage which in many courses will enable us to expand the learning period beyond the days the representatives are assembled.”
According to Lawrence Whittle, Centra’s Vice President of Operations for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), “It is the objective of the association to protect the interests of wage-earners in this new global economy. Yet, the achievement of this goal places greater demands on trade unions at a national level to help members stay current on new technologies and business processes. By deploying Centra for live eLearning and collaboration, the Confederation has not only been able to accelerate the delivery of job-critical training, but has revolutionized its ability to communicate, collaborate, and interact with more than a million members country-wide.”
Software Infrastructure for Live eLearning and Collaboration
Already used in over 500 companies and universities worldwide, Centra’s Web-based enterprise products and services share a common collaboration framework, and are optimized to address a full range of real-time business interactions. Every product features Centra’s hallmark voice-over-IP capabilities, live application sharing, an intuitive user interface, and support for rich multimedia to enable live conversation and interaction over low-bandwidth network connections. Centra’s products include Centra Symposium™ for virtual classrooms, Centra Conference™ for Web conferencing and events, and Centra eMeeting™ for meetings and team collaboration. Fully localized versions of Centra’s products and services are available today in Danish, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.
About Centra
With over 1.3 million users worldwide, Centra is the world’s leading provider of software infrastructure and ASP services for live eLearning and business collaboration. Today hundreds of global organizations have standardized on Centra for the delivery of live eLearning, including Accenture, Century 21, Domino’s Pizza, EMC Corporation, Siemens, and Procter & Gamble. Centra supports a vital ecosystem of strategic eLearning partnerships, which include alliances with Microsoft, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Consulting, Cisco, Oracle, Saba, Docent, Global Knowledge, and 27 international value-added resellers covering 29 countries. Headquartered in Boston’s technology corridor, Centra has sales offices throughout North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.centra.com.
