CognitiveArts Launches Retail Practice Area, Leveraging Expertise in Retail Industry.

Business Editors

EVANSTON, Ill.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 14, 2003

CognitiveArts, a leading designer and developer of corporate learning solutions, launched a new practice area aimed at helping large retailers address the customer-service issues that arise from work-force turnover, shrinking margins and the sale of increasingly complex products.

CognitiveArts, a division of global training and technology services provider NIIT Technologies, launched a retail practice to leverage the hundreds of hours of retail-specific training materials it has developed over the past 12 years for customers such as Wal-Mart, Sears and Walgreens.

"As competition in retail grows and margins shrink, retailers must differentiate themselves through customer service," said Abhas Kumar, vice president of CognitiveArts. "CognitiveArts' retail practice is focused on helping retailers do that by delivering to managers and front-line employees training that focuses on the skills that have the greatest and most immediate impact on the customer experience."

CognitiveArts provides complete learning and performance-improvement solutions, with simulation-based learning at the core, for Fortune 500 companies. With a strong theoretical foundation born out of its roots at Northwestern University's Institute for Learning Sciences, CognitiveArts is a thought leader in the scientific understanding of how people learn. The CognitiveArts approach accelerates employee productivity by focusing on the critical few mistakes that cause the greatest financial impact.

"Experience is what gives someone who has been on the job six months an edge over someone who has been on the job six weeks," said Steve Lowenthal, director of the CognitiveArts Retail Solutions Practice. "At CognitiveArts, our design approach and development processes are specifically designed to accelerate someone's climb up the learning curve."

As part of the retail practice, CognitiveArts now offers customers a set of "Rapid Design Libraries." These pre-built retail interactions are combined with CognitiveArts' content expertise and then tailored to the specific needs of the client, giving retailers rapid and cost-effective access to CognitiveArts' high-impact training products.

Lowenthal said CognitiveArts' products and services are aimed squarely at the challenges retailers face today.

"The products filling the aisles today are more complex than ever before, and as the retail industry's margins shrink, retailers must provide increasingly better customer service with fewer employees," he said. "The only way to have it both ways - great customer service and low costs - is to have well-trained employees who can answer customers' key questions. Our consulting services, design approach, comprehensive solutions and simulation-based products help new employees hit the ground running. In addition, they help seasoned employees continually improve."

The CognitiveArts Rapid Design Libraries address "front-line fundamentals" and "leader essentials," using proven simulations and designs to help employees interact more effectively with customers. The simulations put employees in real-life situations, allowing them to practice their sales and decision-making skills in a risk-free environment.

About CognitiveArts

CognitiveArts is an Experience Learning Solutions Provider. Applying its proven methodology, CognitiveArts enables Global 2000 companies and institutions to achieve business results and organizational readiness by accelerating skills acquisition and expertise through the enterprise and beyond. With more than a dozen years of experience and 250 projects successfully implemented, CognitiveArts has led the industry in the scientific understanding of how people learn, remember and reason and is considered visionary in the field of learning. CognitiveArts is a division of NIIT. Operating in 44 countries, NIIT had 2002 revenues of $167 million and is ranked by IDC among the top 15 IT training providers globally. CognitiveArts retail clients include Wal-Mart Stores Inc., The Walgreen Company, Office Depot, CVS, Albertson's, Marks & Spencer, and IKEA. For more information, visit www.cognitivearts.com.