By: Judith Kors – October 2015

Back in July we posted an article on ‘How to win L&D budget approval’. One of the key aspects of this was to provide market research and statistical data that would support your business case for specific learning & development programs and show a clear return on investment to the person/people who control the purse-strings.

The problem, of course, is that finding such information can be a difficult and time-consuming exercise, which is where the new website ‘www.AskWonder.com’ can come in VERY handy.

According to its founder and CEO, Justin Wohlstadter, for just US$30 you can get a team of qualified researchers to produce a full report, normally within four hours, on pretty much anything.

But why do we need such a service when we already have search engines like Google you may ask. “Search engines were invented two decades ago to solve the problem of finding content on the web”  Wohlstadter says “today the problem is not that we can’t find content on the web—it’s that there’s too much of it”.

And this, of course, is where Ask Wonder comes in so helpful.

“All of our researchers are vetted before they’re able to join our subject expert network, and we have a set of research guidelines that we’re constantly improving to ensure that every user is sent results that are credible, valuable, and interesting”  Wohlstadter  explains, adding that “among other things we ask our researchers to carefully consider the sources they rely on and, depending on the search, strive to provide primary sources and thought-provoking pieces”.

Perhaps most promising from the point of view of a Learning & Development manager trying to build a training programs business case is that (within reason) you can ask for pretty much anything. For example:

• What is the annual training spend for an Australian mining organisation?
• What is the average return on investment for an organisation on a Diploma of Leadership & Management?
• What is the typical impact on an Australian engineering company that doesn’t invest in appropriate Workplace Health & Safety/WHS training programs?
• Etc

As you can see, it’s the sort of information that can add significant value to a training programs business case but would take hours, perhaps even days, to research yourself…so the next time you’re putting a proposal together and need some supporting information, Ask Wonder might well be a good place to get it.

Best of all, your first search is free, so you can check it out with no risk at all.

And if you do, we’d love to hear your feedback!

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