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Alcatel-Lucent is a partner of service providers, enterprises and governments around the world, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. It leverages the scientific and technical expertise of Bell Labs, a leading innovator in the communications industry, to provide fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services. A major part of its current business model is the facilitation of its corporate university.
Audrey White, author of an article entitled, "The corporate university: meeting the learning needs of a changing workforce," describes Alcatel-Lucent University as "the premier source for continuous learning and professional development at Alcatel-Lucent". The University consists of a global network of 21 training centers, each of which is situated in proximity to its major concentrations of customers and employees around the world. The purpose of the University is to provide both these stakeholders with "the knowledge and skills necessary to perform their jobs effectively". White, based at the University in Paris, asserts that the institution has had a "profound impact" on how the business is designed and operated.
The article separates its major stakeholders into two categories: customers (sometimes here referred to as "clients"), and employees. For both groups, teams have been established worldwide that are devoted to "customer and employee learning". The article is a little unclear as to what this term means; however, customers can be defined as those organizations who use...