SumTotal Systems Welcomes Learning ROI Guru Jack Phillips to ASTD

Phillips headlines schedule of presentations spotlighting customer success and business results

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA (May 21, 2004) – SumTotal Systems (NASDAQ: SUMT), the industry’s largest provider of learning and business performance technologies, services and processes, today announced that Jack Phillips, founder and chairman of the ROI Institute and preeminent expert in calculating return on investment from learning initiatives, will present a series of sessions in the SumTotal booth at the ASTD 2004 Conference and Expo, held from May 24 – 27 in Washington, D.C. Phillips will headline a schedule of presentations at the show by SumTotal customers, partners and executives, underscoring themes of customer success and measurable business results.

Phillips, author or editor of more than 30 books, including “Return on Investment in Training and Performance Improvement Programs,” will present in the SumTotal booth several times during the conference. Entitled, “The ROI Process,” his session includes the Ten Guiding Principles of ROI and Data Measurement, designed to help attendees make a step-by-step business case for learning technologies and initiatives and to calculate and evaluate the results of those initiatives in relation to their organizations’ business goals and objectives.

Continuing SumTotal’s theme of measurable bottom-line results, Kevin Oakes, SumTotal president and ASTD treasurer, will present his signature keynote “A Seat at the Table,” on Tuesday, May 25, from 10 – 11:15 a.m. Oakes will describe how learning technology can help training professionals shed their academic images and not only gain a “seat at the table,” but make management view it as one of the most strategic seats a can company have.

“For decades, training and HR professionals have lamented that they don’t have ‘a seat at the table,’ or, in other words, the ear of executive management,” said Oakes. “For the most part, it’s because individuals in the profession have rarely talked with confidence about what executives want to hear: increased revenue, tangible productivity and improved business performance. Today, learning technology is helping organizations view learning much more strategically by proving ROI and by reaching out to the extended value chain beyond employees.”

SumTotal also will feature a wide range of alliance partners and customers in its booth, who will present technology solutions and learning initiative success stories based on real-world deployments. Partners presenting solution demos and customer case studies include Primedia, Vitesse, TalentKeepers and Success Factors.
For a full schedule of presentations, visit the SumTotal Systems booth (#1116) on the ASTD Expo floor.

About SumTotal Systems, Inc.

SumTotal Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: SUMT) is the business performance and learning technology industry’s largest single provider of technologies, processes and services. Formed by the merger of industry pioneers Docent and Click2learn, the company is uniquely focused on helping organizations harness and manage mission-critical intellectual power to solve real-world business problems and produce significant bottom-line results. SumTotal has helped accelerate performance and profit for more than 600 of the world’s best-known companies, including Microsoft, Cingular Wireless, Vodafone, Lucent, Accenture, Cendant, Harley-Davidson, Wyeth, Wachovia and D & B. SumTotal Systems is headquartered in Mountain View, CA, with offices throughout the US, as well as London, Paris, Heidelberg, Sydney, Tokyo and Hyderabad, India.

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