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Whitepaper

15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals Cloud Platform


SumTotal Leads the Market in Strategic Human Capital Management
Ventana Research finds that more than a quarter of companies surveyed are adopting cloud computing in direct response to meeting the pressures of retaining talent and increasing employee satisfaction. This number is part of a larger trend of organizations adopting cloud human capital management. Businesses of all industries, geographies and sizes are finding value in accessing company resources through networks, rather than on local computers. These businesses have given human capital management a prominent place in Cloud computing as it remains at the vital core of any organizations operations. Analysts predict Cloud spending will reach $13 billion by 20141, indicating that many of SumTotals current and future customers will see Cloud as a good option for their business. You will be in good company as you join SumTotals 15 million users on the Cloud, where they reap the benefits of a robust Cloud infrastructure and achieve great success with SumTotals market-leading Strategic Human Capital Management (HCM) solution, highly responsive services and support teams. This paper will cover the topics necessary for you to understand the value in adopting Cloud technology and point out some key differentiators that SumTotal provides.

Why Choose the Cloud?


At a business of any size, having the right human capital management solution is crucial. But while much research and consideration is put into selecting the appropriate software, the delivery method isnt always of concern. However, even if you have found the solution that is just right for your company right now, a static delivery can mean it will be insufficient or outdated by next year. A flexible, Cloudbased delivery will allow your solution to grow with you. Rather than asking why you should choose the Cloud, it might be more telling to ask what you will miss out on if your business does not evolve into the Cloud. Three major topics should come to mind:

Rapid Deployment and Innovation Cost Effectiveness Improved Accessibility and Elasticity
While each of these benefits of the Cloud will be explained in more detail in the next section, ask yourself the following: How long can my company wait for deployment and still expect to maintain efficient business processes?

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15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals Cloud Platform

How much money or resources should my company invest in backend software that may take many months or even years before being fully productive? If I convince my company that the software is worth the cost and the wait, how happy will they be when a better version is introduced before we are fully deployed? The answer to these and similar questions draws out the fact that Cloud computing provides a compelling set of benefits at both an operational and business level. Indeed, at a business level, Cloud computing is the most cost-effective ownership model available for most organizations, saving them much of the expense related to IT and infrastructure normally associated with enterprise software. At an operational level, it provides a much more efficient ownership experience including rapid implementation, quick upgrades and streamlined support.

Benefits of the Cloud


SumTotal Systems offers the most complete, most innovative and most flexible human capital management solutions. The Cloud is a growing part of this offering and can provide benefits to your company that will dramatically decrease your employees time to proficiency and increase your bottom line. Rapid Deployment and Innovation When you have finally selected a solution that is right for you, there may be nothing more frustrating than the lag time between licensing and actual deployment. Think of how many months or even years it would take your employees to become productive on a human capital management system if the business used an on-premise solution requiring the steps shown below. On-Premise Solution2 Evaluate existing hardware/infrastructure to determine the ability to add new applications to the environment. Plan and purchase new supporting technology if needed. Allocate IT time to test the product in conjunction with existing on-premise application. Ensure users have access to Internet-enabled devices and secure logon access to the application. Train IT and database administrators on the application for support purposes. Train HR users/end-users on the applications. Learning curve period as users become accustomed to the solution and can utilize it easily. Cloud Solution Ensure users have access to Internet-enabled devices and secure logon access to the application. Train HR users/end-users on the applications. Learning curve period as users become accustomed to the solution and can utilize it easily.

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15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals Cloud Platform

Based on the diagram above, you can save several resource- and time-intensive steps on the deployment of a Cloud solution. Further, if as a larger company with special needs, you decided to customize certain features of your on-premise solution, add several more steps on to that process if you intend on upgrading. Added features will require special attention and extra time, often creating enough of a barrier to prevent timely upgrades that maintain an up-to-date system. Streamlined Support for Greater Focus Because Cloud solutions mean all the technology and data is securely stored and managed in the Cloud, this often streamlines any support issues customers have. This improves quality of service, speeds resolution times and enables HR managers to spend less time on technical issues related to support. Indeed, since the customers environment is in the cloud, the support team and HR can look at the same information simultaneously. The Cloud eliminates the need for HR to be involved with the efforts of backing up and sending a copy of their environment to support to replicate support issues rather support can see any issues and directly resolve it in the Cloud. As a result, HR managers can focus on operational excellence around their processes rather than managing support around hardware, database, network and other infrastructure now provided them in the cloud. Cost Effectiveness As with all successful businesses, planning is key. Teams or individuals spend many hours planning budgets to maintain profitability over the coming year, so when unexpected expenses arise, they may require drastic rearrangement of funds. This is particularly dreaded by small and medium businesses that do not necessarily have the reserves or ability to transfer funds from one division to another as enterprise businesses do. With Cloud-based human capital management, there will never be unexpected costs concerning labor or infrastructure. On-premise software can cost about 20 percent of the initial software purchase price per year in maintenance.3 One of the reasons that Cloud solutions are becoming so popular with businesses is that the costs are much more predictable as the solution provider takes on the burden of upfront equipment and support expenses, and they lay maintenance fees out ahead of time. Enterprise-sized businesses will feel the biggest cost burden from on-premise software. Consider the cost of server capacity large enough to manage thousands of employees. Consider the technical support costs of setting up, managing and maintaining such a system. Finally, consider your budget and how much money you are spending on an infrastructure that does not directly lead to greater profitability for the company. Human capital management is a necessary component for your company, but if the money spent getting the system running is more than the savings benefits it will bring to your company, then on-premise solutions lose their efficacy. A Cloud human capital management solution lowers the upfront investment of solution ownership, meaning this savings can be invested elsewhere to earn money for your company right away.

With Cloud-based human capital management, there will never be unexpected costs concerning labor or infrastructure. On-premise software can cost about 20 percent of the initial software purchase price per year in maintenance.3

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15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals Cloud Platform

Human capital management delivered on the Cloud is a solid investment in the future of the company, without risk of overwhelming and uncalculated costs. The table below lists all of the costs associated with an on-premise human capital management application that would not be added to the bottom line of a Cloud-based application purchase. As you read through them, you will notice the savings to a business that does not need a physical infrastructure, internal IT support or specialized training to operate or update a system that uses the Cloud platform. Improved Accessibility and Elasticity In todays world, companies are generally not located in one central office. Spread across the country or globe, and with employees making contributions from remote or mobile locations, businesses need solutions that are highly accessible. Cloud human capital management offers access anywhere there is Internet, which creates a level of convenience appreciated by every worker. Whether your business is in a year when it is necessary to expand or smarter to cutback, human capital management software on the Cloud can be adjusted accordingly and quickly to meet your needs. SumTotal has built Cloud offerings to leverage massive amounts of commodity hardware, where adding or removing processing capacity merely requires the click of a button. Uninterrupted access to the application will also be a huge benefit to companies that count on their employees to take added responsibilities, either as a costsaving technique or because they have hired truly capable talent. It is important for the employees to have continuous access to the system, whether they need to add some inputs after working hours or are turning downtime waiting for a plane into uptime on the application. Improved accessibility is a step toward improved productivity. Costs Incurred with On-Premise HR Applications4 Cost of a database, operating system(s), middleware and other infrastructure software licenses. Cost of servers, storage and networking equipment to support the application, as well as additional power, cooling and space to house the equipment. Recurring costs for infrastructure software upgrades and maintenance contracts. Cost of IT staff or external IT contractors. Cost of a database administrator. Cost of reiterative integration of diverse, fragmented or homegrown applications. Cost of multiple applications and multiple recurring software support contracts. Cost of reiterative customization. IT costs and concerns associated with maintaining and upgrading separate applications, including the test center, and time and expertise required to pilot all new software releases before putting them into production. Cost of training to keep administrators current with new infrastructure technologies (e.g., data communications, operating systems, databases, web servers, et al).

When businesses need to do more with less, and do it faster, the cloud is a complementary option to help them carry out daily activities like talent management.

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15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals Cloud Platform

Power of the SumTotal Strategic HCM Cloud Solution


Several application providers in the market are realizing the benefits the Cloud can offer their clients and have jumped on the idea. However, SumTotal has been engaged in developing and perfecting such Cloud offerings for years and has more than a few differentiating factors.

Massively Scalable Infrastructure

Intranet

Cloud computing has pushed the evolution of data center and infrastructure services for consumer and business applications. SumTotals Cloud solution provides a highly scalable human capital management application, combining an industry-leading data center with powerful virtualization technologies and a flexible n-tier architecture. This enables customers to scale dynamically to meet their needs while only paying for what they use. In addition, security, monitoring and auditing at every level of the infrastructure and application ensures that your human capital data is completely secure.

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15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals Cloud Platform

Robust Data Center Service SumTotal leverages only tier III and tier IV datacenters which are rated with the industrys highest level of redundancy housing Emergency Broadcast System/911 and rated no power off. In addition, SumTotal datacenters use:

Private caged space for all hardware to which SumTotal


controls access

Redundant and fault-tolerant hardware across our


architecture

ITIL-based operational process across all customer


environments and data

Global operations team to address operational issues in


any geography with multi-tiered response times clearly outlined in the SumTotal service level agreement Virtualized, Secure Environment To provide maximum scalability, flexibility and security to our customers, SumTotals Cloud solution uses its own virtualization technology built into the software architecture. This technology allows the application processing to be shared across virtualized environments, as well as physical machines, simultaneously. Adding processing capacity to the environment only requires turning on a new machine and clicking a button. The SumTotal architecture can leverage massive amounts of commodity hardware, which provides fault tolerance and scalability in the same way services such as Google and Facebook do. The solution also leverages virtual storage networks enabling SumTotal to do real-time scaling across hardware. In addition, SumTotals Cloud solution ensures high availability through redundancy at all layers, where servers in the Cloud provide scalability and instant provisioning. Rather than rely on virtualization to take a single-tenant application and host it for a customer, SumTotals solution was built from the ground up as a multi-tenant application that runs in the Cloud. All customers instantly take advantage of the built-in fault tolerance and load balancing of the Cloud. Advanced Architecture SumTotal employs a standards-based, n-tier architecture designed to exceed the needs of the most demanding customers. The SumTotal platform is continually tested to meet customers current and future needs. SumTotals Cloud solution is able to handle high transaction and user volumes and processing loads through virtualization that is able to distribute increased load across multiple servers. Load balancing is transparent to the customer. As a customers demand increases during heavy use periods,

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15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals Cloud Platform

the Cloud capacity expands automatically. SumTotals technology platform provides vertical and horizontal scalability. Horizontal scalability allows for adding additional back-end servers while vertical scalability offers the option to migrate to larger and faster servers. Strong, Complete Security Human Resources (HR) data needs to be one of the most secure forms of information any organization maintains. At SumTotal, our Cloud solution has bestin-class security integrated across physical, network, application and data layers.

Physical Security includes controlled access to data


center space and a secure data center infrastructure with leading standards in data center infrastructure, using biometric readers, card-scanners and person-traps as standard methods to validate legitimate access to our data center infrastructure.

Network Security includes antivirus protection, network


monitoring, availability reporting and leading intrusion detection technologies.

Application Security includes cutting-edge patented and


patent-pending security to ensure separate computing environments for each client. From the application level to the database, the architecture ensures customer data stays separate at all times.

Data Security includes secured database servers and


separate physical databases for each client to ensure customer data is not comingled. The Most Flexible Purchase and Delivery in the Market SumTotals Cloud lets you choose the right ownership and deployment option for your organization:

Shared Cloud: Nearly any organization can utilize the


benefits of the Cloud in an extremely cost-effective manner by using SumTotals Shared Cloud. With SumTotals strict security precautions, each companys information is compartmentalized and secured. All businesses on the Shared Cloud receive up-to-theminute updates that keep them at the forefront of best practices in management solutions.

Private Cloud: Unlike vendors that offer only onedimensional SaaS, SumTotal offers customers a more secure option with the SumTotal Private Cloud. In addition to the economic benefits of a cloud solution, the SumTotal Private Cloud provides more sophisticated security, dedicated database and no forced upgrades. In addition, customers who use SumTotals low-cost Shared

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15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals Cloud Platform

Cloud offering can choose to upgrade to SumTotals Private Cloud with a dedicated hosting environment and physically separate and secured database instance. SumTotals Private Cloud offering was explicitly designed to help customers navigate global data security and legal compliance requirements.

On Premise: For organizations that are still not ready for


the quick migration to the Cloud, SumTotal continues to offer the same end-to-end Human Capital Management solution as a localized deployment for customers. SumTotal remains an innovator in the industry, a benefit that companies can continue to take advantage of, regardless of platform.

Shared Cloud Multi-tenant Rapid upgrades and advancements Subscription pricing

Private Cloud Dedicated, virtualized, customer-specific deployment Subscription or perpetual license pricing

On-Premise Localized Deployment Comprehensive Security

Each of these platforms is also fully capable of Mobile delivery.


Complete, End-to-End Strategic Human Management Solution Increasing labor costs and management complexity are driving organizations to have improved visibility in managing their global workforces. In addition, organizations have realized that in order to enable visibility and drive workforce efficacy, their talent management processes need to be more efficiently integrated to broader Human Capital Management (HCM) processes. SumTotal offers greater business intelligence with an end-to-end Cloud HCM solution that encompasses: Talent Management: SumTotal Talent Management includes full employee lifecycle management around all talent management processes, including a core system of record, on a single cloud software platform for improved business intelligence. SumTotal offers an end-to-end solution including learning, performance, compensation, succession, career development, 360 degree feedback, recruiting and hiring, social collaboration, and HR Management. Workforce Management: SumTotal Workforce Management is a rules-based platform delivering fully integrated solutions for all aspects of workforce management. Going beyond traditional workforce management systems, SumTotals Workforce Management solutions can significantly improve the

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15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals Cloud Platform

efficiency of your business, enhancing performance and increasing profitability. SumTotal offers an end-to-end solution including Scheduling & Optimization, Contingent Labor, Time and Attendance, Absence Management and Mobile Workforce Management. Expense Management: SumTotal Expense Management provides the most complete and configurable full-service solution for expense management and automation. Going beyond just travel and entertainment, this solution can process all employee business expenses. Payroll & Benefits: As an integrated service into the SumTotals Strategic Human Capital Management solution, SumTotal Payroll and Benefits Administration solutions provide an efficient, flexible and easyto-use service well suited for complex environments. Strategic Workforce Analytics: Provides comprehensive insight across the full spectrum of the strategic cloud human capital management platform enabling executives, managers and employees to make better informed decisions.

Customers choose SumTotal for the advanced vision in strategic human resources and deep understanding of complex business challenges. SumTotals Cloud technologies, end-to-end workforce processes and facilitation of business insight across an organization offers a superior user experience with best-in-class capabilities. With the deepest multinational domain expertise, including highly successful deployments to

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15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals Cloud Platform

over 50 percent of the Fortune 500, SumTotal has the strongest experience and best practices for complex global human capital management deployments.

Customer Case Studies


Regardless of industry or size, organizations have been finding value in SumTotals Cloud platform for years. The examples below are a small crosssection of our satisfied customers.

SkyWest Airlines
From pilots and flight attendants to ground crew, customer service and the many other groups inside the airline organization, training is an essential part of operations. For SkyWest Airlines, effectively and efficiently training many different groups across the airline is critical to the success of the businesses. SumTotals Cloud-based Learning solution enables SkyWest to deliver thousands of hours of training when and where it is needed in a cost-effective manner. SkyWest Airlines employees 11,000 people and is one of the largest regional airlines in the world. With hubs, crew domiciles, maintenance bases, line stations and cities served across the U.S., the airline serves millions of passengers annually. Using Cloud training, the employees can get the training they need anywhere, anytime, to ensure training is current at all times. Focusing on their Core Business Rather than IT SumTotals Cloud HCM solution enabled SkyWest Airlines to focus its efforts on effectively delivering critical training to employees, as opposed to spending extra time managing complex IT environments. This means eliminating issues such as managing or purchasing hardware, database setup and administration, as well as product installation and upgrades. The SumTotal Cloud solution provides complete, robust datacenter service, secure hardware and software setup and support, without using valuable IT resources from SkyWest. This provides SumTotal customers quantifiable timesaving and cost-saving benefits to IT and allows them to focus on delivering better HCM services to their organizations. Cloud Provides Faster Access to Innovation In addition to reducing the IT resources required to manage its HCM solution, the SumTotal Cloud platform enables SkyWest more quickly access the latest features and product innovations for its SumTotal HCM solution. With the SumTotal Cloud solution, customers get the latest release immediately, dramatically reducing down-time required for upgrades and giving their users a better product for a reduced total cost of ownership. For SkyWest, benefits of Cloud are apparent. Getting upgrades on the SumTotal Cloud solution has been much faster, resulting in real, measurable time savings for our team, said Spencer Hyde, Director of Multimedia and Business Development at SkyWest Airlines. Streamlined Support in the Cloud With SumTotals Cloud platform, businesses can streamline their support process, reducing the amount of time to get support issues resolved. With just a phone call, SumTotals support staff can see our environment and work with us in real time to resolve any issues, said Hyde.
We are seeing real benefits in using SumTotals Cloud solution, said Hyde. On the Cloud, we can focus on improving the training we provide to our organization, as opposed to focusing on the IT issues related to managing an enterprise software product.

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15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals Cloud Platform

Often overlooked as a benefit of the Cloud, SkyWest Airlines situation is representative of the ease-of-use that comes with a service provider like SumTotal hosting the system. The moment a customer reports any issues, SumTotal will be able to see the full scope of the problem and offer direct and immediate repairs. Clearing Skies Ahead We are seeing real benefits in using SumTotals Cloud solution, said Hyde. On the Cloud, we can focus on improving the training we provide to our organization, as opposed to focusing on the IT issues related to managing an enterprise software product.

Orbitz Worldwide
Orbitz Worldwide (NYSE: OWW) is a leading global online travel company that uses innovative technology to enable leisure and business travelers to research, plan and book a broad range of travel products. Orbitz Worldwide owns a portfolio of consumer travel brands, including Orbitz Worldwide, CheapTickets, ebookers, HotelClub, RatesToGo, Away Network, Asia hotels and corpo Orbitz Worldwide for Business. With revenues exceeding $870 million and 1,600 employees in more than 20 countries, Orbitz is the epitome of a global, online, new economy business. Orbitz Worldwide is a forerunner in using e-learning to impact two audiences that can help grow its organization employees and channel partners. Carolyne Matseshe-Crawford, senior director of global training and consistency for Orbitz Worldwide, described a several reasons the organization was seeking a best-in-class SaaS-delivered system to replace the previous behind-thefirewall implementation. With a global footprint, the Orbitz team needed to be able to create, warehouse, deliver, test, score and track content and learning comprehension for both Orbitz Worldwide employees and Orbitz Worldwide channel partners online and on-demand. Started November 1, 2009, and fully implemented merely 30 days later, Orbitz Worldwide uses their new SaaS LMS powered by SumTotal to track all global OLT activities, ILT activities and the performance that these activities generate. Boasting content development cycles of 24 hours to update a course and 48 hours to publish a new course from scratch, Orbitz Worldwide has the flexibility and scalability to create and deploy learning quickly in order to respond to changing products and market conditions. Technology is central to our organization. We have the best technology and we use the best technology. We innovate by leveraging systems to influence both internal and external audiences. SumTotal has enabled us to seamlessly deliver training to internal and external audiences using one online solution and it has increased our organizational performance. said Matseshe-Crawford. Multiple Audiences, One Solution With three distinct groups accessing Orbitz Worldwides online and on-demand solution powered by SumTotal, employees, channel partners and channel partner operational staff all access the same SumTotal Learning platform. Orbitz Worldwides training concentration on multiple learning audiences (internal and external) reinforces its brand promise and customer-centric focus.

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Collaboration is key to the future of learning at Orbitz. Within our multiple audiences, we have numerous feedback loops for our program, said Matseshe-Crawford. We receive feedback about best practices that we immediately incorporate into our learning programs. Using the SumTotal learning on-demand to launch and track our success has enabled us to have both the flexibility and scalability we require today and in the future.

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15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals Cloud Platform

The Future of Learning at Orbitz Collaboration is key to the future of learning at Orbitz. Within our multiple audiences, we have numerous feedback loops for our program, said MatsesheCrawford. We receive feedback about best practices that we immediately incorporate into our learning programs. Using the SumTotal learning on-demand to launch and track our success has enabled us to have both the flexibility and scalability we require today and in the future.

Conclusion
As businesses transition pieces of their human capital management solution to the Cloud, it is wise to consider service providers that will allow your business to have a fully integrated Cloud. Finding a provider that can offer all of these segments to create a complete human capital management solution will simplify the deployment and upgrade process, further cut costs, allow even more accessibility to users and make security and safety more manageable. SumTotal is uniquely positioned to help organizations with a comprehensive platform that leverages Cloud technologies, connects end-to-end workforce processes, improves business insight across an entire organization and offers a superior user experience with best-in-class capabilities.

Endnotes
1

US Business Spending by Size of Business and Vertical, 2009-2014: Cloud Computing and Managed Hosting Services, In-Stat, 2010. Software as a Service: Understanding What the Cloud Means for HR, Bersin & Associates, 2011. Up in the Cloud: Core HR Has Arrived, Bersin & Associates, 2011. Software as a Service: Understanding What the Cloud Means for HR, Bersin & Associates, 2011. Trends in Cloud Computing, Talent Management Magazine, 2011.

3 4

Thirty-seven percent of businesses interviewed in Privatizing the Cloud: Study on Enterprise Cloud Adoption said that some piece of their organizations workload processing or infrastructure is available on the Cloud.5

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15 Million Users Succeed with SumTotals 2009 State of Global Talent Management Cloud Platform

More Information
For more information, send an email to connect@sumtotalsystems.com

About SumTotal
SumTotal Systems, Inc. is the global leader of strategic Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions that provide organizations with a new level of visibility to help make more informed business decisions and accelerate growth. Recognized by industry analysts as the most complete solution, SumTotal provides full employee lifecycle management, including a core system of record, from a single provider for improved business intelligence. The company offers customers of all sizes and industries the most flexibility and choice with multiple purchase, configuration, and deployment options. We have increased the performance of the worlds largest organizations including Sony Electronics (NYSE: SNE), AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN [ADR]; London: AZN), Amway (KUL:AMWAY), Seagate (NYSE: STX), Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). For more information, or to request a demo, please call +1 (866) 768-6825 (US / Canada), +1 (352) 264-2800 (international) or visit www.sumtotalsystems.com

Corporate Headquarters
SumTotal Systems, Inc. 2850 NW 43rd Street Suite #150 Gainesville, FL 32606 USA Phone: +1 352 264 2800 Fax: +1 352 264 2801

EMEA
SumTotal Systems, UK 59-60 Thames Street Windsor, Berkshire United Kingdom, SL4 1TX Phone: +44 (0) 1753 211 900 Fax: +44 (0) 1753 211 901

APAC
SumTotal Systems India Pvt. Ltd. 7th Floor Maximus Towers Building 2B, Mind Space Raheja IT Park, Cyberabad Hyderabad, AP-500081, India Phone: +91 (0) 40 6695 0000 Fax: +91 (0) 40 2311 2727 2012 SumTotal Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. SumTotal, and the SumTotal logo, are registered trademarks or trademarks of SumTotal Systems, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners. 12_0530_WP_NH

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