A recent study indicated that 80% of organizations do not have an enterprise-wide plan for learning in place.  Most planning activities, to the extent that they occur at all, were found to be fragmented across different business units.  In addition, more than 75% do not believe that learning roles and responsibilities are optimally aligned within the organization.  Finally, 70% do not correlate employee productivity to learning.  Most measure little beyond the basics such as course enrollments, completions, and learner satisfaction rates. 

In order for Learning and Development departments to be taken seriously going forward, this situation must change.  There's no question that training really does add considerable value, but like advertising, it can be dificult to track the results (how do you quantify "Improved Organizational Performance"?).  However, without metrics, it is difficult to make a business case to justify additional investment - especially in times like these when everything is being scrutinized.

When it comes to Learning Analytics, here are some things that can be measured fairly easily:

-  Reduced or reassigned head count
-  Travel and accommodation cost reduction
-  Reduced training time and cost
-  Reduced printing and distribution cost
-  Improved employee retention and satisfaction
-  Enhanced customer satisfaction
-  Easier tracking and measurement of legal compliance
-  Increased revenue associated with enabling product to market faster

Whichever of these you choose to track, it's critical that senior management is made aware of the correlation between learning, and the positive results achieved.