Last week I met several new prospective customers – training companies. The prospects varied in size from a single person company (with several associates on contract basis) to very large companies serving Fortune 500 companies; and whose focus varied from soft skills training to Aerospace graphics and documentation.
The common theme emerging from these meetings is that their clients have started asking for eLearning solutions or blended solutions. As an owner of a small training company said –“My clients could have stopped training last year and I could have been in big trouble” (his actual statement). Resonating but with a different tone some of bigger training companies mention –“We need to consider eLearning to maintain our leadership position and avoid losing clients. It helps make our offerings more competitive in the marketplace. It also helps us appear more progressive offering all possible options of training delivery.” (my interpretation of their statements)
That doesn’t surprise us at all. We’ve foreseen this kind of growth in demand for eLearning in the wake of recent widespread recession (which is not over yet!). Last quarter we saw growing indications of Training Companies Adopting eLearning and now we see that trend gaining momentum. We actually expect eLearning to grow well over the next couple of years and beyond. We’re not suggesting face–to-face training is dead. It’s just that eLearning is growing and you need to sit up and take notice. We’d recommend Training Companies take a hard look at how the training market is re-shaping itself and how eLearning is beginning to take centre stage in the training portfolio of many organizations. It would be prudent to re-align your offering to suit your clients changing needs in order to retain your client-base.
If you’ve no experience with eLearning development yourself, you could align with an eLearning development vendor like us. Conduct some basic website review, sample reviews, reference checks, cost analysis, and even a small pilot. Even if your current clients are not demanding eLearning right now, it may make sense to develop eLearning options just to be ready. Of course, it makes sense to start small and gain some experience of how it works.
Needless to say we are happy to help if you have any questions or need assistance. Please feel free to write a comment here or email at info@upsidelearning.com.
