Over the last few weeks we have met with a number of prospective customers – many of whom are ‘for profit’ training companies. The prospects varied in size from small owner manager companies to very large corporate companies and universities; and whose focus varied from health and safety training to IT skills and project management.
The common theme emerging from these meetings is that their clients have started asking for eLearning or blended solutions.
As an owner of one small training company said –“My clients could have stopped training last year and I would have been in big trouble”. 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 by offering ‘all’ possible options of training delivery.”
That didn’t surprise me at all. We’ve foreseen this kind of growth in demand for eLearning in the wake of recent widespread recession (which is unfortunately not over yet!). This year we have seen growing indications of training companies who once focussed solely on instructor led courses adapting eLearning and now we see that trend gaining momentum. We fully expect the provision of eLearning by training companies to grow well over the next couple of years and beyond. We’re not suggesting face–to-face training is dead – far from it. It’s just that eLearning is growing and training companies, big or small need to sit up and take notice.
Another client commented last week “Our margins on instructor led courses have been slashed over the last twelve months. The eLearning we sell offers fantastic margins and is easy to manage and deliver”.
We 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 organisations. It would be prudent to re-align your offering to suit your clients changing needs in order to retain your client-base and position in the market.
If you’ve no experience with eLearning development yourself, you could align with an eLearning development vendor like us. 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 me at dave@accessplanit.com
Tel 0845 5430229
