According to a survey of UK IT managers conducted by Vanson Bourne for THINQ, approximately two-thirds (65%) confirmed that their companies are not currently using online learning.
Smaller companies (annual turnover between £50m and £250m)are currently the most reluctant to use online learning: more than three-quarters (78%) of smaller organisations indicated that they don't use online learning, compared with slightly more than half (53%) of larger companies.
About one quarter (26%) of all IT managers indicated that their staff are believed to prefer prefer classroom-based training to any other method, but very few could confirm that any comparisons had ever been attempted in their firm. This trend was stronger among smaller companies, with more than a third (37%) citing this reason, as against larger companies where only about one in ten (11%) had the same response.
The major barrier quoted by managers wishing to use online learning is the current state of the economy. Fifteen per cent (15%) of respondents cited a lack of budget as the main reason for not choosing to implement online learning. Budgetary issues were equally commonplace in smaller and larger companies, but the vertical industry that seems most deeply affected is the manufacturing sector where nearly half (43%) of all companies believed they lack the budget required to implement online learning.
Relatively few respondents were put off by technical reasons, concerns over return on investment, or potential Of those companies who are using e-learning (35% of the overall sample), the technology has been embraced more fully within larger companies with distributed operations than centralised smaller companies - by a rate of more than two to one.
