I recently was responding to journalist questions about the elearning industry. While most answers could be found in innumerable industry reports, there were two that caught my attention. I would be interested in hearing more about these.
As a vendor organization, we have seen elearning clients grow in almost all sectors. Technology has been an all time favorite and demand for technology training has been consistent across the years. Other sectors are banking and finance, retail, engineering, and education, not in any particular order. In terms of areas of training, sales training, compliance training, application training, new hire training, and online education stand out more amongst a plethora of training areas.
What I am interested in hearing about is whether there are any particular sectors or areas in which elearning is growing faster than others? Any sectors/areas that are experiencing a slowdown? Is there a report that highlights sector/area wise trends in elearning? What are you seeing as trends?
Now this one was quite interesting. What are you experiencing, as a customer and as a vendor organization?
As a customer, are you generally happy with the services provided by independent contractors and vendor organizations? What qualities do you like to see in your vendor? What kind of vendor provides you with the service levels that you find satisfactory? What are the common mistakes and pitfalls for vendors when they work with you? What do you think vendors should do to make outsourcing successful for you?
As a vendor, what are you experiencing? What are customers looking for? Are they hard to please or are you able to satisfy them with ease? What are the common mistakes and pitfalls for customers when they work with you? What do you think customers should do to make outsourcing successful?
It would be interesting to see responses.
Do you see demand for e-learning from any particular sectors in the economy?
I would agree with the assessment here. These are the sectors showing consistent demand patterns.
I would say that India as a geography deserves to get a special focus along the more innovative and new forms of e-learning. I think the retail segment in India also deserves a closer look.
Are companies happy with the quality of e-learning contractors?
Obviously the supply chain is effective and creates quality (not only for production but for design and consulting tasks as well). However, as a vendor or as a customer, I would expect that the greatest challenge is in building a long term relationship based on shared values, a high level of communication, responsiveness and reliability.
This also is critically dependent on how you would choose to approach any engagement. Also key is the experience of working collaboratively in a global multicultural environment. Whether I am a vendor or am contracting out to one, these fundamentals are required and do not change.
Customer points of contact are also a part of the supply chain and respond to business stakeholders upstream. Thus, the alignment and linkage starts there.