Are learning and development departments earning their keep?The latest UK survey from Capita entitled “Learning to Change”  suggests not.  It argues there is a worrying lack of alignment between corporate strategy and delivery by learning & development departments.

The research undertaken by Capita is the result of independent opinion research among senior decision makers at 100 of the UK’s largest 500 firms by turnover.

This month we were at the ASTD show in Chicago taking the temperature of the e-learning market. The good news is that we are seeing a lot of buzz and excitment about the potential for e-learning.

When visiting the Kineo Chicago office this month, Kineo’s UK Managing Director Steve Rayson couldn’t resist picking up one of the new iPads. After a few weeks he reflects on the potential of the iPad for shaking up the learning market.

This month we are in sunny Orlando at the E-Learning Guild’s E-Learning Solutions conference checking out the latest market trends and why rapid e-learning is still the core growth area in the US.  We share some key market research findings on rapid e-learning from Forrester and news from Atlantic Link, Mohive, Suddenly Smart, Captivate and a potential tool newcomer Zebra. Busy times...

What can we expect in 2010?

It is the first month of a new decade. Here at Kineo we have been doing some strategic thinking (and a little crystal ball gazing) on what changes the next 12 months will see. We outline here our top 5 e-learning predictions for 2010.

This month we take a look at the UK E-Learning Market Report for 2009 from Learning Light.

This month we report on the latest survey of the market for self-paced e-learning by Ambient Insight. We are pleased to see that they now include a section on open source e-learning solutions and the rise of Moodle. We are also pleased to be name checked in their report as a key player in this space.

This month we take a look at the latest learning market surveys and the impact of the recession on learning and development strategies.

This month we take a look at developments in the world of learning management systems; and explore key trends and pricing.

This month we take a look at the e-learning market from an offshoring perspective and the growth in e-learning in China.

Is the business model of the future one where the customer no longer pays? This is the idea put forward in a new book by Chris Anderson. We explore his ideas in our market update this month and the implications for e-learning.

This month we examine trends in the LMS market. We look at recent evidence of a significant shift towards Software-as-a-service (SaaS) and how this combined with the growth of open source solutions could change the face of learning management systems as we have come to know them.

In a few weeks Kineo will launch our US operation at the ASTD event. As part of our market research we examined trends in e-learning development and comparisons with Europe. This month we set out the findings from our market research.

The latest research report from Ambient insight confirms what we have felt for some time, that the recession is a growth catalyst for the sales of learning technology products and services. The U.S. demand for learning technology products and services is estimated to be growing by a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.3% and revenues reached $30 billion in 2008.

This month we take a look at the findings of the latest e-learning survey undertaken by Towards Maturity. The full report published at the end of February 2009, is the 3rd in a longitudinal research series looking at trends in the use of learning technologies in the workplace. The work is supported by Becta as part of the Next Generation Learning @ Work campaign.

If you’re responsible for a training budget, odds are you’ve had quite a sobering start to 2009. Training budgets are being scrutinised carefully along with all other budgets. ASTD’s latest online survey (January 2009) of its members asked how their learning function was being affected by the current economic climate. The most common response (53% of respondents) was that they are being asked to do more with less. This month’s market update looks at reducing training expenditure, how organisations are doing more with less and the longer term impact.

Boom time for ideas?

There was an interesting article in the Financial Times recently which suggests that the long term effects of a recession can be very positive on work and working habits because they give rise to innovation. This month we ask if we will see this effect in the e-learning market?

Doom and/or Boom - depending on what you read...

Following Ambient’s rather downbeat report on the e-learning market last month, there is more caution from professional investment advisers, mixed news from the 2008 US Training Market Report but also some optimism this month from a survey by Online Educa.

A new report from Ambient Insight shows that the elearning growth rate has slowed significantly to 8% from previous forecasts of 18% and 21%. However, the report also highlights some key growth sectors in a slowing elearning market, most notably rapid elearning and open source learning software.

The world economy was a bit bumpy this month, shall we say. Banks are coming and going, and as I write this the US House of Representatives have just turned down the $700bn funding bail out of US banks. So what are the implications for e-learning? Perhaps it’s not as bad as the rest of the economy would suggest.

Doom and boom

In 2001 Elearnity published a paper entitled “Recession bites, e-learning marches forward”.  Seven years on we have oil prices at record highs, energy prices rising, food prices rising and a major credit crunch. How will e-learning fare this time around?  Steve Rayson takes the market temperature.

This month we have taken a look at e-learning trends in the US. The US is the single largest eLearning market worldwide with revenues exceeding $17.5 billion in 2007, as stated in a report published by Global Industry Analysts. In 2007 the US represented over 60%. Europe is the second largest e-learning market with a share of less than 15% but the Asian market is reported to be growing faster.

We had a look at Bersin’s latest research into the US market which is contained in their 2008 Corporate Learning Factbook. The good news is that, like in Europe, e-learning continues to grow each year as a proportion of all training expenditure.

E-learning surveys - Lies, damn lies and statistics.

Last month we reviewed Survey Money and as part of this review we set up a survey on future e-learning trends for our community to take part in. Whilst our ours was just a small sample of a few hundred people from our community of readers we thought we would compare it to the original E-learning Guild survey from which we took our questions to see how things compared. We then also compared the findings to the latest CIPD survey on learning developments which highlighted the difficulty of analysing and interpreting surveys.

 
This month the Financial Times published a special supplement on online learning and business education. The supplement was headed “Distance learning boosted by downturn.” It seems in all the doom and gloom of the credit crunch that the e-learning market could be a major beneficiary. We have highlighted some of the key messages from the Financial Times research and set out below why we have reason to be optimistic.

Time for e-learning?

As we reported in our review of the Learning Technologies Conference there is a lot less hype surrounding new technologies and a lot more positive adoption of e-learning and great case studies.  Are we seeing a growing maturity and integration of e-learning into the mainstream? This month we review some key industry reports.

It’s a tale of two markets this month, as Steve Rayson explains in his review of who’s fighting fit and who’s holding onto the ropes.

October has been a traditionally busy month for e-learning companies and this one has been no exception.

This month we take a look at publicly quoted e-learning companies. The last few months have been interesting times for publicly quoted e-learning companies.

Our round up of e-learning news this month includes:

• UK Company News
• E-learning industry trends
• Cool open source tools 

What is happening out there?

No, it’s not a posthumous release by Marvin Gaye – but rather one of the more interesting sessions from the E-learning Guild Annual Gathering. Steve Rayson was in the audience and files this report for this month’s market update.

We heard it on the blogline…

You’ll know from previous Kineo insights that you can find a lot about what’s really going on by reading the blogs of the well-informed, inside or outside your own organisation. So, this month we decided to look at the e-learning market from a different perspective, by firing up the blog scanner to see what, and who, is driving the debate. And there’s no shortage of debate:

The Learning Technologies event at London’s Kensington Olympia at the end of January was one of the best yet. There were a lot more people, or at least it certainly felt that way, maybe they had really just reduced the exhibition and floorspace to make it feel crowded. A good party trick…

Another year over and another one just begun. Looks like interesting times ahead for e-learning following the various mergers and developments last year. We reflect on the current e-learning market at the start of 2007.

July saw confirmation of two large mergers in the world of e-learning and IT training. We take a look.

This Month: Rapid E-Learning Round-up

Speed and cost continue to drive the e-learning market. Nearly every report shows that the demands on trainers continue to increase faster than budgets or resources. Businesses not only want more learning for less, they want it much, much faster.  If you're not looking at rapid e-learning, prepare to be left behind. This month we look at emerging trends in rapid e-learning.

E-learning summer holiday? Not this year...

Typically the dog days of summer are associated with a dog of a sales pipeline for e-learning companies, as decisions get pushed out until back-to-school times, and companies look again at those, um, internal projects while they wait for the bigger contracts to drop.

But this summer is starting out very differently, with a buzz of tender activity almost drowning out the football chanting. Well, not almost. If fact, not even nearly. But you get the idea... 

• Strong growth for Redtray and Atlantic Link, and the completion of the Futuremedia/ebc merger

• A new IDC report points to growing maturity in the e-learning market

• Open University is about to launch one of the world’s largest LMS implementations based on Moodle, the open source LMS.

By Steve Rayson

In November 2005 we published our first report on the UK e-learning market.

By Steve Rayson

On the eve of the UK Learning Technologies conference in January 2006 we believe that we are seeing two very different and contrasting trends taking place in the e-learning market. In the technology side of the market e.g. Learning Management/Content Management/Virtual Classrooms we are seeing clear consolidation in the market. By contrast in the bespoke e-learning space the market is becoming more fragmented than ever. We analyse the trends.

No time to read online? You can download a copy of this Briefing Paper here.

This month we have had a look at what other commentators are saying about the e-learning market. We found one of the most insightful papers to be by Sarah Boehle in Training Mag. You can read the full article here.  We have pulled out from the article what we see as some of the key trends and issues which are also present in the UK and European market. 

At Kineo we provide bespoke e-learning and custom e-learning development services. We pride ourselves on having some of the world’s best learning designers. We believe strongly that the effectiveness of e-learning solutions is heavily influenced by the quality of the learning designers. However, even the best designer in the world isn’t enough by itself, what is critical is a partnership approach to building a solution. Fundamentally the best solutions are partnership solutions.

See examples of our e-learning solutions.

Read some e-learning case studies and sample some of our content.

For more information please email us at info@kineo.com.

Recommended E-Learning Companies

We would very much like you to choose us for e-learning development. However, we have set out below a range of e-learning companies that we would recommend and that you might want to consider if you are procuring a custom e-learning or bespoke e-learning project.