E-learning Market Update - July 2012

Proving business benefits is driving up learning technology budgets. Last month we reported on research from Trainingindustry.com in the US and Keynote in the UK that both highlighted increases in training expenditure despite the recession. This month we look at further research confirming the growth in learning technology budgets as the business benefits become clear; and why there has never been a better time to prove the value of your learning.

Training spend is going up: you can prove it

Research by Opinionmatters for Skillsoft found that in the UK 93% of companies planned to either maintain or increase their training budgets over the next 12 months. The research was based on telephone interviews with more than 500 CEOs / MDs with 250+ employees across all sectors.

The results revealed that 31% of businesses planned to increase training budgets by 10% or more over the next 12 months. This figure rose to 41% in the sales and marketing industries, and to 44% in the manufacturing industry. These findings confirm our experience at Kineo that investment in learning technology and online learning has grown significantly in recent years and continues to grow.

In our view businesses are investing more in learning technologies because it is delivering real value. In recent years a greater focus on evaluation has helped demonstrate this value through a range of real case studies. These case studies include detailed return on investment analysis and are valuable in assisting anyone putting together a business case for an elearning investment. We believe strongly that learning technology can deliver significant value to businesses and that this value has never been greater. Learning technologies are now transforming business, for example:

• Sophisticated blends that use a range of technologies such as self-paced content, webinars, assessment, mobile and portals to deliver knowledge and change behaviour
• Advances in bandwidth, compression and design mean elearning can deliver very engaging, quality experiences
• Mobile devices provide an ideal opportunity to deliver performance support at the point it is needed to help people do their jobs better
• Faster, lower cost delivery of rapid content that aligns with the pace of change in the business
• Enabling the multi-skilling of employees through tailoring content and skills development to meet their specific needs

Case Studies

At Kineo we have been involved in a number of such case studies that demonstrate the value of learning technologies to businesses:

McDonald’s - An online learning initiative for Food and Restaurant Safety has been a great success:

• McDonald’s has made significant cost savings of £4 million since the introduction of the training
• The training also increased the standard of hygiene across restaurants; which is felt is attributable to the fact that the programme is now specifically about McDonald’s restaurants rather than generic materials
  
  

M&S - An online learning initiative for 8,000 people saved M&S over £500,000 in year one but also delivered:

• Connection with learners: The results were overwhelmingly positive: within 6 months, the entire 8,000 initial target population had been trained, and over 95% of all responses were in the 'agree' / 'strongly agree' category
• Customer feedback improvement: Results improved over the six months, post roll-out, by over 20% – and that was directly measuring the aspects of service that the module targeted: queue reduction, customer satisfaction and speed of service
• Contribution to sales: Like-for-like sales, the standard measurement in retail, increased for cafés by over 6% in the six months, post roll-out – which is more than twelve times the industry average improvement during the same period. Proof that the positive, friendly service and confident, suggestive selling was working.

You can read more about our clients’ success stories in our case studies section.

It would be great to have more examples. Can you prove it’s working for you? Join the discussion in our E-learning Professionals Group on LinkedIn.