In Search Of The Perfect E-Learning Buyer

For most training managers, the buying of goods and services is relatively routine: purchases are made on a drip-feed basis throughout the year to many suppliers and in relatively small amounts. However large the overall budget, most of the transactions are small and for short periods. E-learning has changed all that. Whether you are purchasing a learning management system, buying licenses to off-the-shelf content or commissioning bespoke development, the contracts into which you will be entering will be for large amounts and will have an impact over long periods. Buying e-learning is a skill that all training managers will need. In this chapter, I talk to buyers and sellers to find out what it is that makes the perfect e-learning buyer.

The big picture

E-learning presents many new challenges for the training manager: cutting through the hype to find out just how useful it might be for your organisation; determining how to integrate it with your existing training efforts; gaining the commitment of trainers, managers and learners to your first major e-learning initiative and then securing the necessary funds. All of this is necessary just to get you to first base. Then the fun begins, because to reach that next base you have to choose the suppliers that you are going to work with to build your e-learning infrastructure and then populate that with engaging and effective content.

It sounds easy enough, but e-learning is a new industry with a very large number of suppliers, from major corporations to the smallest cottage industries, all promising to save you a great deal of money and provide all the solutions you need from a single source. Sorting through these to separate fact from fiction is not trivial.

At the same time, you may well be entering a new realm in terms of strategic and financial decision-making. Traditionally, the buying process for trainers is relatively short term and involves relatively small amounts – you drip-feed short-term contracts to obtain the services you require to meet needs here and now. With e-learning the situation is somewhat different.

First of all you may need to establish a platform with which to manage your e-learning efforts and to track the results. This platform is likely to be enterprise-wide to provide access to all your employees, and must integrate with all your existing systems. These do not come cheap and they are not installed in a matter of a few weeks.

Then you may need to commission the development of bespoke content that meets your specific training needs. Here the costs are all up-front and not insubstantial – the savings come down the road. And if you decide to buy your content off-the-shelf, you are again likely to be contracting for a year at a time and for relatively major amounts. This is not what you expected when you agreed to become training manager. It means you have to spend an increasing amount of time in the offices of those rather difficult people in IT and Finance.

Becoming a skilled e-learning buyer is a requirement for any training manager in the 21^st century. But what does this mean in practice. We go in search of the perfect e-learning buyer.