A Note from the CEO
Jim Everidge
There has been a very public battle in the media for
the last several weeks over one IT giant swallowing another. It's
Oracle v. PeopleSoft. What we have not seen or heard about is the
potential impact on eLearning customers in this process.
The battle has been over customers - specifically PeopleSoft's
customers. In fact, Oracle has boldly proclaimed that they don't
need the PeopleSoft application suite. After some customer and media
persuasion, Oracle has finally agreed to support their products for
ten years. But what will be the impact on the Oracle and PeopleSoft
eLearning customers.
By one analyst's estimate,
PeopleSoft will reach $90MM in eLearning revenues this year. That is
a significant product position in the eLearning market and
represents potentially many customers. If Oracle is successful, the
PeopleSoft customers will face the reality that their learning
technology investment will be unsupported by the new buyer. Not a
great position to be in but not an unusual one in the eLearning
space - many customers have seen their eLearning investments vanish
due to consolidation, change in direction, or vendors simply going
out of business. How does a company mitigate their risk here?
Many prospective eLearning customers have learned how to
evaluate product features. However, the product evaluation process
is simply not complete without also evaluating business
fundamentals. What are the key points to consider? Here is a partial
list:
· Have your CFO evaluate the company's Financials - this
includes both information provided by the vendor and third party
credit scoring companies; look for signs that the company doesn't
understand the 'Profit' equation
· Talk to current customers -
not only 'references' but customers that have been featured in
presentation materials, press releases, or financial results; look
for how well the vendor takes care of 'existing' customers, not just
new ones
· Follow the analysts - there are several good industry
analysts that follow the eLearning space; they make their money by
understanding the direction that companies are headed
· Monitor
the licensing negotiations - determine if the vendor is pressing too
hard for cash up front versus payment associated with your ability
to derive value from the product
Determining Business
Viability is never foolproof (ask PeopleSoft customers) and is
generally not the result of one data point. You have to put many
pieces of information together to have the best picture possible
about the long term viability of your eLearning partner. Take your
time - this is an important decision.
Kudos to PeopleSoft.
The strategy of offering customers a premium (five times the current
licensing dollar expenditure) if they are aquired was really a
stroke of genius. Just another data point that the PeopleSoft
management team really believes in the future viability of their
company.
What do we do? rapidLD provides consulting services focused in
the learning industry. Our consulting offerings evolve around four
Customer questions:
1) Where do I start? (Strategy
and Business Plan Development),
2) Who do I
partner with? (Vendor Analysis and Selection),
3)
How do I maximize my investment? (Deployment) and
4) How do I manage the implementation that I have?
(Outsourcing).
If you think that we might collaborate
on one of these topics and want more information, edit your
Interests (at the bottom of the page) and we will send you more
information.
We have seen many customers realize fabulous benefits from
learning technologies. We hope that you have that same success!
Visit our Home on the
Web!
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Want eLearning? Don't Buy an eLearning
Product!! |
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 Gili Gordon
CEO,Worknowledge
Yes, you read correctly. If you want eLearning, be sure NOT
to buy eLearning products. Okay. Let me explain. There are
numerous vendors of eLearning products and services, and if
you have seen their marketing, you know that most claim to
offer "solutions" to solve all of your problems. That is, they
claim to be solution providers. Typically, these vendors are
selling products; unfortunately, in most cases, what we need
are solutions.
A solution provider is, by definition,
different. They focus on solving your business problems rather
than selling a particular software package. They profit from
selling on-going "services" rather than a one-time purchase.
As buyers gain a deeper understanding of how e-learning can
help them, the business is migrating toward the solution
providers.
A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
It can
be challenging to discern a product seller posing as a
solution provider. Here are claims you might hear from them,
and what they really mean:
· "We can be up and running
fast!" Unfortunately, when a product seller says this, they
are referring to the technical implementation, rather than
your ability to deliver against your business requirements. Be
sure to test the validity of the claim ("fast" could mean 6 -
12 months) and understand how much more time is required for
you to launch your effort.
· "We are integrated with many
other technologies and learning content." What is required to
have them working together in your environment? In almost all
cases, the burden is on YOU to pay for the actual integration,
and manage time-consuming relationships with multiple vendors.
· "We will solve your immediate need." Many times, this
will be true. For example, you may have an urgent need for
compliance, so a compliance vendor can fill that gap. But as
your needs grow, these vendors will have difficulty helping
you.
The Solution Says . . .
The language
you will hear from a true solution provider is subtly but
critically different. Here are some of the things you might
hear, and what they mean:
· "Let's understand your business
and learning needs before we start." A true solution provider
will go deep in understanding your needs before offering the
appropriate solution.
· "We can get your employees
learning quickly." Contrast this with the product seller
positioning. Solution providers care about when you can
actually deliver to your clients (employees).
· "We will
make sure you're getting what we promised." This is a critical
distinction. Solution providers don't drop an application on
your doorstep and run. They provide a "service" and they want
to make sure you are successful.
The market demand has
already shifted, but most vendors are still selling products.
Make sure you ask the tough questions to identify the wolves.
To learn more about
Worknowledge and get a free e-learning readiness assessment,
click here>>
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Consolidation - How Does the Customer
Benefit? |
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 How would you define learning management system
Value? For the purposes of this article, let's describe
Value as the sum of the important characteristics of both an
LMS product and the firm that produces it. On the product
side, this includes features that are embedded in the product,
supplementary tools that the vendor provides with the core
product, integrations with third party tools and off the shelf
content, and how current these components are with respect to
the market. The company characteristics include business
viability, product support, executive leadership, industry
leadership, product innovation, and good software development
practices. Do you have a sense for the definition of Value?
Then, if you were to create a graph of all of the LMS
companies comparing their Value to Price, what would the graph
look like? A line chart - steadily sloping up (the greater the
Value, the greater the Price)? A column chart (representing
clusters of companies at particular Price points)? Today, the
chart would most likely be a Scatter Plot with a relatively
even distribution of data points around the plot (otherwise
known as an X-Y Chart). This type of chart would represent
really no relationship between product Value and Price.
There is a convergence among LMS vendors around
product capability (features). The reason why is relatively
simple - as one vendor announces product functionality to the
market, the rest of the 'crowd' follows closely. Product
functionality advances are more incremental today so this
'keeping up with the Jones's' is easier to do. Other product
advances are more difficult - third party product integration,
development of supplementary tools, new product releases (and
a demonstrated release schedule). However, what really begins
to separate these companies are the business variables and the
massive disparity in the market among those variables.
However, these elements are the hardest to judge since most
companies just don't want you to know how they fare.
So, how does a Customer understand Value? We would
contend that in the crowded marketplace today this is, at
best, a risky proposition. It is only when the field
sufficiently narrows that the Market can get enough
information in all of these areas to create some judgment
about the Value of a firm and its product(s). How narrow?
Probably less then 15 firms (Clark Aldrich of Gartner Group
thinks this number is about six). At 15 firms, the graph of
Value to Price becomes very clear - each data point becomes a
known firm. And Customers can make better decisions about how
they will spend their money in this market.
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What's COOL...What's
HOT... |
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 Setting the Standard: A SCORM 1.2 Resource Kit
Content Integration - Those are feared words to the
seasoned eLearning professional. It is not that content
integration is impossible. It is just that it often is left to
the end of the project and not enough time or resources are
allocated to effectively integrating content into the entire
eLearning solution.
The fairly rapid adoption of the
Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Shareable Content Object
Reference Model (SCORM) standards has been a boon to content
firms. Although there still remains discontinuity to which
version of SCORM a content vendor drives its development (and
to some degree, how each vendor interprets the standards),
there is a much higher degree of confidence in being able to
effectively launch and track content that is 'SCORM'
compliant.
Many groups have a need to thoroughly
understand the SCORM standards beyond the content companies -
customers, infrastructure software vendors, and integrators.
Unfortunately, the ADL Initiative provides 'too much'
information that is not well synthesized for the various
constituents that need it. This presents an obstacle to
effective implementation of the SCORM standard.
Click2Learn has risen to the challenge and produced a
fairly complete resource toolkit for SCORM 1.2 (SCORM 1.3 is
coming and Click2Learn is committed to providing resources for
the 1.3 standard once it is finalized this fall). The toolkit
contains easy to read reference documents as well as tools for
developers and customers to use to ensure that they are
producing and using content that is SCORM compliant.
The toolkit section of the resource kit is
particularly helpful. In it, there is a tool to aggregate
learning objects (Package Aggregator) as well as one to take a
document or other digital asset and package it as a single
SCORM object. For the technically minded, there is the API
Exerciser and the SCO Test Wrapper - both help to debug SCORM
environments and packages. There are also some tools useful
for converting Flash movies into SCORM objects and for calling
SCORM API functions from within Flash MX.
In all,
Click2Learn has provided a great resource toolkit to help the
learning industry move toward a 'painless' integration with
content.
Click
here to go to the Click2Learn SCORM Resource Kit>>
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Let's Get Personal |
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Did you know you can receive personalized supplements
to the eLearning evolution?
Click on Update
your profile at the bottom of this email and select
Consulting Tools within your 'Areas of Interest'.
Beginning in August, we will be distributing a second email
with Consulting Tools to those people that have selected an
appropriate category. Note that we have now added Business
Process Outsourcing of Learning Technology to our interest
categories!
But Note - you only get the link if you select 'Consulting
Tools' when you 'Update your profile'. So click on Update
your profile now to 'get Personal' with rapidLD!
Also - note that we have added a link at the bottom,
'Forward email' - this allows you to send this
newsletter to up to FIVE friends with one click. Go ahead -
try it!!
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rapidLD eLearning evolution (e2)
Overview |
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If you haven't been to our web site recently, check out
the latest updates, including the new eLearning evolution
(e2) overview.
More
info>>
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