The Medium is not the Message
The E training industry is expected to be a $40 billion dollar market by 2005 with a five year growth rate of 42% and despite the recession, the market has expanded. Technology has made training convenient, less expensive, fun and innovative, especially for global corporations that have to train employees from around the world.
Technology Decisions (02/02)
Deals Validate E-Learning's Lesson
Meta Group says 60% of all US companies will use some sort of e-learning system within the next 2 years in an effort to reduce costs by lowering travel and instructor expenses.
Information Week ( 03/18/02)
IDC Research: E Learning to Pick Up in Europe
Over 27% of business skills training in Europe will be provided via E Learning by 2005, according to the IDC. By 2006, the overall business skills training market will be worth USD $13 billion.
IDC Research
Boomers Fuel Growth of Adult Education
"The industry is huge and it's growing" said Alexander Paris, analyst for Chicago based Barrington Research, who has a "buy" rating on the stocks for several for-profit providers of adult education. The growth is most evident in professional degree programs including nursing, business and counseling.
Barrington Research
Investment Firm Predicts Massive Spending in e-Learning
Jerry Herman, who directs educational research at Baltimore based investment firm Legg, Mason, Wood & Walker, expects the corporate e-learning market to reach $15 billion in 2 years, while higher education will also increase its e-learning spending by about $2 billion per year. By 2007, Herman says the e-learning market will have grown to $40 billion.
Washington Times (02/18/02) P. D8; Glanz, William
e-learning is on track
Market researcher Gartner estimates that e-learning is on track to become a $33.6 billion market by 2005, up from $2.1 billion this year.
eWeek (10/15/01) Vol. 18, No. 40, P. 49
E Learning is expected to generate $11 billion in revenue by 2005 in the corporate learning sector.
Jay Cross of Internet Time Group and the e-Learning Forum predicts the demise of face to face training. E Learning allows users to progress at their own pace and in the manner most conducive to them, he says. Course completion rates increase as well as measured learning outcomes, Cross says. Still corporate e-learning adoption has ample room for growth. Motorola University is one of the forerunners of corporate online e-learning. The University hopes that 50% of its learning will be delivered online by the end of 2002. General Motors University hope sto deliver 10-20% of it's learning online.
Motorola has embraced e-learning for it's 140,000 employees worldwide. The result, says Bill Wiggenhorn, president of the company's training division, is not only a reduction in costs, but also a potential tripling in the time-efficiency of teaching. Instead of taking 8 hours to learn a subject, Wiggenhorn expects that e-learning will eventually drop that time to 2.5 hours, allowing the company to teach 3 times as much information and skills in the 40 hours per year allotted each worker for training.
Internet World ( 10/01/01) Vol. 7, No. 18, P. 18, Brayton, Colin
Video and audio streaming is gaining momentum
Video and audio streaming is gaining momentum in the corporate sector as companies continue to realize the benefits Web Casting offers in regards to such applications as e-learning and corporate training. Jupiter Media Metrix analyst, Billy Pidgeon says the market for these services among the top 1,000 companies will reach $2.9 billion by 2005, up from only an estimated $290 million this year.
Wall Street Journal
$58 billion corporate training market
International Data (IDC) reports that e-learning currently generates $4 billion in annual sales and that the market is poised to explode to $14.5 billion by 2004. Cushing Anderson, e-learning analyst for IDC, says e-learning still only represents a small portion of the current $58 billion corporate training market but takes up one third of external expenditures devoted to workforce education.
IDC Research
On the Job
e-learning is gathering steam on the corporate scene because it offers anytime access to skills training, makes employees technology savvy and lets large businesses quickly mobilize their workforce initiatives.
Wall Street Journal (03/12/01) P. R133; Eure, Rob
E-Learning Firms Survive Dot-Com Die Off
Corporate e-learning companies are getting a boost of confidence from the marketplace because their product remains in demand, especially during the economic hard times. Currently the e-learning market is $11.4 billion, but is expected to grow to $44 billion by 2004, according to IDC. Businesses looking to cut costs adopt e-learning solutions to save on lost work hours, travel expenses and physical classroom costs.
Investors Business Daily (05/01/01) P. A4; Howell, Donna
Virtual Classroom is the Future London
Electronic learning is being used by more companies as a means to lower training costs. Dow Chemical will slash over 30% from it's annual training budget and Cisco's training cost per person will be cut by about 90% as a result of utilizing e-learning. The savings are the result of less missed work time and decreased travel, administration and hotel expenses. From 1998 to 2003, corporate e-learning budgets will have increased from $550 million to $11.4 billion
Sunday Times (04/29/01); Davies, Garth Hue
The Future Looks Bright
The future looks bright for corporate e-learning. Worldwide revenues will graduate beyond the $23 billion mark by 2004… extraordinary considering the market was less than $2 billion at the end of 1999, IDC said in a paper titled "Worldwide Corporate eLearning Market Forecast and Analysis, 1999-2004.
Wall Street Journal
Merrill Lynch said in a recent report, "E Commerce is to the knowledge revolution what the railroads were to the industrial revolution".
In 2000, an estimated $19.5 billion was spent directly on corporate training and that figure is expected to reach $29.3 billion in 2003. IDC estimates that money spent on web based training was roughly 11% of the pie last year, but will surge to 40% by 2003.
According to International Data Corporation (IDC) , the corporate e-learning market is projected to grow at an annual of 60% over the next five years.
Despite the slowdown of the economic environment, analyst Trace Urdan at WR Hambrecht remains bullish about the e-learning market, "E-Learning remains a less expensive substitute for instructor led training and the return on investment for most e-learning products is quite high".
E-Learning is becoming a commodity. "Companies are looking at E-Learning programs like a stapler or reams of paper---it's just one item in their inventory," says Clark Aldrich, a Gartner Group analyst.
Jupiter Research found the number of people with at-work access to broadband connectivity will more than double from 24 million in 2000 to 55 million by 2005. Jupiter analysts expect 87% of employees with Internet connectivity to be using broadband connection by 2005.
Number of broadband subscribers in the Asia-Pacific region will surge from 452,900 at year end 1999 to 11.3 million by the end of 2003.
Yankee Group (April 2001)
IDC has released a report projecting the worldwide e-learning market to grow to $23 billion by 2003, considerably higher than previously published estimates of $11.4 billion by 2003
Information Week Online (02/26/01)
60 Minutes highlighted the fact that while dot-coms are going under at an alarming rapidity, the business of online learning is booming.
CBS Magazine "60Minutes" (02/18/02)
"Unlike many B2B fad stocks, e-learning represents the natural evolution of an existing market, rather than the invention of a new one".
Trace Urdan, WR Hambrecht & Co.
In the long run, the use of the Internet is a perfect delivery method of training and learning".
Mike Pope, DigitalThink, Inc.
46% of 250 businesses and IT professionals recently surveyed by Information Week Research claim their companies are already receiving returns on their E-Learning investments.
Information Week Online (02/26/02)
The primary element of employee retention, according to Stacey Wagner, a research associate of the American Society of Training Development (ASTD), is the culture of a company. Employees are looking for good management, opportunities for career growth, challenges and a learning environment.
Electronic Business (02/01)
Demand for online courses is much greater than our ability to create and staff classes", says Bob Tolsma, executive director of the University of Colorado at Denver Online program.
According to "Training" magazine, nearly 2/3rds of all corporate training expenses involve accommodations and travel in getting to and from a training site.
It is the issue of leverage that has begun to transform the industry. Web based training enables companies to leverage the intellectual content of professors from the most prestigious universities and meganames such as Tom Peters, Ken Blanchard and an army of wannabes. Most of these "thought leaders" are eager to get aboard the e-learning express because they have recognized one immutable fact: No matter how good they are, they can only teach so many students in person. But with E-Learning, the geographic barriers are lifted".
John F. Ince, freelance writer in Sausalito, CA.
Triggered by the Internet, continuing adult education may well become our greatest growth industry".
Peter Drucker ( Forbes Magazine)
A growing task for business: Retraining workers, honing skills and keeping employees current with the rapidly changing workplace technology. A whopping 75% of today's workforce needs retraining just to keep pace".
Knight Kiplinger (4/28/01)
Cost savings is one factor fueling this growth, Cushing Anderson, and IDC analyst, says one day of classroom training can typically cost $500-$1,200 dollars, while one day of electronic learning can be up to 90% savings in reducing corporate overhead".
Corporate e-learning is one of the fastest growing and most promising markets in the education industry. While the market is currently relatively small and early-stage, it is poised to explode. The online training market is expected to nearly double in size every year through 2005, reaching approximately $66 billion by that time. Investment opportunities in online pure plays should emerge as numerous online e-learning companies are now preparing to tap into the lucrative public and corporate markets.
