Social eLearning Software Blog

Have you ever calculated the true cost of an “Open Source” project?

At our company, we’ve reviewed a few open source components for our own products, including some aspects of Moodle and Boonex. In certain areas, the integration of these has been highly successful and in other areas not as much.

As a vendor of an eLearning platform, we must assess the value of the component for our clients and the cost / benefit of its integration into the product in the same manner that any other organisation would assess similar issues.

Included in the costs are initial assessment time, initial development time and expense and ongoing time and expense of maintaining the component.

I assume most organizations do the same in most projects, however, in some ways it appears that “Open Source” gets a bit of a free ride with many organisations. It seems that the almost religious fervour of the open source movement allows companies to ignore development and implementation time and effort (and the true costs associated with these) both at initial implementation and on an ongoing basis through the lifecycle of the system.

In terms of eLearning specifically, it may be absolute hard costs in terms of salary, benefits and other expenses for personnel that will assemble, implement and update the open source solution. In some organizations it may also be in terms of opportunity costs related to other activities those personnel could be performing rather than constructing and maintaining the eLearning implementation.

Consideration should also be given to ongoing upgrades, enhancements, accountability for the solution, speed to market of your project etc. Risk should also be considered. If a vendor’s solution is proven to fully meet your needs, does it not incur less risk that a solution your organisation needs to assemble and maintain?

I’ll openly admit my bias, but I feel, in many cases a vendor based solution can offer more value than an open source solution. Choosing a quality vendor with a quality, affordable offering may be more appropriate for your organisation than constructing and maintaining an open source solution yourself.

Do you feel strongly one way or the other? Have you had successes with open source? Have you had failures? Does anyone calculate the true costs?

Let me know your thoughts.

Also, please feel free to join our upcoming free, live webinar:

We are going to cover a lot of ground in the webinar, but if you would like to discuss your unique eLearning needs, feel free to contact me at patrick.batty@interactyx.com.

Patrick Batty
Vice President, Academic Solutions
Interactyx Limited

patrick.batty@interactyx.com
www.interactyx.com

The highly dispersed nature of any company's sales organization is a fact of life for every business. Whether you sell direct, via manufacturer's reps, wholesalers, distributors or retail, the ability to engage these channels is the second leading issue facing business executives today (see table below). Sales leadership in many corporations are hiding behind the economic doldrums excuse (with some legitimacy), but "best-in-class" Sales Executives are delivering results in spite of these realities.

Traditional sales training and knowledge distribution processes through your channels are relics of the past. Stick with them and your company will become a dinosaur - extinct. Ladies and gentlemen, it is 2009 and time to leverage the tools available to engage your sales channels. Your Marketing and Human Resource brethren are leveraging Web 2.0 tools to extend your brand and upgrade the talent pools across your organization. It is time for Sales to harness these tools to deliver success via focused collaboration and knowledge sharing among your distributed sales network.

Traditional Sales Training

Top 2 Strategic Actions utilizing Web 2.0

(Aberdeen Research, August 2009) - 216 Respondents

The "best-in-class" Sales Executives are already engaging their channels and achieving results. Sales organizations using Employee Communities, Employee Forum/Wikis and internal Social Networking individually lag "best-in-class" organizations that provide integrated sets of these tools together. Engagement comparison to companies not using any of these tools is even more startling.

Impact on Engagement for Web 2.0 Tools

Source: Aberdeen Group, June 2009

Of the 73 "best-in-class" organizations, these companies demonstrated a 26% improvement in year over year engagement.

It is time for you and your sales channels to realize their potential. To learn more on how to engage your Sales channels, facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration via an innovative, affordable Web 2.0 solution, please contact bob.brogan@interactyx.com or visit www.interactyx.com.

Below is a terrific article from Elearning! Magazine for SMB and Franchise Owners who want to rapidly leapfrog their competitors via affordable SaaS Solutions. Take note as your organization can become a performance leader.

On-Demand Learning and Performance Solutions Can Improve Your Ability to Tackle Learning Challenges

Small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) are joining the e-learning and performance revolution in rapid succession.

The streamlined approach to e-learning offered by software-as-a-service (SaaS) models makes assessing, delivering and measuring training as common and critical to SMBs as they are to large enterprises. In fact, research by Bersin & Associates shows that approximately 20 percent of e-learning expenditures now come from companies with fewer than 1,000 employees, and the percentage is growing.

E-learning capabilities have become necessary for SMBs to compete and grow in a global economy. It is a strategic necessity to address the challenges of training widely-dispersed employees, business partners and customers that are diverse in terms of the work they do, their IT experience, and their educational background.

Similar to their large corporate counterparts, many SMBs are now considering a multi-stage approach to e-learning, starting with their own employees, and then extending to customers and ultimately channel partners. In fact, SMBs may actually have a competitive advantage over larger organizations when starting or expanding an e-learning program because they often have little or no legacy e-learning technology when compared with large organizations. SMBs can essentially “leapfrog” directly to the forefront of the latest e-learning technology and use it to maximize performance and revenues.

Four Steps
1. Start with Compliance - Sixteen states have laws and regulations requiring or encouraging sexual harassment prevention training. For example, in California, employers with at least 50 employees must provide supervisors with two hours of interactive harassment-awareness training every two years. Many SMB organizations are also impacted by other regulation compliance such as HIPAA, Sarbanes Oxley and OSHA. Each of these regulations has its own set of training requirements that SMBs are held to as much as large organizations. With requirements for logging and auditing compliance mounting, SMBs are consequently turning to e-learning to educate employees about legal requirements in the workplace.

SMBs with remote offices and global operations face extra challenges in delivering compliance training, tutorials and training courses to remote employees cost-effectively because of travel costs, long distances and a shortage of instructors. SMBs can implement focused, on-demand e-learning to develop critical compliance skills for workers engaged in businesses or operations across regions, national borders, cities or companies.

2. Align Goals to Improve Performance - SMBs seeking to unlock their company’s full potential ensure that all employees understand how each specific job/role contributes to achieving the company’s overall business goals. Success for the employee and the company can be driven by establishing a formal process for creating relevant goals for each employee, setting learning activities to support these goals, and monitoring/measuring performance against company objectives. Many SMBs are collecting positive results from this strategic approach to talent development and performance management, including:

>> Employees and managers achieve more through greater visibility into both individual and company-wide goals.
>> All employees have access to the strategic plan for the company’s success and understand how individual goals fit into the company’s business objectives.
>> Managers more easily stay in touch with employees’ progress during every phase of goal completion, and offer immediate reinforcement or coaching to keep performance and deadlines on track.

Getting started with performance management can be overwhelming to some SMBs — but it doesn’t have to be. Start with communicating and managing organizational core values to lay the groundwork for maximizing competencies and goals.

3. Build Customer Satisfaction - From an internal learning perspective, SMBs can lessen growing pains associated with improving and maintaining high service levels by using e-learning. Call centers, sales and service staff are crucial to maintaining customer relationships, so offering updated, consistent, on-demand training for employees in those areas can have a direct impact on profits.

From an external training perspective, customers increasingly seek value-added services when choosing between competing providers and desire access to on-demand training resources. Enterprises can use e-learning with customers to support after-sales services to improve customer satisfaction and retention. For example, a small software company can make training available through an e-learning portal to it’s customers about how to use the specific product modules. In addition, many SMBs offer training for a fee to customers as an additional revenue stream.

4. Improve Channel Readiness - Delivering knowledge, information and training to an audience beyond employees is one of the fastest-growing segments of the learning industry, increasing at an annual pace better than 25 percent (Bersin & Associates). Similarly, competitive SMBs are looking outside of their own organizations for revenue opportunities and partnerships that can help expedite the distribution of their products and services. These outward-facing, revenue-building initiatives will require the delivery of training, certification programs and knowledge assets to an SMB organization’s extended enterprise of franchises/franchisees, partners, resellers, independent agents and distributor networks.

E-learning delivered online and on-demand can help organizations increase top-line revenue from more productive channels, enhance information sharing with external audiences, develop and rapidly deliver training, improve the quality and convenience of training to an external audience, and reach large audiences at a fixed cost.

Realizing the Benefits
Although SMBs are often structured and equipped differently than their larger competitors, their needs related to compliance, performance management and communicating with external learning audiences are just as significant. By properly approaching learning and performance management, SMBs can gain significant advantages against the competition.

Exploring the use of on-demand learning and performance solutions can dramatically improve an SMB’s ability to tackle learning and performance management challenges for internal and external audiences with greater efficiency and influence.

You are invited to learn more about available and affordable training tools to enhance your business at our free, live webinar.  Please register below:

Affordable, Effective Training for SMB's
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
12:00pm - 1:00pm ET
Register Here - Space is Limited

Bob Brogan
Vice President, Corporate Solutions
Interactyx Limited

bob.brogan@interactyx.com
www.interactyx.com