Do you ever wonder whether you should be taking your classroom-based leadership training online? Well, the answer in most cases is a resounding ‘yes’! Customers are crying out for ways in which they can cascade training through their organisations without breaking the bank. Add to this desire a rapid improvement in Internet speeds and widespread acceptance of mobile computing. You can really start to see why the online world is jam-packed with more valuable training resource than ever, and it’s growing daily.

The Internet is now the go-to place for learning just about anything, and as companies that make a living delivering learning; we need to be taking part. The following statistics will help indicate why:  

• eLearning represents £33.1 billion of corporate training. This will grow into a £63 billion market by 2015. (Global Industry Analysts)

• eLearning is proven to increase knowledge retention by 25% to 60%. (Corporate eLearning Exploring a New Frontier, WR Hambrecht)

• eLearning can help companies boost productivity by 50%. Every $1 spent in eLearning results in $30 of productivity. (IBM)

• Around 23% of all employees leave their job because there aren’t enough training or learning opportunities. Companies who offer eLearning and on-the-job training generate about 26% more revenue per employee. (Training Industry)

• eLearning participants learn nearly 5X more material without increasing time spent training. (The Information Daily)

You get the idea. Once again we are hearing why we should be strongly considering online training, but how feasible is it? How do the smaller players compete in such an established market, is there even room for them? Again, the answer is yes. In fact, a huge opportunity is currently presenting itself in the eLearning market and it’s all focused around quality of content. Consider the following statistics:

• 70% of organisations use eLearning. However, only 43% said it was very effective. (CIPD)

• eLearning represents £33.1 billion of corporate training. This will grow into a £63 billion market by 2015. (Global Industry Analysts)

In summary, organisations are not seeing the return they expect from their eLearning investments but are still willing to spend billions on eLearning. What’s the missing piece for the organisations that aren’t seeing their return on investment? Quality content! Too many companies are taking their classroom-based learning and turning it into lifeless point and click interactions. The learner is presented with pages of textual content that have clearly been lifted from the classroom manual and dumped rather unappealingly into a small window on their computer screen. Once they read it they can click ‘next’ and are presented with a further mountain of boring content – we’ve all experienced it.

At Worth, we are on a mission to create content of the highest possible quality, designed specifically for online delivery. This is where we believe the smaller training companies can score in the online training world. As training companies, we know our content, we know how to engage our learners and wouldn’t dream of presenting them with dry, static content. This passion towards the subject matter, coupled with the increasing accessibility of online delivery methods is, in my humble opinion, where companies will find the return on investment they’re looking for from their online leadership training.