From business case to Mature Product: A step-by-step guide to using Moodle in your business. A presentation prepared for Midwest Moodle Moot by Penny Mondani. http://pennymondani.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Using-Moodle-for-Business-by-Penny-Mondani.pdf Source: http://pennymondani.com/tag/elearning-for-small-business/  

                              The ability to reach people when it is convenient for them, with powerful learning content or support tools that are relevant to what they are doing, is a compelling story for industry thought leaders to tell. And so they have been telling it [...]

While upbeat lingo abounds about ‘complementing strategic objectives’ and ‘driving productivity’, the fact is that most training does not make a significant enough impact on business results, and when it does, training professionals fail to make a convincing case about the value added to the bottom line.

The organisational factors that prevent employees from converting e-Learning into business achievement can be boiled down to five key principles. We call these principles the 5As, and together they make up the 5As Framework.

Elearning can have a transformational impact on small business, not-for-profit and other fragmented groups sharing common interests, challenges or opportunities.Being able to provide training to a disjointed group spread over thousands of kilometres on a flexible schedule enables you to capture more people, more quickly, and more effectively.

From the “Upside Learning Solutions” blog, a good summary of outsourcing benefits – some focus on outsourcing to India, but many of the key points apply equally to contracting providers closer to home.

In the current evolving economic environment, it is important for organisations to effectively implement and utilise e-learning applications, strategies and techniques to up-skill their workforce so that they are more productive, higher performing and competitive in regional, national and global contexts.

Now, more than ever, industry has an opportunity to develop the people they already have in a way that is cost effective, and highly customised. E-learning provides an ideal means of addressing specific skill shortages. Employers who are serious about taking charge of their own future, and proactively addressing the barriers which are preventing profitability and growth without waiting for others to act, should be grabbing e-learning with both hands.

Recommended reading, this webpage from the Ministry of Education (New Zealand) summarises key issues and findings from the full report (also available for download). The content is succinct and includes some excellent graphics clearly depicting the process of elearning industry, elearning as it occurs in large companies, and in small or medium businesses, and a model for examining elearning effectiveness. This is an excellent summary of key e-learning issues in the New Zealand workplace, but many of these factors have wider relevance. It also glances towards the future…

When planning for e-life, empower trainers and learners to engage in e-life. Concepts and methodologies of elearning will have to take into account the needs of the small business environment and its learners in order to achieve a wider learning application. A learner driven pedagogy rather than a product driven one could be experienced as the real challenge as it may confront equal opportunities and the democratisation of learning environments, be it blended learning approaches or others.