The State of Sourcing

e-learning has been a service oriented industry since its inception. Indian e-learning service providers have also traditionally taken on offshored custom services from clients, on an ongoing basis or through annual contracts. According to a ValueNotes report, the revenues from this offshoring market are estimated at $341 million for the calendar year 2008. Trends in the industry now suggest that while the offshore services framework may serve as a good strategy for companies in the short term, future growth for Indian e-learning companies will be sustained by a diversification/upgrading of service offerings.

Productizing for alternate revenue streams
ValueNotes research suggests that e-learning providers will most likely go into the learning products business in the future, for domestic as well as international client markets. This is because scalability is achievable to a high degree with such offerings, and providers are able to target specific new audiences with their products (such as B2C products for English language, primary school children; B2B products for sales training, soft skills). For example, Zeus Learning, an e-learning services company, recently launched its product ‘TestFunda.com’, an online/CD ROM based learning courseware delivery platform for CAT aspirants. Companies looking to diversify from their offshoring services model are concentrating more on developing such offerings in the next year.

Continue reading ‘Productization and SaaS as a Strategy for e-learning’ »

As you may be aware, following the release of the ValueNotes e-learning offshoring report, we held an executive briefing to discuss the key findings with members of the industry, and also to facilitate Indian e-learning buyer-vendor interactions. The result was phenomenal, as Deepali blogged about earlier.

What we didn’t expect was the great response to the ValueNotes industry presentation, an integral part of the event. Since we’re still getting requests, we thought we should share a few of the slides with interested parties in the Indian e-learning space. And what better place to do so than our blog!

Continue reading ‘e-learning outsourcing 2009: Advantage India’ »

This week I’m in the process of applying ValueNotes’ proprietary company rating model to the Indian e-learning outsourcing industry. One of the sub-parameters that companies are being rated on is marketing presence in key client markets, that will illustrate a part of the company’s overall strategic intent.

A quick summative analysis of Indian players reveals that the majority of firms (small ones, these) have at best a few marketing representatives in key markets such as US and UK. While the big boys have set up base and even moved beyond to expand in the Middle East and various parts of Europe, the rest of the industry has a long way to go before it can catch up!

Continue reading ‘Marketing e-learning online’ »