What E-learning Providers and End Users Should Do Respectively before Initiating Such a Learning Project

As an E-learning provider, before offering such a product it needs to carry out a thorough analysis in order to understand the customers and trends, and evaluate external environmental forces which include market demand, political and legal forces, social and ethical influences, technology and competition. Through conducting a thorough analysis, a clear strategy can be developed that identifies which customers the e-learning provider is to target and where their product or services will be best positioned. To some extent providers are forced continually to forecast, monitor and assess this environment and to adapt e-learning products or services accordingly before offering learning products. To implement e-learning project successfully, the end users need to understand what e-learning is good at and not so good at. When this basic analysis is complete, one can go into the organization looking for specific learning needs that could be met with e-learning. The advantage of starting by doing is that users will find out where they need help, and where they can manage perfectly well on their own. For any company, the returns must be considered carefully before undertaking such a program. In this article, it also explores the benefits of e-learning investments with a particular focus upon measuring the value of delivering an enterprise e-learning initiative. In addition to the many measurable returns, the paper offers a number of formulas for calculating the ROI and justifying the cost. The article concludes with guidelines detailing the implementation of e-learning initiative.