G-Cube Solutions: e-Learning Products and Services

Debacle of many large financial institutions in USA has stormed the global economy and the crisis looks unending. I don’t want to delve on why and how it happened. There are many expert views and descriptions available all over the places.

It is really sad, and the impact of such a gigantic crisis will have medium to long term impact on global economies and a potential recession seems impending.

I have often heard CEOs/CXOs mentioning that there is a severe shortage of strategic and leadership talent across many industry verticals. It is my hypothesis- correct me if I am wrong- that while crisis is gripping US financial institutions, several other economies in the world and specifically certain sectors stands robust (relatively) for long term growth (10-20 years of growth is predictable in countries like India which are starting from a very low base of consumerism).

I can’t estimate the exact quantum of talent released by the busting, shrinking and restructuring of these banks and financial institutions. But, my guess is it would be big enough inventory of “high quality talent” that can’t be and shouldn’t be ignored.

Don’t forget the reduced stickiness of those who are not fired but getting along with limping institutions and hence they are easy prey.

I see this as a great potential opportunity by those sectors where talent can be absorbed to create a bigger economic value during these times.

This time around large corporate houses and visionary groups should gear-up their talent acquisition exercise to acquire desirable human assets.

Though it sounds contrarian, in my views it can prove very valuable to those companies where effects of a potential US recession are not seen.

Although with time talent get absorbed wherever there are jobs/ or they freelance - corporations should make targeted plan to make use of this unique situation on proactive basis.

This is an exceptional time when such high quality talent is available for such a deep discount. Rush! Plan your talent acquisition strategy.

(Ankit Jain is Head - HR & Strategy at G-Cube)

With growing realization of benefits of e-learning more and more organizations are moving towards adopting e-learning. One of the first steps in this journey is to acquire a Learning Management System, which can turn out to be quite a daunting task if done without proper research or guidance. What all features do I need? Have I missed asking some important questions? What are various challenges one faces during implementation? Here is some help.

First, let’s take a look at what does a Learning Management System (or LMS in short) consist of with help of this diagram –

As you can see there are varied set of features available in today’s LMS which cater to different business requirements. In addition, talent management features are now being introduced on top of LMS that allow HR department to manage resources from ‘Hire to Retire’ stage.

Your first step thus should be to list down “specific needs” of your organization, share it with various stakeholders, get their feedback and create a functionality requirement document specific to your company.

The reason I have highlighted specific needs above is because it’s very easy to get bogged down by all the sample RFP’s and checklists available on Net and loose focus on what you actually need (which actually depends on how you conduct your business and no sample RFP can capture that).

To capture YOUR needs, use examples/use-cases in the requirement document. For example, do you plan to group users together based on their departments or locations, do you want the managers to track their team’s progress, do you plan to give conditional access of catalog to different users etc. The more precise you are in capturing your requirements, easier it would be to actively participate in LMS demos and finally zeroing down on the system that best suits your needs. 

Along with functionality requirements, these are some of the things you should take care of in the evaluation process –

1. Standard Compliance – SCORM or AICC. SCORM is more popular among the two and the LMS should be at-least SCORM 1.2 compatible if not SCORM 2004 (SCORM is a standard which lets courseware and LMS talk to each other, and allows you to seamlessly host third-party content or content created by popular content authoring tools on to the LMS – more on SCORM in next post). Ask for a SCORM conformance report of LMS for verification. Other standards to consider are QTI (allows you to import assessments created from 3rd party QTI compliant tools into LMS), and PENS (allows the LMS to automatically pick up courseware published by PENS compliant LCMS or content authoring tools).
2. Content Compatibility – Check whether the LMS is compatible with the courses created by your content authoring tool (s) you plan to use for courseware generation. Ask for sample courses published by your chosen tools to be uploaded on to the LMS. It is important because even though LMS’s and Content Authoring Tools may claim to be SCORM/AICC compliant they may not always be compatible with each other due to different interpretation of standards by each party. Yes, it’s sad, but that’s how it is.
3. Flexibility – LMS should offer you the flexibility of choosing only the modules you need without having to pay for the rest. Any decent LMS nowadays is built in modular fashion thus providing you the option to ‘Switch ON’ a feature as and when you need it. So don’t let the salesperson sell you anything you don’t need at this moment!
4. Scalability – You should have the ability to scale up the LMS as your user base grows. LMS should not only be able to support large user bases, it should do so efficiently. An in-efficient LMS would start consuming disproportionate amount of hardware resources as your user base grows thus increasing your capital expenditure and maintenance cost. You should therefore ask for hardware requirements for your anticipated user base, and what would be the additional resource requirement with increasing user base.
5. Support for ‘Other’ Content Types – Check whether the LMS supports common content types such as PDF, Word Documents, Flash Files, HTML, and Videos.
6. Intuitive User Interface – The LMS should have easy to navigate user interface so that users can easily log-on, navigate through their courses, and see their progress reports. Ask for demo learner logins to get a feel of how easy to use interface actually is. Also ask if the interface can be customized for different user groups, departments, or customers – is it inbuilt functionality, or would you have to pay professional charges for the same.
7. Reporting – Besides comprehensive reports, your LMS should give you the ability to export reports to XLS or some other common format, and to take a print of the same. You should also have the flexibility of applying different kind of filters on the same report so that you can generate the report which is most relevant for you.

Ok, so now you know what all is included in an LMS and what are some of the important questions to be asked during analysis phase. But what about the challenges you may face during and post implementation? Here are few things you should keep in mind -

• Have IT guys on your side – IT department will be a key stakeholder during discussions with vendors and post implementation as well. So you must involve them from the start – ask them for their recommendations on vendors, involve them in demonstrations, get them to meet short-listed vendors to work out hardware requirements and its availability/additional cost estimate and integration requirements with existing systems.
• Follow Course Rollout Plan Religiously – I know it sounds elementary, but you can get so caught up in LMS implementation that you may loose sight of how course development is getting along. If you are buying a library then check some of the courses on LMS sandbox to ensure everything works together.
• Communication Plan – You need to put on the Marketing Hat for some time and create a buzz about the new initiative. Make some fliers, e-mail announcements etc. and send them out at regular intervals. Create some reward programs to get people to the LMS.
• Feedback – Check with different stakeholders about course uptake and user experience, and fine-tune the courses or the system to better your service.

Have more questions? Please don’t hesitate to call us.

(Manish Gupta is Head - Business Development at G-Cube)

Senior executives look at financial balance-Sheet with keenness as it reflects the standing of a business. Though these statements are useful they don’t reflect the true standing of a business and its future potential.

Today large part of global economy comprises of services where human competence (read talent) is the biggest contributor in creating business output (read revenue, profit and value). Unfortunately human assets have no place in these books and gross assets that they capture are so insignificant in the perspective of evaluating the business potential. Are we really interested in knowing gross value of executive work stations or PCs particularly for services economy? No, we rather need to know potential business output-revenue & profit- from our current and future talent. Therefore we need to have a rather more important balance-sheet: Talent balance-sheet.

How do we go about it? Some ideas-

Gross talent in an organisation should be captured by segregating “People- as- assets” (PAA) and “People-as-Liabilities” (PAL).

How do we identify PAA and PAL? PAA is the ones whose competencies are completely aligned to their job roles while PAL are the ones whose competencies are completely misaligned to their job roles.

It is not important whether someone is under competent or extra competent, important for business result point is that the person’s competencies should be exactly aligned to his/her job role. It is possible that someone with certain competencies is a complete misfit for a job role whereas the same person is completely fit for the some other job role. Talent Balance sheet should have a few categories to capture the PAA- PAL continuum (people with partial alignments).  To explain this idea of misalignment here I go with a small story……

In the City of Ancient Rome there lived a skilled Cobbler. He was popular for his finer skills in mending and designing products with animal skins. He used to impress the royals with his creations-articles such as shoes, purses, decorative items etc.  He had acquired and honed his talent over years of hard work. There was no parallel to his level of dexterity as far as animal skin is concerned.

One day in the court of king someone had met with an accident, and there were internal injuries all over his body. Unfortunately there was no good surgeon available to operate the injured man. Cobbler heard this and approached the king to offer his services (again to impress in the hope of earning a reward!). Cobbler was very confident of his skill and ability and thought that he can work upon the diseased person. So he expressed his interest in operating upon the person. Seeing the confidence of the cobbler and his reputation in doing a similar job no one disagreed and the person was handed over to the Cobbler for surgery.

Cobbler did a wonderful job in neatly cutting and stitching the skinned flesh of the person.

Unfortunately, despite all the finesse in conducting the cutting and stitching, cobbler could not save the person and the person died sooner then he would have.

The moral of the story is that though visibly required competencies for conducting a job may look very similar there can be finer significant differences. Lack of understanding of nuances of competencies certainly proves fatal. Referring to this story though Cobbler did a perfect job (a perfect Cobbling Job on the body of the diseased) he still failed to achieve the goal of saving the person.

Trusting a cobbler to do a Surgeon’s job is a Syndrome called “Cobbler-Surgeon Syndrome”! I call it a syndrome because it is not a one of case; it’s a phenomenon and a trap for potential mistakes. For example if someone is outspoken, he is considered as a good candidate for sales, if someone is suave he can be taken up for senior leadership.  Judging a person on these visible qualities may prove completely wrong- competencies require much more than these visible aspects –out spoken and suave- for sales and senior leadership roles respectively. 

Cobbler is dexterous in turning the dead skin into attractive and useful articles not operating a Living body.Unfortunately in our industry many cobblers are hired to do surgeons job.  I hope your organisation is not hiring cobblers for the job of a surgeon or a vice a versa.

With this small story I wanted to convey that aligning a set of competencies to the required job is very important achieving effective goal in a job.  It is the responsibility of recruitment to define the job role and competency for each role and screen talent accordingly.

There is a possibility that some cobblers pass the screening criteria and enter the organisations gates in surgeons’ skin.

In my views having a mandatory requirement for including Talent Balance-sheet in financial reporting will have very positive impact on business value of a corporation. I expect the following positive changes over a period of time:-

1. It will make the role of Chief Learning Officer strategically at par with CFO (isn’t that a big jump!).
2. It will make recruitment personnel more accountable to have a perfect screening system and hire right people
3. It will make T&D more accountable to fulfil the competency gaps and make them proactive to impart new desirable skills in shorter period
4. It will require an optimum mix of class room, eLearning and blended trainings to achieve competency goals of globally dispersed people within very short time.
5. It will create requirement for new roles within HR to assess and categorize people in PAA-PAL categories

Overall the fallout benefits can be really huge. I am keen to know your views on these ideas.

(Ankit Jain is Head - HR & Strategy at G-Cube)

Have you ever heard of a severe chronic disease called “Finaemia”? Interestingly it does hurt a human or any other living being. It’s an economic disease. It’s a disease which slows down the growth of economic entities only and its adverse effects are seen over medium to long-term (say over minimum of two-years). So, it doesn’t seem to be a visible problem and doesn’t hurt the normal functioning of the economic entity over short term.  “Finaemia” is the term coined by contracting “financial anaemia”.

Allocation of financial resources to critical aspects of business is akin to supply of oxygen to a living system. Just like consistently lowered supply of oxygen in a body has adverse long-term impact on living organs, inadequate allocation of financial resources to important business activities does have similar adverse effects.

Unfortunately and paradoxically so, that  L&D is one such business area where business leaders recognise human as a business critical asset but still don’t allocate sufficient funds for optimum maintenance and up-gradation.

Reason-decision of capital nature involves higher level of risk and board or CEO normally would not take a subjective decision for any aspect of business.

And therefore there is a need for a comprehensive yet simple framework which can assist the board level people to take a shareholder friendly decision in favour of L&D investment.

In my June 08 post  I emphasized that similar to Plant & Machinery (P&M), human competencies need maintenance. Objective of schedule maintenance is the keep the asset in good condition so that it can produce the desired output. There I pointed out that akin to physical assets, human assets need schedule maintenance (maintenance of competencies) to be in good condition and perform the desired output.

I am taking up another important aspect and drawing similarity between physical and human assets. “Up-gradation”- is another established characteristic of physical assets. Investment decision on P&M up-gradation is normally a capital budget activity which follows an established financial analysis framework. Investment on P&M up-gradation has to qualify a certain cut-off IRR rate. If it meets that cut-off level board decision is automatic.

We need to understand characteristic similarity between the physical and human asset with respect to “Up-gradation” aspect. To understand this clearly we should know the goal of up-gradation. What Up-gradation does to an assets?

Up-gradation can either increase the through-put, improve quality of output  or produce different variants of outputs from the same asset.

Isn’t it true about human asset?

Competency or set of competencies up-gradation can lead to higher level of service output. There is no doubt about the fact that up-gradation of human competencies improves the quality and consistency of output (we take any number of examples- work process improvement, soft skills etc.).

Upgraded competencies in a human being make him competent to engage in wider variety of tasks (some are the variant of standard tasks). Example, improved level of competency in communication skill can add to training & mentoring potential of a human asset apart from enhanced performance in his/her job role.

I can clearly see that there is characteristic similarity w.r.t. to up-gradation aspect both for physical and human asset.
Then why corporate board are able to take decision in favour of P&M up-gradation (and these investment can run into hundreds of millions of $ depending on absolute economic size) with such an ease whereas investment in human asset up-gradation doesn’t figure-out anywhere.

Because again, there is no such financial analysis frame work which can give an investment cut-off number, such as IRR (for investment in physical up-gradation). Where board members don’t have to take a subjective call and take a risk of such a decision.

So we need to create a simple financial framework- may call it “diagnosis report”  to indicate level of “finaemia” that organisation is suffering from due to under investment in human asset.

For sure, global economy is suffering from huge inestimable loss every year due to under development of human assets, in the absence of such framework. To make realisation, imagine the amount of loss if business across the globe didn’t investment in up-gradation of physical machinery!

Let us save global economy from such a loss, saviours please chip-in!

(Mr. Ankit Jain is Head - HR & Strategy at G-Cube)

Graphics are an integral part of learning, be it standard classroom or online trainings. It is often seen that e-learning fails to leverage the potential of graphics as a strong medium of teaching visually. Maybe it is because we have spent lifetimes writing text-based training material that we produce lot of trainings without much or any use of graphics. At the other extreme, we sometimes create elaborate visuals for training, so much so that learner ends up mesmerized by the jazz and plays little attention to the content.

All graphics are not effective! A research conducted by Journal of Educational Psychology shows that if not used properly, graphics can depress learners and bring down interest level. The effectiveness of visual treatment requires a clear:

• Instructional goal  
• Learning landscape 
• Standard characteristic of the graphic 

If you ensure that graphic meets the goal of the instructions it is supporting, the landscape is designed keeping the audience in mind, and all the graphics are designed and developed on the same standards, the graphic will definitely add to the learning. You can vary the above three to design one of the following graphics:

Decorative: Adds aesthetic appeal and humor (Usually part of a bigger graphical representation)

Representational: Depicts objects in the real-world manner (Simulations)

Relational: Depicts quantitative relationship among variables (line graphs and charts)

Mnemonic: Provides cues to retain facts and information (Graphical aids but not literal representation)

Transformational: Shows changes in object over time (Animation)

Each category of graphics mentioned serve a different purpose and need to be carefully chosen and aligned with specific instructional content. Therefore, to design the best graphic for a given instruction, you must first understand the instructional goal and then, map your strategy to it.

(Mr. Sachin Pandey is Project Manager at G-Cube)

In this post I am raising a few interesting questions (for which I seek answers from all you guys) to establish characteristic similarity between the tangible and human assets.

The intent is to get intelligent clues for getting closer to developing the framework of my proposed model.

I am trying to draw an exact parallel between the physical (plant & machinery) assets and human assets as both generate “economic output” and on that parameter qualify to be called as ASSET.

Let us first understand the characteristics of tangible assets-

1. They have fixed economic life so these assets depreciate at a certain rate.
2. They need scheduled maintenance to produce an optimum level of output.
3. They can be upgraded to produce a better economic output (either in terms of quantity, quality or mix)

Now, let us compare human assets with respect to above three characteristics.

• Do human asset depreciate?
• Do they need schedule maintenance?
• Can they be upgraded?

As per my understanding “human asset” can be equated to “human competency” which can be broadly classified into two categories- physical competency and mental competency. Now both these competencies are related of development of “mind” and “body”. Human output for a variety of economic output (for any output ranging from knowledge to labour or a certain mixture thereof. Say development of software to development of a building) is dependent on mix of suitable physical and mental competencies.

Aging is pretty much a human concept. Physical and mental competencies wither with time.

So, can we say that since human competencies wither with time and therefore human asset demonstrate depreciation characteristic similar to tangible assets?

Though economic lives of human competencies vary for individuals it can be argued that economic life and depreciation rate for tangible assets also vary with quality of tangible asset. Therefore we can infer that differential depreciation rates are applicable both for humans as well as for plant & machinery. Normally for tangible assets there is a certain fixed depreciation rate for each asset class which is based on average useful life of such assets (say 15% per annum for automobile). Similar averages can be worked out for different competency types in case human asset.

So, first characteristic-depreciation- seems to be common for both tangible and human asset. With this I feel couple of steps closer to the model framework. But, these are my tentative thoughts and they and are not conclusive unless rubbed against diverse and deep intellect. Let’s create the spark. See you soon with thoughts on 2nd and 3rd characteristics.

(Ankit Jain is Head - HR & Strategy at G-Cube)

This is in response to this month’s ASTD big question - Learning Design Differences for Digital Natives.

Lets first define relevant terms -

Digital native - A person who has had access to technology and is well conversant with its usage.

Digital immigrant - A person who has recently moved towards using technology.

So, basically a divide created by age.

The Vs - This differentiation between the two - Is it a real one or just a perceived one? Was this term coined by people who are scared of technology. Where are they now? Retired? Do they have an active role to play in the actual learning process between the ID or SME and the end user who would be a student in a school or a trainee in the workplace. 

What mostly happens in the real world is that the ID or SME who designs the course and the end user who is using this training or education are both digital natives. ID theories have not changed from when we were creating ppt presentations as e-learning nor while now that we create business games to teach the same old thing/concept. What has changed is our perception about the medium of instruction.

While creating ppt presentations, having a ball zoomed into and then fading off was a great thing, then the ball started bouncing around the screen with 2D flash and people said wow, now the ball has been made in 3D Max and has a 3D feel to it, it can also be rotated or be simulated. Even with the ppts and flash, content at times has been made so that learning may be in the hands of the user, albeit it was very low level scripting and so there were lesser choices available. With gaming, the number of choices available are more, so more students can be included with much more varied answers to the same situation.

I wonder if this influx of technology has had any impact on the learning outcome? Learning still remains the same, 10% high scorers, 10% low scorers and the rest in that 80%. The low and high scores take care of themselves. Its the middle ones that can be transferred, the ones that are targeted for e-learning.

When we say “Our student’s have changed drastically.” does that not sound familiar? Does it not sound something which we have heard over and over, something like a sentence that starts with “In our days…”. So, I believe that this divide shall remain even when the so called digital natives of today become the digital immigrants of tomorrow.

(P. Kasturi Rangan is Asst. Project Manager at G-Cube)

In this post I am further extending my thoughts (read previous post for reference - Economics of Learning & Development) to make a case for treating L&D as an investment activity rather than an expense.

Let us draw an analogy with manufacturing set-up. Investment on upgradation of Plant & Machinery is undisputedly considered an investment activity as its investment rationale is quantifiable in terms of increased output, increased revenue, increased free cash flow and increased PAT.

Similarly, we may like to believe that investment in upgradation of human skills/competences result into increased output therefore increased revenue, increased free cash flow, increased profitability and therefore increase in shareholders’ value.

L&D as investment activity seems to resonate with respect to two other important criteria- “Investment Quantum” and “Investment Horizon”. Most medium-to-large organisations tend to spend between 2%-15% of the compensation on L&D (for various roles). This is a significant number and can be treated as an investment rather than maintenance activity. For the second criteria- the outcome of L&D (as a composite intervention at individual employee level and organisation level) certainly extends beyond a year-we should not ignore the fact that L&D is an employee motivation tool as well, which increases retention.

Another key variable from organisation’s valuation perspective is Price-Earning (P/E) ratio. P/E ratio represents the collective demand of a stock which is fundamentally linked to stability and future growth in earnings of a company. By upgrading and maintaining (read increased retention) the “talent machinery”, L&D sustains the organisation’s future business performance. So, L&D does both- Stability & Growth- and can be fitted into stock analysts’ framework as well. Companies’ may showcase the linkage of higher “Retention” and expected growth in earnings to L&D. Those organisations that can show a positive co-relation can enjoy a higher valuation thanks to L&D focus and investment. So L&D can be projected as a shareholder friendly investment given the quantitative framework exists.

Now, we need to develop a framework and a financial model which captures the L&D activities and generate results in the form of traditional financial ratios.

Certainly it is possible to develop such a framework, but it holds a significant challenge for now. Organisations will need an integrated system in place to capture individual employee data on training, performance and business results in line with the requirement of the proposed financial model.

Fortunately, framework for correlating “Performance” with “Business Outcome” is already in place in the form of KRA based appraisal system, which intrinsically connects individual employee’s performance with Business Outcomes. But, KRA system also includes certain important but non-revenue business outcomes from employees such as leadership development, institutionalisation, R&D etc. Therefore the proposed framework should be able to translate these “non-revenue Business Outcomes” in terms of notional revenue for accomplishing a fair analysis.

So, as of now many organisations either capture or can capture the required data (without much difficulty) on “L&D”, “Performance” and “Business Outcomes”, all we need is a holistic framework which captures required data and feed into the proposed financial model which talks the language of business analysts. Once financial analysis framework of L&D is evolved (with fair amount of objectivity) to include traditional financial variables such as NPV, IRR, EPS, CEOs task become easier in treating L&D expenditure as capital investment.

I am sure that all of us intuitively know that significant value is created through L&D but how much? Is it one zero more or less!

When we as learning professionals are so clear about the value of L&D why can’t we convey this to investment community?

Look out this space for thought-growth.

(Ankit Jain is Head - HR & Strategy at G-Cube)

Before I hit the actual issue related to Learning & Development investment let me explain a bit about the actual systematic problem that the industry faces.

The issue is why L&D is treated as a cost or a budgetary item rather than investment?

Can this treatment be changed?

What will be the implications of such a change on the Learning industry?

I am trying to explain here the basis of financial thinking, please be patient to read the next section.

In today’s time most of the large businesses are owned by huge number of small (minority) investors directly or through institutional investors (MFs, Banks etc.). Therefore Management has a very important responsibility to rationalize its investment decisions and be able to come-up with objective answers to investment decision making (proactively in various investors meet and sometime they have to answer the queries of investors and media). Businesses need to see the quantified value additions to justify the capital allocation to any activity. Any area/activity where investment justification is not quantifiable - irrespective of actual value creation or its potential - suffers from inadequate capital allocation.

Reason is simple CEO/ CXOs are accountable to produce capital allocation rationale for the decision they take. And boards are ruthless in raising questions on any sensitive issue related to investment (use of capital). Any thing which is not explainable in numbers doesn’t fly through easily. It is subjected to lot of questioning. It is a risk which no C- level person wants to take or should take.

On this background note I want to address the issue of inadequate capital allocation in the area of “learning and development (L&D) - and it’s so true!

In my previous post I mentioned that in most cases allocation of funds in L&D are treated as cost (linked to budgetary allocations) rather than investment. Every body talks about it (L&D expense as investment), every body appreciates it but only a few take it seriously.

Measuring the learning impact is an art rather than science. Though there are some models to quantify the impact and arrive at ROI, CEOs find it risky to explain to their board- as it is not simple to explain in the small time windows available. Board members hate jargons and these models are normally full of it. We need to create simpler and more objective frameworks in the language that board understands and that CEOs will be comfortable talking.

As a learning professional therefore we should try to develop a financial analysis model (just like we have for any tangible investment like plant and machinery) to justify larger investments in L&D. The framework should be based on methodologies that C-Level and board understand such as NPV/IRR of L&D investment. It should be able to give results in the form of EPS growth and can be understood as a wealth creating activity in the interest of shareholders.

We live in a continuously evolving knowledge economy and investors will love to understand and praise those investments which can justify the value creation. We have witnessed an increasingly transparent trend in financial reporting. If we can set-up benchmark, the day is not far when showing L&D investment ratios in their financial reports will become a norm. As a few leading knowledge companies (or the layer of knowledge workers) set-up the right benchmarks by showing those numbers, others shall follow it to impress their investors. At that time task for the CEO will be very easy and board will have every thing in black and white template, a matrix they love. Can you imagine what growth can it trigger? It can be a paradigm shift that holds potential for unlocking billions of $ worth value that corporations can harness within their organization by putting optimum investment to L&D activities. You can imagine the virtuous effect of this phenomenon on L&D industry.

(Ankit Jain is Head - HR & Strategy at G-Cube)

This month’s LCB question is - What would you like to do better as a Learning professional?

My answer - I want to do a better job of putting learner back into learning, whose interests are often the first casualty when there are significant timeline pressures, or when client has low appreciation of the value e-learning brings on to the table.

I thus want to do two things better – first to persuade our clients for allocating adequate resources (read - time, and access to leaders/learners) to our ID team, so that they get enough time and inputs to wave their magic wand!

Second is related to the issue of ROI on e-learning. Now, it’s not about which makes more economic sense – almost 100% of decision makers agree that after accounting for everything e-learning is far more cost effective (and that fortunately or unfortunately is the primary reason why most organizations adopt e-learning). What is controversial is effectiveness of e-learning as training medium – does it really help, is it just a tool to save money or will I be better off spending money in traditional means of training which is a safer option and will hopefully give better results as well.

It’s this dilemma which at times leads to inadequate allocation of time, energy, and budget by the client to e-learning, which eventually results in average courses and low uptake, thus hurting the learner as well as organization interests.

Therefore to better address this issue, I want to collect empirical data of not only e-learning effectiveness, but also of comparison between e-learning delivered courses vis-à-vis classroom delivered courses so as to come up with fair set of expectations from different delivery mediums. 

(Manish Gupta is Head - Business Development at G-Cube)