eLearning is an undeniable and growing business around the world.  Africa alone has seen some of the biggest growth compared to other regions in eLearning over recent years.  The eBusiness of eLearning will soon be a major business, too.

eLearning Need

Businesses need to remain competitive in an increasingly fast-paced global society.  Employees and managers alike must be constantly re-trained with new information and skills for their jobs.  eLearning is the solution to this reality.

eLearning can be applied to the management of performance and training to achieve the business results of competitive enterprises.  Online training helps to manage the brand internally, allowing every person in the organisation the ability to easily stay up-to-date with company changes, new products and new services across divisions.  eLearning can help to reduce risk, drive revenue growth and provide better customer services thus increasing customer loyalty.

Front & Back Office

eLearning in terms of business is in essence  eCommerce.  There are many possible business models currently in use for eLearning.  These are often based upon three different variables:

• market served,
• revenues models, and
• core offering.

The concept of eBusiness should be applied to eLearning in order to realise the full benefit of the Internet. The Internet can be used in both the 'front office' and the 'back office' parts of eLearning. The front office part of eLearning would consist of, in part, eAdvertising, eApplication, eGradualtion.  The back office part would include eFinance, eAccounting, eHumanResource, etc.

eBusiness Becomes eLearning

Many organisations are turning to eLearning to get their products or services sold.  Thus turning to eLearning whether they know it or not.  Take for example the software development company Sage One.  They are a cloud-based business application that offers monthly subscriptions to their product.  All businesses need good accounting, but not all business owners know how to do accounting.  Sage One has developed a short crash course for using their product.  With their built-in work flows and user-friendly interfacing, learning the software and in turn learning how to do accounting becomes a painless experience for the customer.  Sage One has developed eLearning materials to make a profit on their software.

To read about more examples of how eLearning is going beyond just learning, read this article here.

eLearning is serious business that shouldn’t be ignored.  The rules are not being re-invented, but they should be re-applied and taken note of.

Sound Idea Digital specialises in Learning Management Systems and eLearning development | soundidealearningmanagement.co.za
Sandra is an eLearning Specialist & Content Editor for Sound Idea Digital | sandra@soundidea.co.za

To cite this blog article:
Slabbert, S. 2016, March 16. eBusiness and eLearning. <ideas> the official Sound Idea Digital blog [Web log post]. Available: http://blog.soundidea.co.za/articles/eBusiness_and_eLearning-450.html

Source:
Charmonman, S. 2006, November. The eBusiness of eLearning, in Invited Paper for the Fifth International Conference on e-Business (NCEB 2006) with the theme of Global e-Business: Best Practice. Bangkok, Thailand. 2-3.