Research Report on the CORPORATE E-Learning Industry
China Distance Education (Information) April 2005
By the Market Research Office of China Distance Education
Ⅲ. Industry Value Chain
Over 6 years development since its emerging in 1999, corporate E-Learning has seen the formation of an industry value chain which is not completely mature and perfect yet. This chain is composed of three major elements: product provider, sales channel and customer (as shown in Figure 1)
1. Product Research and Development
E-Learning is intended for enterprises (including governments and organizations) customers through the B2B mode. The E-Learning providers consist of the platform providers and content providers who had an ambiguous line between their service borders. With the specific division of E-Learning market, the providers specialized in content provision have come into being. E-Learning providers bring either platform or content for employee training and learning. The diversified training demands for contents have also led to the service of customized curriculum development.
E-Learning product developers are categorized into the platform providers and the content providers which both have synchronous and asynchronous services. The former provides platforms to support teaching content, such as user and curriculum management, which is referred to as the Learning Management System or LMS; the latter provides materials for the network teaching, such as all sorts of network courses.
In corporate E-Learning market, the content accounts for about 60-80% of the market share, while the teaching platform accounts for 20-40%, as shown in Figure 2. This is due to that the content constructs the main body of enterprise customers learning, while the platform provides to the content such functions as carrier, evaluation and management.
2. Sales Channels
So different from other types of the distance education, the sales channels of the corporate E-Learning are concentrated on the direct selling aided by agents, and there’s hardly any retailer. Due to the expertise and individual requirements for corporate E-Learning, only those project managers with rich experience in pre-sale, in-sale and post sale services are eligible for the sales channels. In addition, due to the limitation by the current industry scale, there is no need for retail.
3. Customer
The corporate E-Learning is a typical industry in which the customer (buyer) and user (end user) separate from each other, therefore it is a typical B2B mode. The business value does not come from the users’ tuition, but from the pockets of the enterprises and organizations, therefore the learners per se are not included in the industry value chain. The number of clients that have implemented E-Learning is not large from the whole picture. The existing clients are concentrated in telecom, leading IT companies, insurance companies and banks, and some are scattered in the education sector and governmental organizations.
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KEYWORDS OF THIS TRANSLATION FOR EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS:
Edication, educational, high school, entry, examination, academy, university.