What educational publishers are producing e-learning products in the UK?
- products launched in last year
- Sales volumes
- prices

<A ggod source for information about this market is the Elearning
Directory. It gives detailed information on 150 individual suppliers
of elearning in 25 different countries. It cost £255 (or £160 for UK
purchasers).

The top 5 e-learning companies in the UK are
Thomson NETg/Wave - £18.5 million
SmartForce £16 million
Vega Group £5m
IBM Learning services £3.5 million
KnowledgePool £3 million.

Their major clients are companies and business professionals. A large
numbe of courses are tailor made and produced in collaboration with
the companies.

Thomson Netg 
Provides a wide selection of nearly 3,000 IT, desktop and business and
professional development courses which it delivers in three main
categories:
1. Boot camps – a combination of elearning, self study, mentoring and
on-site instruction.
 self study kits, 
2. Self study kits – these comprise course manuals, study guides,
digital videos, job task simulations and test-preparation software.
3. Instructor-led training.

Among their 5,000 clients are industry and category leaders including
Lockheed Martin, Northwest Airlines, Motorola, and Cap Gemini, Ernst
and Young.

Pricing of their products is on a consultancy basis. They ask
enquirers to complete an online form.

SmartForce/SkillSoft
SmartForce has recently merged with Skillsoft. Skillsoft has the
world’s largest elibrary with 300,000 learning objects. Their courses
are divided into three areas – technology skills, business skills and,
home and personal.

Vega Group
Vega specialises in developing custom built e-learning solutions for
corporate clients. Its clients include Asda, B&Q, Marks and Spencer,
Sainsburys – a full client list can be seen at
http://www.vega.co.uk/VEGA/Markets/retailFS.htm

New products.
They recently developed e-learning materials for Going Places, a
subsidiary of Airtours. They needed to train 5000 staff to transact
foreign exchange business. For more information see
http://www.vega.co.uk/VEGA/Markets/retailFS.htm Vega has developed
state of the art reality software which it produced for Hornby. TEST
learning system adapts the delivery of learning materials to  a
learner’s preferred style. For more information see:
http://www.vega.co.uk/VEGA/Markets/retailFS.htm

Pricing of services in on an individual basis that is negotiated via
their consultancy service.


IBM
Courses in IT technologies via CD Rom prices £60 - £280
New linux courses http://imc.dfw.ibm.com/elit/elit.nsf/$All/C1039DCD7785580A86256C05006FA65C/$File/ThreeNewLinux+elearning+course.pdf?OpenElement
A link is given below to further press releases for IBM.

KnowledgePool
Knowledge pool provides both off the shelf and custom built elearning
courses and training programmes. Courses are delivered via CD ROM or
via internet or corporate intranet. They have 44 management,
communication, personal, financial and business skills courses. The
are also providers for NETg’s online IT training courses. In addition
they offer online tutor support. Prices of courses range from
£175-£775. A full catalogue of prices is available on their website.

New products.
October 2002 – a custom designed elearning course for UNICEF. For more
details see: http://eu.knowledgepool.com/about/press_room/press_releases/unicef.html

October 2002 – development of an elearning programme for DTI staff.
For more details see:
http://eu.knowledgepool.com/about/press_room/press_releases/dti.html

September 2002 – awarded a £200,000 contract to design a course for
Bursars. See http://eu.knowledgepool.com/about/press_room/press_releases/bursars.html

September 2002 – deliver an elearning scene of crimes course via CD
ROM to Leicestershire Constabulary.

August 2002 - provide online support and mentoring services for new
learndirect IT professional courses from NETg  see:
http://eu.knowledgepool.com/about/press_room/press_releases/learndirect.html

April 2002 – launch of managed learning service see:
http://eu.knowledgepool.com/about/press_room/press_releases/managedserv.html

March 2002 – new range of online management training courses. See
http://eu.knowledgepool.com/about/press_room/press_releases/msol2.html

Further press announcements can be seen at
http://eu.knowledgepool.com/about/press_room/press_releases/home.html


Elearning Directory.
The European Elearning directory gives detailed information on 150
individual suppliers of elearning in 25 different countries. It cost
£255 (or £160 for UK purchasers). >


<Additional links:>

<Top e-learning providers.>
<http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:jJoR4VMoJwsC:www.trainingpressreleases.com/newsstory.asp%3FNewsID%3D369+%22e+learning+providers%22+uk+revenue&hl=en&ie=UTF-8>

<Thomson netg/Wave.netg>
<http://wave.netg.com/>

<SkillSoft (formerly SmartForce)>
<http://www.smartforce.com/corp/marketing/smartforce_solutions/smartforce_solutions.htm>

<Vega>
<http://www.vega.co.uk/VEGA/Markets/retailFS.htm>

<KnowledgePool>
<http://eu.knowledgepool.com/pro_serv/elearning/home.html>

<IBM elearning press releases>
<http://www.ibm.com/search?lv=c&o=20&v=11&lang=en&cc=us&q=elearning>

<European elearning directory.>
<http://www.elearning-directory.com/>

<Electronic publishing services.>
<http://www.ipf.co.uk/egovernment/egovforum/affiliates/eps.htm>

<Report on e learning in the UK.>
<http://www.epsltd.com/E-Learningmain.htm>

<Learning online – institute of public finances.>
<http://www.ipf.co.uk/essentiallearning/default.htm>

<Costs of elearning>
<http://www.linezine.com/2.1/features/lbhmec.htm>

<UKEU>
<http://www.ukeu.com/news/04092002.htm>

<Course material providers>
<http://www.ukeu.com/news/02042002.htm>

<Its-training.co.uk>
< http://www.its-training.co.uk/>

<Elearning content providers>
<http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/vendors/contentmgt.htm>

<Firstcreative>
<http://www.firstcreative.com/>


<Search strategy:>

<"e learning providers" uk>
<://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22e+learning+providers%22+uk>

<"e learning providers" uk revenue>
<://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=%22e+learning+providers%22+uk&as_q=revenue>


<Hope this helps.>

---

Request for Answer Clarification by charlesbeard-ga on 14 Nov 2002 03:02 PST

Dear belindalevez,
Thanks for taking the trouble to answer my question.  Your response is
helpful, and the reference to the directory is a useful one.  The
answer does not give enough information on pricing and sales volumes. 
In your researching of this question, did you come across any examples
of what customers paid for their learning content.  Any example of how
much was paid for what, would help.

For sales volumes, can you find one or two examples of how many new
clients an elearning producer worked with in a given time period, say
the last year?

Thanks,

Charles

Thanks,

Charles

---

Clarification of Answer by belindalevez-ga on 14 Nov 2002 09:12 PST

<According to pharmahorizons a professional training company typically
charges $25,000 to $150,000 to produce a course.

Vega
75% of their business is with existing clients. Therefore 25% of their
business comes from new clients.
Their turnover and profit figures for the last five years are as
follows:
Turnover (£000’s):
1998 22,457
1999 28993
2000 40,201
2001 35,661
2002 35,572
51% of turnover comes from clients outside the UK.

Profit (loss) before tax:
1998 3081
1999 4405
2000 5560
2001 (2989)
2002  22

Solutions for delivering a course. 
Learn key provide intranet training solutions for corporate clients.
Their servers can be loaded with off the shelf or customised courses.
They offer two systems allowing either 25 or 100 concurrent users. The
servers cost £2000 for 25 users and £3750 for 100 users. They charge
£2000 for access to over 300 courses. >


<Additional links:>

<Netg fastest growing e-learning content developer.>
<http://www.netg.com/NewsAndEvents/PressReleases/view.asp?PressID=9>

<Finances – 5 year record.>
<http://www.vega.co.uk/VEGA/Investor/investorFS.htm>

<Vega annual report.>
<http://www.vega.co.uk/VEGA/Investor/investorFS.htm>

<EMG>
<http://www.educationalmultimedia.com/af/LearningCentre/news/09.html>

<Pharmahorizons.>
<http://pharmahorizons.resumecontrol.com/rc/ph/readygo.html>

<Learn key - Intranet elearning training solutions.>
<http://www.october-systems.co.uk/networktraining.shtml>


<Hope this helps.>

There are some useful links here to serve as a starting point for
futher reserarch. The report lacks UK focus, and reports mainly on US
companies operating in the UK.  The answer makes the mistake of
including US revenues in assessing turnover.  For example, two of the
top UK companies for producing e-learning are LearnDirect and Epic
PLC, and they are not mentioned because they do not have a US
operation with the consequent turnover to go with it.  Epic and
Learndirect certainly do more in UK elearning production than Vega,
IBM and KnowledgePool.

You might find this instructive

http://education.guardian.co.uk/elearning/story/0,10577,677288,00.html

Here's a quote:
"Suspicions are growing that the much trumpeted e-learning revolution,
which governments hope will equip workers for the 21st-century digital
economy, is turning out to be a damp squib.
A forthcoming survey shows that less than a third of organisations are
using e-learning for staff training and the majority of these are
doing so sparingly.
The recent closure of one of the UK's e-learning market leaders, Xebec
McGraw-Hill, adds further weight to the argument that learning via
electronic technology is not the elixir that many have boasted - or at
least not for a long time yet. "