Elearning is changing. Global economic and social change, industry diversification and increased competition as well as changes in education and technology are all having an impact oin this area. With this in mind, what does the e-learning industry look like at present and what will it look like in the future?
Docebo LMS recently released an insightful report on Elearning Market Trends & Forecast 2014 – 2016. It provides a comprehensive overview of the global elearning market and based on research, makes predictions on how it will look over the next 2 years.
Below is a summary of some of the main points highlighted in this report.
Growth in the Global Elearning Market
The report provides a detailed segmentation of business opportunities in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. The regions seeing the highest level of elearning growth are Eastern Europe and Aisa as can be seen in the graph enclosed.Figures outlined by the report tell us the following:
- The worldwide market for self-paced e-Learning reached $35.6 billion in 2011.
- Based on the rate of compound annual growth, it is estimated the elearning market will reach $51.5 billion by 2016.
- While the aggregate growth rate is 7.6%, several regions have significantly higher growth rates.
- According to recent regional studies, the highest growth rate is in Asia at 17.3%, followed by Eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America at 16.9%, 15.2%, and 14.6%, respectively.[/ezcol_3fifth]
Source: Docebo Elearning Market Trends & Forecast Report 2014 – 2016
Source: 2011-2016 Growth rates by product (Ambient Insight 2012)[/ezcol_2fifth_end]
Game Changing Technologies
The Cloud is affecting the way organizations; employees, channel partners and other key stakeholders communicate and collaborate. Cloud technology, particularly software-as-a-service (SaaS) where enterprise software and associated data are hosted centrally on the cloud, is being adopted by organizations globally to improve work practices and efficiency. The cloud is replacing legacy systems in many organizations. This is having a direct impact on the rate of growth of elearning in the corporate sector.
The Smartphone is considered a valuable tool that helps improve productivity. Recent research has shown that smartphone owning U.S. workers are considered “more productive” on a global scale.
- On average, 59% of U.S. employees work more than 50 hours a week and say that they frequently rely on their smartphones as productivity tools during their working week.
- The number of PCs will fall from 28.7% of the device market in 2013 to 13% in 2017.
- Smartphone ownership will increase from 59.5% to 70.5% by 2017.
- Tablets will increase from 11.8% in 2013 to 16.5% by 2017
(The report references Forrester research which claims that 18% of overall tablet sales between 2013 and 2017 will come from business buyers rather than personal buyers.)
The report also states that BYOD and mobile learning are two of the trends impacting e-learning growth, although they are “slow trends” at present.
Elearning in the Corporate Training Market
The main points discussed in the report regarding e-learning in the corporate sector were the following:
- Despite a decline in overall training expenditure since 2009 in the corporate sector, elearning itself has grown and is continuing to grow.
- Elearning platforms – especially hosted platforms – are the main driver of growth.
- Ready to use e-learning courses are also driving growth.
- Large organizations are having the biggest impact on elearning. They are more demanding when it comes to training and seek more innovative methods of elearning (mobile learning, gamification, etc).
- Small and medium sized firms are increasingly recognizing elearning as being more efficient and cost effective than other methods of training.
- General budget constraints, reduction in training time and other mitigating factors appear to be the main drivers of the shift towards using e-learning.
Learn more about elearning market trends and predictions, by reading the full report. Find out:
- Why a company should invest in Learning Management Systems
- How global organizations are using elearning for growth and development
- How cloud technologies are supporting learning software
Is your organization using elearning as part of its training blend?
Interactive Services has over 25 years experience in the development of custom elearning solutions. This includes stand-alone elearning, mobile learning, classroom training and blended learning solutions to support the performance initiatives of our clients.
Contact us today to discuss your training needs.