A brief overview of the Docebo report on e-learning market trends for the years 2014 to 2016.
There is little doubt e-learning is on a growth curve. Many companies are realizing the importance of training their employees continuously, if they have to stay ahead of competition. This has led to more companies adopting e-learning to train their employees. The advantages of using e-learning to train employees cannot be underestimated or ignored.
Docebo, a disruptive cloud-based e-learning solutions provider with customers across the world and an international partner network in more than 26 countries, looks at the e-learning market trends in the past couple of years, in its report e-Learning Market Trends and Forecast 2014 – 2016. This blog gives an overview of major findings of the report.
The report states that the worldwide market for self-paced e-learning touched $35.6 billion in 2011. It also estimates a CAGR of around 7.6% and expected revenues of approximately $51.5 billion, by 2016. Let’s now look at the findings in detail.
1.Region-wise Growth and Forecast
A region-wise study of the growth of the e-learning market reported that the e-learning market in Asia was valued at USD 7.1 billion in 2013 and is expected to touch USD11.5 billion this year.The growth rate for Asia is the highest at 17.3%, followed by Eastern Europe at 16.9%, Africa at 15.2%, and Latin America at 14.6%.
The report also highlights the industry is growing constantly because of the following factors:
- More number of people using the Internet for training purposes
- More companies using e-learning for training
- Companies of all sizes, including e-learning in their list of training tools
- Online course content offers increasingly broader choices and has become more varied
The report shows companies of all sizes can access and benefit from e-learning; this has become possible with Cloud and SaaS technologies.
2.Adoption of the SaaS Model
Docebo says, “The Cloud is changing the way Organizations, Employees and Partners interact and collaborate. Within the Cloud solutions universe, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is playing a major role.” The adoption of the SaaS model is a key factor in the increasing market size of e-learning.
The report gives three reasons for the growth of SaaS:
- Fast implementation
- Capital expenditure savings
- Operational expenses savings
The advantages of SaaS are encouraging large organizations to switch from their old LMSs to cloud-based LMS systems, which offer the advantages of being accessible from any browser (mobile or desktop) and deliver all types of digital content.
The SaaS LMS is used as a secondary learning system for special purposes such as JIT training for service technicians or new product training, because of its ability to continuously maintain and constantly update content. Smaller enterprises are also joining the e-learning bandwagon by adopting the SaaS LMS.
The use of SaaS-based services has been egged on by the use of smart connected devices and the spread of the Internet around the world. This has given a fillip to mobile learning and looks set to grow further with the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend being adopted by workplaces worldwide.
3. BYODTrend
Employees are taking their personal devices, which are usually mobile, to work. They use these devices not just to perform their jobs but also to access training, during both work and non-work hours.
Smartphones are the most commonly used mobile devices, followed by laptops and tablets. The use of these mobile devices has encouraged the trend of mobile learning and spawned the trend of developing micro-modules in e-learning.
The report says that within the training industry, the e-learning sector and its sub sectors (off-the-shelf content, platform, authoring tools) have grown steadily in recent years. E-learning has been accepted both by large and small enterprises as an efficient and cost-effective solution to train employees and the industry is set to grow in the years to come.
