For potential clients, new technologies and new delivery concepts are proving very appealing. One easy way for corporates to get to grips with the costs associated with e-learning, he suggests, is to think of the costs associated with classroom based training, and reverse them. Typically, classroom based courses are paid for at delivery time. There may well be some development work, to tailor a course to a company s requirements, but usually the fee is based on the number of attendees. With e-learning, things are completely reversed.
Delivery tends to be virtually free.
The big costs are all in the design phase of the courseware. A very large proportion of the costs associated with courseware for businesses is in the physical process of getting people to the course. Travel and accommodation costs, out of office costs, all these things have to be taken into account. When you deliver courseware to someone s computer, just about all these costs vanish, Woods says. This started several years before the firm sold its consulting arm to Cap Gemini.