E-Learning Outsourcing: Is It the Right Option for You?

With an increased demand for quality e-learning solutions, a lot of organizations opt for the e-learning outsourcing option. With increased efficiencies and a resource pool of experts from every department that works closely in development of an e-learning solution, e-learning services companies offer solutions for the diverse need of clients from every industry. The clients often provide the base-material to develop the custom e-learning but a lot of times the e-learning services provider interacts closely with thought leaders within the organization and Subject Matter Experts to collate the necessary information for developing a custom e-course. While e-learning outsourcing may save an organization time and moneys, you need to weigh your options closely and decide if outsourcing e-learning services is really the right option for you. Outsourcing e-learning services will make sense for you if you are one of the following: Off-the-shelf Content Providers: Though a lot of organizations have a continuous demand for custom e-courses, a lot of training needs can be addressed by generic off-the-shelf courses as well. These include courses on soft-skills, communication skills, personality development and so on. Though traditionally conducted in classrooms, these trainings are being delivered through technology-enabled courses that the learners can access anytime and anywhere as per their needs.

Catering to the just-in-time need for learning, these courses can help the learners enhance skills immediately before they need to apply them in a meeting or a presentation.

This is why they are very popular among corporate learners and therefore in high demand.
Off-the-shelf content providers are thus often faced with a lot of demand for such courses and though they have the content expertise they sometimes do not have the technical and resource bandwidth to create these courses continually for their clients. Outsourcing them to an e-learning service provider then makes more to them to meet up with client demands and increase their business as well.
Training Companies that want to foray into e-Learning: Training companies also have a lot of in-house talent in terms of knowledge.

Trainers know how to reach out to different audiences and Subject Matter Experts have a keen knowledge of different topics. But with the advent of technology, a lot of companies are opting to deliver training through technology-enabled solutions - and not just the classroom delivery model. This pushes the training companies to create avenues within themselves to cater to the needs of the new-age corporate learners.

But this task is easier said than done, and the technological infrastructure and know-how is difficult to create overnight.
They can then choose to outsource their e-learning development needs to a third-party e-learning services provider.

They can transfer their subject expertise to the e-learning provider and instruct them to create courses accordingly.

Most e-learning companies which offer outsourcing services have multiple models of engagement which take into considerations the different needs of client and mould their working accordingly.

E-Learning companies to meet peak and draught situations: Companies which are actively into e-learning development may also need to outsource work from time to time.

This happens mostly when the companies face 'peak and draught' situations. Many organizations have a lot of demand for custom e-learning courses during the beginning of the training calenderer when a lot of learners come on board to gear up for the workload of the year.
A lot of new recruits also join organizations and need to be trained.
But during the later months this demand weathers down and the e-learning company is suddenly sitting idle! To handle this contrasting situation, many companies do not increase their capacities more than a certain mark.

When the work-load and demand for e-courses increases and goes beyond their capabilities, they can turn to outsourcing a section of the work to e-learning providers.
Thus they can meet up with the demands of their clients and cater to their needs as per their requirements and timelines. In conclusion, outsourcing e-learning is a very useful model but a careful consideration of the organizations' need will be the only deciding factor in ascertaining if that is the ideal option for you.