Big Tech is entering the life-long learning market

in Digitalization / Edtech / Natural learning  by snabbfoting

A number of initiatives and collaborations have formed for off-the-shelf content in the last few weeks. The learning market already has a huge valuation, and now some of the tech world’s giants are eager to get a slice of the pie.

Swedish version here ››

The global market for corporate training has a huge turnover. A 20 year-old Swedish public study (SOU 2000:115) on life-long learning mentions that Ericsson invested SEK 3 billion annually in corporate training for its 110,000 employees.

 

No matter the economy, there’s always a demand for learning. Corporate training is an integral part of a company’s survival and competitive power. We all need to stay abreast of industry developments to thrive in the workplace and to have the competencies to progress into new roles, in the workplace or outside. Employers need to create attractive and engaging learning solutions for onboarding, offboarding and knowledge transfer in order to attract, retain and develop employees and stakeholders. Done right, you’ll develop a proud and engaged workforce that feels part of something bigger.

 

With the advent of COVID-19, the learning market has accelerated, and initiatives are being created for people on furlough and jobseekers as well as developing the industry. A large number of digital courses with off-the-shelf content have been made available for free for select target groups. And many companies with furloughed employees are quickly picking up on the benefits, read more here.

 

In Sweden, Collegial (part of the Combient Group) have opened up their platform for the industry in a project that has received 22 million SEK of public funding.

 

And the large tech giants are not far behind. Microsoft and LinkedIn have recently made a number of courses available for free on LinkedIn Learning. The Australian learning company GO1 has recently secured a large investment. Microsoft is also gearing its Teams platform to establish it in the learning space.

 

Together with LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft has an aggressive goal to train 25 million people all over the world with training to help them develop their careers – before the end of 2020. They’re already offering some 500 “Power skills” courses free of charge. Here are some of the courses, which are available for free until March 2021:

 

 

 

With 75 million users on the Teams platform as well as SCORM integrations and learning apps in Teams, it’s clear that we’re seeing the beginning of an ed-tech market shakeup.

 

Read more about these developments on the blog. Soon we’ll discuss the differences between personalizes and adaptive learning. We’d love to connect, should you have any inquiries.