Before we try out methods to stare away from our L&D navel, and look through new eyes in order to come up with new contemporary business models for learning, let's have a look at the current state of the model and its dynamics. What is the current 'dominant design' for corporate development?
I had a go with the free web app canvanizer.com and tried to fill in the 9 boxes for a typical training provider company. It looks like this:
You can view the larger version on canvanizer.
Drawing even this rudimentary version of a business model canvas for learning shows the logical dynamics that will follow from it.
Our customer is HR and our user is the individual learner and we are stuck in the dog food dynamic: Who's our customer? We often find ourselves serving two masters: the people we get in our classrooms and HR function that procures our services on their behalf. Since it is HR who will decide to pay the bill, they are really our customer and the employees we train are our users. Clive Shepherd has compared this to dog food. Since I'm a cat owner, allow me to translate our dilemma in the story of my cat 'Dweil': Dweil cannot go shop for his own cat food, I'm doing that on his behalf. That makes me the customer of cat food, and Dweil the user. I know my cat needs food. Advertisers of cat food will direct their advertising to me, but in it will highlight the value for the cat and even come with packages especially fit for my cat (a has-been male :-) ). Dweil can only express his (dis)liking with my purchase via a sign of satisfaction: either he likes eating it, or he refuses (or throws up). The food he like the most we are not buying anymore: it is expensive and makes him fat. We decided that for him. In a very similar way in this model of learning we advertise and sell to HR departments (because they know their employees need development), stating the value for the learner, but that learner only gets a say in the matter via a satisfaction feedback. Just imagine how the cat food business would look like if the cat actually bought the food...
I had a go with the free web app canvanizer.com and tried to fill in the 9 boxes for a typical training provider company. It looks like this:
You can view the larger version on canvanizer.
Drawing even this rudimentary version of a business model canvas for learning shows the logical dynamics that will follow from it.
Our customer is HR and our user is the individual learner and we are stuck in the dog food dynamic: Who's our customer? We often find ourselves serving two masters: the people we get in our classrooms and HR function that procures our services on their behalf. Since it is HR who will decide to pay the bill, they are really our customer and the employees we train are our users. Clive Shepherd has compared this to dog food. Since I'm a cat owner, allow me to translate our dilemma in the story of my cat 'Dweil': Dweil cannot go shop for his own cat food, I'm doing that on his behalf. That makes me the customer of cat food, and Dweil the user. I know my cat needs food. Advertisers of cat food will direct their advertising to me, but in it will highlight the value for the cat and even come with packages especially fit for my cat (a has-been male :-) ). Dweil can only express his (dis)liking with my purchase via a sign of satisfaction: either he likes eating it, or he refuses (or throws up). The food he like the most we are not buying anymore: it is expensive and makes him fat. We decided that for him. In a very similar way in this model of learning we advertise and sell to HR departments (because they know their employees need development), stating the value for the learner, but that learner only gets a say in the matter via a satisfaction feedback. Just imagine how the cat food business would look like if the cat actually bought the food...
We get our money from charging for consumption and expert time so we are stuck in 'more is better' dynamics: in the dominant model, we get most of our money by charging 'expert time', most frequently in the form of a daily trainer fee. We also get our money from consumption of (electronic) content where we own the copyright for, either in the form of a one-time fee or a subscription. That being the case, what is our incentive to decrease content consumption or decrease face time with the trainer? How would the whole business model and ecosystem change if we got paid per successful application of new skills for example?
Our value proposition is split because we serve a customer and a user. We give blessing to ability for learners which makes us stuck in certificates. We help HR with their costs so we are stuck in cost cutting mode. For the learner it is similar to the one of the education market: we bless the newly acquired capabilities of the learner via a certificate. That certificate is based on attendance and/or on assessment. What we don't do is claim accountability for the value of actual application. Our value proposition is only going half-way to an artificial and intermediate step of a 'blessing of ability'. What if our value proposition to the HR function was "we will make sure you'll have at all times a talent pool of 50 senior web designers available"?
For the HR customer, our value proposition is to help them with their main pressure: to be cost efficient. As training budgets are squeezed and stretched to do 'more with less', we respond with a value statement how we'll contribute to their goal. As a danger, anything new we bring to the table might thus be seen in the light of cost savings (in this regard read Jay Cross' warning on flipping corporate learning.)
Key activities include (expensive) content creation so we are stuck in protecting our copyrights and have an incentive to purpose the same content for everyone: as the money is mainly recovered from copyrighted content or the delivery of copyrighted content, we put a lot of effort in creating and protecting it. What if people aren't willing to pay for generic content anymore?
As you can see we can actually pinpoint what are considered shortcomings of today's L&D functions on the canvas (here goes the whining again :-) ):
- Our measurements of satisfaction and ability are only the bottom (and least important) half of the dominant evaluation model (Kirkpatrick) and are not considered good enough proofs of our value contribution anymore. We need to revisit our value proposition (certificate).
- We spend 80% of training budgets on the 20% of formal learning because of the dominant classroom channel that charges for trainer time.
- We overly focus on content creation, curation and delivery although content (or even knowledge) is the least of our worries in the internet age: it's just out there for free, and its shelve life is limited.
In a recent post Wilfred Rubens talks (in Dutch) about new business models for distance learning. Here is his view:
I invite you all at this time to go and draft your own business model canvas of your own L&D organisation or training provider organisation. It will uncover logical but not necessarily wanted dynamics.
You can make your canvas via canvanizer.com, or bmdesigner.com or download the PDF template from businessmodelgeneration.com.
Over the next few articles, we'll try out some methods to 'see with new eyes' as a start to make new business models.
In this series also:
You can make your canvas via canvanizer.com, or bmdesigner.com or download the PDF template from businessmodelgeneration.com.
Over the next few articles, we'll try out some methods to 'see with new eyes' as a start to make new business models.
In this series also:
No comments:
Post a Comment