While some complain that Web training lacks supplementary
materials, small businesses are finding a silver lining.
"There's little off-the-shelf Web-based material
available. So most are customized for companies," says Oakes.
"This is [spurring] the use of Web-based training by smaller
businesses."
Can you afford to commission your own classes? By Oakes'
estimate, you need at least 100 students for a custom course to
make economic sense. And he's assuming a willingness to pay
$100 or more per student. Although the per-student price is
realistic, small businesses rarely muster 100 students. Does that
shut you out of this educational trend?
Not exactly. "We're beginning to see wider availability
of off-the-shelf courses that will appeal to small
businesses," says Hall. A case in point: CBT (http://www.cbtsys.com) has put up a
storefront with 900-plus titles, ranging from "Everyone
Sells" (sales training for those who don't see themselves
as salespeople) to "Setting Up A Web Site." While some
courses carry four-figure price tags, many are priced below
$200.
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More courses are found at DigitalThink (http://www.digitalthink.com), a
San Francisco-based start-up that aims at small businesses with
classes such as "Microsoft Word 97" ($99) and "Home
Sweet Home Page" ($195).
Even better deals are found at ZDU (http://www.zdu.com), where subscriptions
are sold by the month ($7.95) or year ($69.95), and one fee buys
all the courses you can swallow, with topics ranging from
"Microsoft Office 2000" to "Building an Online
Community."
Still more classes are available from the San Francisco start-up
HeadLight (http://www.headlight.com), whose
goal is to meet the learning needs of employees in small and
midsized businesses. By year-end, co-founder Scott Mitic says
HeadLight will offer 1,000 classes, priced between $50 and
$400.
Sort through the offerings, and, while the materials readily
available to small businesses aren't yet abundant, you'll
find the numbers are increasing. Should you start investigating the
Web-based offerings, for both yourself and your staff? Absolutely.
"Companies are under increasing pressure to provide training
to employees, and Web-based learning has proved itself both
effective and cost-effective," Hall says. "At all sizes
of companies, we're seeing a big shift from focusing on
classroom instruction to Web-based learning. And Web-based training
is getting results."
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