On Monday, Bersin & Associates released a study, The Corporate Learning Factbook 2011: Benchmarks, Trends and Analysis of the U.S. Training Market detailing the recent upswing of corporate spending on learning, with a specific increase in learning technology.
I believe that here are two conflicting drivers influencing this trend: 1.) Training groups are still under pressure to cut costs or be cut because they are not seen as core competency. And yet… 2.) Companies need to grow the capabilities of their people or they will not be able to compete. The solution to both of these problems is to remove the bottlenecks of effective and efficient learning implementation. This involves thoughtful adoption of tools and business-based decision making on learning strategy and management. This explains the increase in learning technology spend.
It will be interesting to see if this dynamic increases the pressure on learning functions to produce learning analytics to show ROI for that increased spend.
Adam Weisblatt: Creating Understanding 