Matthew Lloyd, of Omniplex.

A number of well-known organisations have become customers of Omniplex, the e-learning solutions provider which distributes corporate e-learning products in Europe and the Americas. As part of its portfolio of e-learning solutions, Omniplex distributes products from the Canada-based Blatant Media Corporation – notably the Absorb Learning Management System (LMS) – along with the Articulate Suite of products from the New York-based company of the same name. Omniplex also provides user training in these products.

Among the recent LMS purchasers from Omniplex are: Imperial Hospitals NHS Trust; Inmarsat; Lufthansa; Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, and Rex Healthcare. Those buying products from the Articulate suite include: American Express; Buckinghamshire County Council; Cable and Wireless; Dorset Fire and Rescue; Ericsson; the Freight Transport Association; Leeds Metropolitan University; Matalan; Mitsubishi; Great Ormond Street Hospital, and Pepsico. While those using Omniplex’s training services include: Birmingham City Council; the Home Office; Leicester University; the NSPCC and The Professional Golfers Association (PGA).

Matthew Lloyd, Managing Director of Omniplex, commented: “Several universities have chosen to move to using Articulate during this year – and a number of them, including The Open University, have not only bought the product but also used Omniplex’s training courses.

“Over the past few months, our customers have come from the retail and leisure sectors, as well as financial services and technology. There have been customers from the public sector, especially local government and healthcare, as well as a number of schools, colleges and universities. It all goes to show that the appeal of e-learning creation tools, along with an LMS to manage and monitor these learning materials, is continuing to grow despite the current challenging economic times,” he continued.

Comment: These examples of well-known brands from a range of sectors – encompassing the private, public and academic – as well as industries, from air travel to motor cars, financial services and even the leisure industry in the form of the PGA, seem to demonstrate that there is a great deal of interest in e-learning throughout the economy.

Omniplex is only one company out of many in the e-learning sector. Its experience may or may not be representative of the sector as a whole. Yet this story would indicate that:

• After some 20 years and more of existence, e-learning is now well accepted as a ‘mainstream’ learning delivery platform across the whole economy.
• There is a still a role for the LMS, despite periodic criticism that LMSs measure the wrong things; don’t relate directly to activities impacting on businesses’ ‘bottom line’; don’t cope well with the whole range of learning delivery, including mobile learning, and so on.
• More and more organisations are opting for ‘DIY e-learning’, via the use of in-house rapid authoring tools – leaving the ‘traditional’ e-learning content production houses under increasing pressure to ‘re-invent themselves’.