Building Strategies for Distributed Learning in European HEIs E-business e-learning and e-chaos

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Building Strategies for Distributed Learning in
European HEIsE-business e-learning and e-chaos

• Jim Petch
• Director of Distributed Learning
• University of Manchester
• March 2001

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The Big Problem

• Building a strategy when you dont know what is
  going on

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Conundrum of key principles

• Avoid making big mistakes
• Only the paranoid survive
• (Andy Grove)

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Traditional vs. Net-economy
Net-Economy
Traditional Economy

• Stable, predictable
• Rely on geography
• Protect markets
• Averse to failure
• Economies of scale
• Positioning
• Long-range planning

• Free-for-all
• Movement
• Cannibalize markets
• Failure is expected
• One-to-one
• Value migration
• Real-time execution

Hartman Sifonis, 2000
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Syndicated World
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Agile Organisations
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New People?
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Twigg and Oblinger

• Key trends
• workplace
• lifelong learning
• new competencies
• tele-commuting

• Key trends
• In technology
• digitisation
• disintermediation
• maturation

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Twigg and Oblinger

• Impacts of Trends
• changing demographics
• increased demand and knowledge explosion
• globalisation and productivity
• new quality criteria
• more competition and new enterprises

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Twigg and Oblinger

• Shift from campus centric to consumer centric
  model

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Twigg and Oblinger

• Learning Environment in 2007
• fewer institutions
• more differentiation
• more competition and for profit enterprises
• roles as content providers and brokers

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Twigg and Oblinger

• Academic Programs in 2007
• based on market need
• students do not seek degrees
• sharing of courses
• team work
• external investment and commercial relations
• curricula are outcome oriented
• new staff roles in creation/support of courses

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Oblinger

• The Big Bang 2001
• emergence of e-companies
• e-commerce
• e-learning
• e-care
• e-procurement

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Why Use IT?
Innovation Values
Net-generation institutions use IT for its
innovation value
The Economist Business Unit, 1999
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Oblinger
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Oblinger
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Oblinger
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Oblinger
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Oblinger
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Current Understanding of the e-World

• Based on studies of business sector
• Largely based on US experience

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Assumptions of the Writer

• .as experience shows
• same models do not apply universally
• success sits with the organisation not the sector
• markets remain complex, fragmented, transitory or
  not,
• individuals not models make success

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The Question of this paper

• Current models probably do not provide an
  adequate understanding for forming HE strategies?
• Do they fit European situations?
• Do they fit HE institutions?
• If not then how should we understand these
  institutions and their situations?

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Hofstedes Model of Organisational Culture

• Cultural Dimensions
• Power Distance
• Uncertainty avoidance
• Individualism
• Masculinity

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Comparing US, UK, Germany, Scandinavia
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Europe vs USA

• Higher power distance
• more collective less individual
• more uncertainty avoidance
• in organisations and in their matrix

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European HE organisations

• Will not embrace change in the same way
• will move more slowly
• will seek success through less radical strategies
• will seek stable alliances
• will accept bounded success as price of stability
• will act as a community

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E-business essentials

• (some) Trends that will apply (such as)
• de-layering the business
• syndication
• using ESPs
• But, in what ways and to what degree?

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Dimensions of Provision

• 3 Dimensions of Provision
• convergence - divergence
• topicality
• immediacy

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Differences in Education Provision

• Types of Content and Schedules of Delivery differ
  in respect of
• demand for access to key resources of the HE
  institution
• people
• knowledge
• and demand that cant be satisfied by
  disintermediation

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• This affects
• mass customisation
• market intelligence
• confidence issues
• quality issues
• which in turn control the success of syndication

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So what?

• Implies a spectrum of market strategies
• from traditional to pure e-business

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HEI problem

• Do we go for one or several strategies.
• Do we have sectors within one organisation which
  operate in radically different ways?
• How does this sit with possible on-campus,
  regional and international roles?
• What diversity of departments should we maintain?

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Strategy

• Recognise the key elements of product value in
  different products
• knowledge content
• people attraction
• and the appropriate level of syndication for
  each, taking account of quality, market
  intelligence, intellectual level, potential for
  customisation and brand

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Universal Elements of Strategy

• Layer out provision
• vs type
• vs need for access
• Partition Markets
• vs risks and benefits of syndication/ESPs
• Narrow targets

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E-syndication

• E-business
• E-learning
• E-care
• E- Procurement
• Dont have to expect the same of them all

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Possible Successful Strategies

• Leading Edge/world leader/stable (Harvard)
• Leading edge/research led/campus and DL/peer
  syndication(traditional international level
  research university)
• Open University
• Aggressive education market creator/peer to peer
  and business to business syndication/campus
  and/or DL(US models)
• Content provider/business to business only/highly
  syndicated(no examples yet)
• Content providers to commercial sector and
  syndicated with FE/campus and DL(..???)

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The real problem

• How to find a niche.