Entry, evolution and strategic decion-making of Indian E-learning firms

Abstract

Internet is rapidly changing the way business is currently being done worldwide. Lot of business paradigms are changing. New sets of firms, so called dotcoms, have sprung in the last few years. These firms are changing the face of competition with new competition between regular firms and dotcom firms and amongst dotcom firms themselves. Education and training (learning) industry in India is one industry where about 75 Internet based firms have come up in last couple of years. This could be due to fact that e-learning as a model is easily portable on to net and India with its cheap skilled manpower base is ideal for content generation and upgradation. Another major factor could be the large number of professional examinations, which require extensive preparation to crack them. For example, Common entrance test, where for about 4500 students taking the test only one gets admitted to the premier Indian Institutes of Management. Another factor driving the growth of e-learning is the IT education sector, where due to lack of standards and regulations, hosts of IT training institutes have mushroomed and several IT majors are recruiting the candidates to keep up with over 100 percent growth rates find them below the expectations. Computer based training therefore is seen as an effective medium to impart v learning-by-doing' training and education. However, our understanding of the motives for entry, business model and strategic decision-making of the new intermediaries in e-learning space is rudimentary. Towards this the present study undertook an empirical inductive approach of identifying practices and strategy adopted by e-learning firms. Specifically, we analyzed the goals, the objectives and strategies adopted to meet the goals.