India is Worried about Its Inability to Innovate.

I've got a file in my email from Indian e-learning companies who have contacted me because I am an important decision maker at Work-Learning Research, Inc. (my research and consulting practice). I must have gotten emails from over 50 Indian e-Learning companies. Almost enough so that I have begun to feel a deep personal relationship.

Perhaps this is why I read this article in the New York Times with such interest. It says that Indian companies are afraid they will remain the low-cost provider and they will fail to innovate.

Well, I wonder if this is true in the learning-and-performance field. I'm not an industry analyst so I'm sure I don't see the big picture here, but the following data points come to mind:

1. Almost all of my emails from Indian e-learning companies highlight their cost advantage.
2. My efforts over the years to get consulting or workshop business with Indian e-learning companies has been fruitless. If they wanted to differentiate their work by investing in research-based insights, you'd think at least one Indian e-learning firm would have attempted to warm themselves in the glow of my wisdom. WINK. WINK. Maybe my marketing might is poorly directed.
3. I have heard some Indian e-learning company employees talking about Indian e-learning companies taking over the U.S. marketplace within the next 10 years...
4. Many U.S. vendors I have talked with who off-shored their development work to India talked about poor instructional design. Of course, they might just be ticked off at the price competition or worried about their jobs.
5. NIIT bought one of our most premium brands, Cognitive Arts, many years ago now, but such mergers don't seem to be trending up.

What's going on? If you have an idea--or just some more data points--leave a comment below.

Until they begin to hire me, I won't believe they are truly ready to innovate.

I can be reached in the U. S. at my contact information. SMILE.

Seriously though, anybody know who's keeping tabs on the Indian e-learning invasion? Anybody know what's going on?

Comments

[Manoranjan]

I agree with you Sir, I am a worker at an E- Learning Firm in India. The points that you stated are quite true, as the Companies here dont think it self as a Software company, rather they prefer to tag it as a seconadry business, where people recruited, are not given proper training, exposure. The salary to these people are too very meagre. Many other factors also hamper the quality of these comapnies.

[Harold Jarche]

I've worked with Indian firms (highly structured processes & damn the innovation) and have outsourced to India (excellent work as long as you have clear specs). Yes, the lower cost seems to be the only card they play in the e-mails I get as well (just received another one this morning). I don't think they're that much different from many North American firms though, as once you scratch the thin veneer of marketing, they're about the same.

[Anil Mammen]

What percentage of the corporate e-learning programs developed by Indian or American firms cater to workplace performance improvement? What measures are available for whether the programs did indeed improve performance? Even if measures are available how did they manage to filter out other factors (such as changes in work environment, better boss, more opportunities to actually apply what they learned in the course, etc.) and relate performance improvement to only training? Innovation in the “paid training” space has meaning only if it has achieved (or exceeded) the defined outcomes with a higher degree of success than the not-so-innovative methods.

[Manish Mohan]

Hi Will

I started to write a response and it turned out to be a blog post in itself. My views with data points, nicely formated here.

Innovation is happening in India, definitely. Can more happen? Of course! Should Indian learning industry be worried? I don’t know. There will be companies that will continue to push our low cost envelope to the western world. But with the western economies slowing down, and the opportunities now becoming visible within India, I am guessing we will be seeing much more innovation focused on the domestic industry. Not all will be visible to the western world. We are a shy lot and still learning to market ourselves better.

[Clark Quinn]

Will, like you, I've been bombarded by outsourcing requests. I've even got a form letter response now that I just cut and paste. Some observations:
1. as I understand it, there isn't a school for ID in India. No formal training available, no degree program. That may have changed recently but has been true.
2. I think of the India firms as development services. In my experience their learning *and* aesthetic design lacks. They can execute against a design, but not generate one.
3. I have similarly tried to interest them in improving their design, to no real effect (with one exception, a firm I continue to happily work with, but in the education space, not the corporate space).
4. I somewhat agree with Harold, that you often don't find anyone who really understands learning at a C-level position in most US elearning firms either! And not much innovation, which generally still comes from outside the established firms.
5. I like Manish's reply too, setting the record straight. However, there does seem to be an opportunity to improve the internal ability to understand and execute against deep and engaging learning.

[Will Thalheimer]

Let me highlight Manish's blog post responding to my blog post.

It is nice:

http://manishmo.blogspot.com/2009/12/innovation-in-indian-learning-industry.html

[Manish Mohan]

Thanks Will and Clark.

We are our biggest critics as you will see from the comments I am receiving. India's problems are large and the expectation is for solutions that are large. Only things that affect large number of people is innovation for most. Small workplace innovation is just corporate spiel :-).

The industry is quite nascent and very fragmented. With no entry barriers, companies spring up from everywhere. You can get a very wide range of experiences from different organizations.