Towards Maturity’s 2012 Benchmark Study Released – The Ambassador Speaks

Earlier this year, Upside Learning partnered with Towards Maturity, a leading benchmark research company, as a part of its Ambassador Programme. The reason was simple. Upside Learning and Towards Maturity share the common vision of helping organisation perform better by using learning technologies effectively. A couple of days back this benchmark research company unveiled the findings of its major annual learning technology Benchmark Study for 2012.Providing the most in–depth research on the impact of learning technologies, the study findings reveal that 90% of Learning & Development professionals are looking to integrate learning into their company’s different functions, i.e. sales, customer service, talent and production. The data also underlines a clear increase in new–age technology enabled learning like social and mobile learning with 25% of organisation developing mobile apps for learning (up from 20% in 2010) and 63% of organisation allowing access to external social media sites (up from 58% last year).The 2012 Benchmark Study also reports the increase in the use of rapid application development tools (up from 44% to 59%), enterprise wide information services (up from 54% to 64%), user generated content (up from 31% to 41%), mobile devices (up from 39% to 47%) and virtual meetings (up from 65% to 74%).

Implications of these findings are profound for Upside Learning as it chalks out the product roadmap for its leading learning management products – UpsideLMS and Upside2Go, and gears up its custom development services team. For the eLearning industry at large, it sets the tone for the demand of custom (bespoke) mobile learning solutions in the upcoming months. This is further underlined by the fact that 30% of organisation are encouraging individuals to use their own devices to access learning opportunities and 31% are providing learners with mobile devices. While the increase in social learning for building networks inside the organisation; supporting learning generation and sharing of user generated content; for individuals to communicate in real time; reinforcing formal learning and supporting personal professional development necessitates the need for including social learning component as a default feature in the learning management systems/ platforms of the future.

Commenting about Upside Learning’s association with Towards Maturity, Amit Garg, Director of Custom Learning Solutions at Upside Learning, said, “Our association with Towards Maturity as an ambassador, though a short one, has been very pleasant. We find the results of its studies very valuable, and use them as a guide in our solution and services development plans. For our clients too, it provides opportunities to participate in international surveys on learning and development related topics and stay updated with the domain.”

The Towards Maturity Benchmark Study report, entitled ‘Bridging The Gap – Integrating Learning And Work’.

About Towards Maturity

Towards Maturity is a benchmarking research company that provides independent expert advice and support to help organisations use learning technologies to accelerate business performance. It leverages the data of its in–depth Benchmark Study, the largest learning technology benchmark in Europe. Since 2003 over 2200 organisations have contributed to Towards Maturity’s leading benchmarks.

Thanks to the support of Towards Maturity’s Ambassadors (22 learning organisations), annual benchmarking findings, case studies and resources are available to download for free at www.towardsmaturity.org.