CS Holdings partners with US e-learning provider

CS Holdings has entered into an exclusive partnership agreement with US-based DigitalThink to provide e-learning business solutions to the African market.

DigitalThink provides Web-based e-learning solutions that ensure instant, global deployment and access, quick and easy updates, and minimal IT infrastructure and resource demands.

"We already have an established market presence in the provision of instructor-led training, and wanted to partner with an e-learning provider to offer a blended learning approach to the market," says CS Holdings director Madelise Grobler. "DigitalThink offers a broad scope of off-the-shelf and customised courses to an international client base that includes South African companies."

Grobler says this was an important prerequisite in CS Holdings` choice of partner as not many international e-learning vendors can boast successful implementations in SA, having overcome the challenges of infrastructure and bandwidth constraints.

"Our objective is to market DigitalThink`s solutions as part of an overall e-learning strategy," she says. "Because it is completely Web-hosted, their solution is affordable and easy to deploy and eliminates the need for costly infrastructure, software upgrades and a network support team. Consequently, we can help companies add value to their Internet access through an investment in an e-learning solution."

"We chose to partner with CS Holdings because they hold a significant portion of market share, not only in the field of IT training, but also integration and consulting," says Geoff Mathieux, DigitalThink international business development director. "Additionally, they are well integrated into the political situation on the African continent. Having recognised that South African companies prefer doing business with other South African companies, we believe our partnership with CS Holdings to be the formula for success in this country, and see it as the highest revenue opportunity."

Mathieux says e-learning is still a fairly new concept among South African companies. "The Internet boom fuelled the rapid adoption of e-learning in the US while European, Asian and African countries have not been as aggressive. Today, companies are beginning to realise the benefits of e-learning and allocate as much as 50% of their budgets to e-learning investments."

"African companies have been exploring e-learning for several years, but have primarily invested in off-the-shelf solutions which have not always provided the expected returns. While this has tainted the concept somewhat, we are confident that our partnership with DigitalThink will change this mindset," Grobler concludes.