The Big Question: What is the impact of the economy on your organisation?

The Learning Circuits Blog Big Question for February is What is the impact of the economy on you and your organization? What are you doing as a result? Well, in my case, as an independent consultant, I am the organisation, so any economic impact is going to hit me directly. So what are we seeing, at least in the UK:

Lower budget, rapid e-learning development is flourishing. If you can turn round short pieces of content quickly and cheaply, you'll be in demand. There's some evidence that this is mirrored in the number of organisations prepared to do this work themselves - or at least some part of it. Rapid tools are selling well and trainers are more keen than they were to re-skill.

I have some evidence that outsourcing of learning and development is higher up the agenda, as an obvious cost-cutting strategy. My only worry here is that outsourcing companies are going to be less inclined to challenge the 'everything's a course' model, because courses will be all they can feasibly deliver. They'll be interested in doing the same old stuff cheaper, rather than challenging whether it needs doing at all. We'll see.

As for consultants like me, times will inevitably get tougher as firms make arbitrary decisions to cut outside costs, particularly consultancy assignments and workshops. I have to follow my own advice (see Ten ways to thrive in a downturn) by networking even more furiously and being proactive. I'm using the few spare days I'm getting to develop new ideas and products with renewed enthusiasm. Although I generally prefer the roundabout to the big dipper, I'm also aware that necessity is the mother of invention - recessions present many new opportunities and force decisions to be made that would otherwise be postponed.