by Alan Nelson
So farewell Orkell, who have this week called their customers and partners to tell them that they have ceased trading. The business was run by some very capable and professional people, so what went wrong?
It wasn’t the market. They correctly identified the growing need for accessible CPD in a range of professional disciplines. This chimes with our experience. All sorts of professionals, faced with a mandatory requirement to complete their CPD, find it hard to attend face to face events. Women and others working part, people in rural areas, and people in practice, who may find that a booked event clashes with a client request for a paid visit, all find the possibility of accessible engaging and relevant development materials online, pretty compelling.
It wasn’t the message. I was continually impressed by the way they told their story. Their promotional material was always simple and crisp, if at times a little exaggerated.
It wasn’t the way they did business. Although we did come across a number of people who had been unsettled by their approach, I am sure that isn’t the reason for their demise.
I believe they made two mistakes. Firstly they failed to acknowledge the role of the publisher. Their business model depended critically on people buying courses. They made their money from a share of the price paid. They had recognised that authors would have to be rewarded, but they hadn’t realised how difficult most people find it to self-publish. Any experienced publisher will tell you that most authors are late delivering and don’t submit quite what was agreed. They need lots of help getting it into a usable shape. Orkell’s content was very slow to emerge and when it did, it was mostly just text on the screen with some multiple choice questions.
The second mistake was one that many businesses make. They misjudged the speed of take up. The professional associations they wanted to work with are conservative organisations. They are rightly careful not to make rash decisions. The executives are cautious both with members’ funds and with the reputation of the organisation. They have committees of members that meet to discuss and agree projects. This makes decision making slow and so however straight forward and compelling you make the proposal, you can’t short circuit the time it takes to get it approved.
So Orkell may have been onto something good, but they couldn’t support it for long enough to make a success of it. The case for online CPD remains as strong as ever. The skills of professional publishers in crafting high quality engaging content will be key to answering it.
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