Training Industry Magazine - May/June 2017 - 60

CLOSING
D E A L S

LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES GROUP CLOSES
ITS CONTENT DEVELOPMENT GAP WITH NETDIMENSIONS ACQUISITION

- TARYN OESCH
Since it was founded in 2013, Learning
Technologies Group (LTG) has been
consolidating
training
businesses
with the aim of creating a full-service
agency. With its latest acquisition,
NetDimensions, it seems to have
accomplished that goal.
NetDimensions
offers
a
talent
management platform that includes an
LMS, agile performance management,
online assessments, analytics and a
mobile learning app. With over 4.4
million active users in 40 countries,
NetDimensions
is
LTG's
largest
acquisition to date. With what Jonathan
Satchell, LTG's chief executive, calls an
"extremely elegant, well-engineered
solution," it closes the final gap in the
content development cycle offered by
LTG's companies.

LTG'S GOAL IS TO
HELP TRAINING
ORGANIZATIONS
PROVIDE LEARNERS
WITH "CONTEXTUALIZED
PERFORMANCE SUPPORT."
LEO is a custom content company,
gomo learning is a SaaS multi-device
authoring tool and Rustici Software
is an e-learning software standards
expert. Preloaded is a games studio,
and Eukleia focuses on governance, risk
and compliance training. Satchell says
that LTG is interested in acquiring other
industry-specific or niche companies
after the NetDimensions integration is
complete by the end of the year.
Now that NetDimensions is part of LTG,
its portfolio companies are starting

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to offer joint solutions to clients, and
NetDimensions CEO Jay Shaw says
that they already have some clients in
common. "The thinking behind" the
acquisition, Shaw says, "is that a portfolio
of learning products and services
can both sell independently" and be
"fully integrated into what is really a
next-generation learning platform."
For example, most of NetDimensions'
clients are not only looking for a talent
management platform, but they also
need an authoring platform; gomo
learning can provide that missing piece
for those clients.
Satchell says that LTG looks at potential
acquisitions from three perspectives:
1 | Does the business add a capability
to the portfolio?
2 | Does the business bring a new "sector
specialization" to the portfolio?
3 | Does the business enhance or add a
geographic area to the portfolio?
In addition to adding the talent
management platform to LTG's portfolio,
NetDimensions enhanced LTG's offerings
for high-consequence and highly
regulated industries (for example, health
care, life sciences, financial services and
transportation). It also expanded its
presence in North America and added
Asia to its geographic reach.
MEETING BUSINESS NEEDS WITH TECHNOLOGY
Satchell says that LTG's goal is to
help training organizations provide
their learners with "contextualized
performance
support"
that
demonstrably "makes a difference to
business outcomes." In the fast-moving

world we live in, our brains can't possibly
hold everything we need them to. By
moving away from linear courses and
toward on-demand, chunked training
content, organizations can provide
"instant gratification of knowledge."
This trend is perhaps especially
important in the industries in which
NetDimensions works. For these clients,
Shaw says it's important to ensure "that
large workforces of knowledge workers
are able to find and share information in
ways that are safe and self-correcting."
This user-generated content is "not a
free-for-all à la YouTube, but more a
semi-controlled environment with quick
and useful corrections."
Technology makes this possible.
Artificial intelligence is part of "just
about
everything"
NetDimensions
offers, combining content curation with
machine learning that draws on usage
patterns to anticipate "next steps on the
part of users." With xAPI, Satchell points
out, it's possible to correlate learner
data with business results; the LMS
provides training managers with data
on what employees have learned and
the skills gaps they need to fill, and then
managers plan the training accordingly.
LTG's revenue has grown from £7.5
million (about $9.3 million) to more than
six times that number in just three and
a half years, and Satchell anticipates
strong growth and profitability to
continue. With its £53.6 million ($66.5
million) acquisition of NetDimensions,
closing the content development gap in
its offerings, it's off to a good start.
Taryn Oesch is an editor at Training Industry,
Inc. Email Taryn.

http://www.trainingindustry.com/learning-technologies/press-releases/learning-technologies-group-expands-its-offering-with-the-acquisition-of-netdimensions.aspx http://www.netdimensions.com/ http://www.trainingindustry.com/taxonomy/c/content-curation.aspx http://www.trainingindustry.com/wiki/entries/machine-learning.aspx http://www.trainingindustry.com/wiki/entries/learning-technology-integration-standards-scorm-xapi-and-aicc.aspx

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