Critical success factors: How one multinational company develops global e-learning

This research study examined how a multinational company determined what the critical success factors (CSFs) were for developing global e-learning. The study analyzed how these CSFs were grouped together in order to make their management more efficient. There were 21 participants in the study who were key stakeholders and came from one of four groups: headquarters, external vendor, regional, and overseas personnel.The results demonstrated that not all CSFs were deemed critical for every program and that what were considered CSFs early in the project often changed by the end of the project. Additionally, the study showed that grouping the CSFs into common categories allowed the program development stakeholders to be more consistent and thorough in their ability to manage those CSFs throughout the project. Another outcome of the study suggested that what were often considered as CSFs for global, multinational programs were also important factors in developing a single market program where the learners were culturally, socially, linguistically and academically diverse. Finally, the results demonstrated that the best way to manage CSFs, at least for the study company, was to develop best practices and SOPs which prescribe the actions needed to address them. The nature of these outcomes suggested that these approaches could be generalized to other companies that wished to develop global e-learning programs.