Despite the various national reports I have published on the matter for ANTA, NCVER and NOIE, I find that most VET organisations resist developing comprehensive plans for operating as e-businesses. Curiously, these organisations sometimes spend millions of dollars on e-learning developments or they tinker with some aspects of e-business, such as freshening their website’s homepage, but they avoid developing a thorough strategic framework for e-business.

I am currently assisting a national VET organisation to develop a strategy and a project plan for becoming an e-business. My client has recognised the value of such strategic positioning, having determined that most of the organisation’s customers are online and they expect services to be available online. The benefits for my client are fundamental to its survival as a business, as e-business can assist the organisation to

• provide its products and services nationally, 24x7
• enhance its profile and brand name
• widen its market share
• increase its efficiencies
• reduce its costs
• improve its speed of customer response
• and link more effectively to its suppliers.

Why would VET managers ignore these organisational benefits of e-business? I recently completed a substantial body of research in which I found that managers’ resistance to embracing e-business can be explained in part by the fact that managers need skill development and new conceptual frameworks to develop e-business strategies and processes. My research details the range of skills and the types of knowledge required and describes the extensive professional development needed to address the issue.

But it is not just a matter of professional development. My research also identifies a number of organisational factors, industry factors and technological factors that are barriers to the development of e-education in Australian VET. E-business is alluring and important, but not easily obtained by educational organisations.