Epic helps to e-Start London businesses

Epic Group plc, the UK’s leading e-learning company, has been commissioned by Atkins Management Consultants to produce ten hours of e-learning for the E-Start for Business programme funded by the London Development Agency (LDA).

E-Start for Business is a training and advice programme that seeks to assist small to medium-sized businesses in harnessing the potential of broadband internet technology, particularly those owned by minority groups within the LDA’s target economic development and regeneration areas of London.

The 10 hours of e-learning Epic has been appointed to develop will focus on the benefits of broadband and e-commerce to business. This will form one stage of the Business Support Programme, a blended programme also comprising business advice briefings and seminars, adding up to 30 hours of learning in total.

The e-Start programme has a diverse target audience, with differences in ethnicity, social background, gender, age, ability and computer literacy. In addition, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners and managers are typically:

• bombarded with training and development opportunities from multiple sources
• over-stretched and under-resourced, with little time to spare for “non-core” activities
• keen to quickly find ways to improve productivity and customer service that translate into sales and profit

Epic was chosen for the project by Atkins because of the company’s experience in designing training for SME audiences and also for the quality of its design approach.

Andrew Cooke, Principal Consultant, of Atkins said, ‘Atkins are delighted to be working with Epic on this assignment. E-Start is a very important strategic programme for the LDA and Epic’s skills and reputation made it an ideal partner for us in the delivery of this programme.’

Donald Clark, CEO of Epic Group plc said: ‘What better way to encourage SMEs to use broadband than blended learning with a strong, integrated e-learning component? This should boost business awareness of the internet as a powerful knowledge and learning tool; a tool that is getting bigger, better faster and cheaper.’