These days Comartis is celebrating ten years of being in business. One of the Comartis eLearning solutions, the i-qBox, has existed for three years. What was the reason for entering the eLearning sector and how do you judge the future of eLearning business?

Omar Lahyani: In fact Comartis has been active in the eLearning sector since its inception in 1995. The initial focus was on the creation of custom computer-based training and assessment programs for internationally known companies like Credit Suisse, UBS, Siemens, Novartis, and others. During the years, of course, we gradually moved from CD-ROM based projects to fully online solutions as the importance of CD-ROM as a data delivery medium declined due to improving network bandwidth.

In all of these projects, training evaluation, assessment, and testing was a constantly recurring topic. So in 2001 we decided to leverage our vast experience gained during countless custom projects by creating our own product.

Since then the i-qBox has evolved from a powerful online e-testing and assessment tool to a comprehensive eLearning Solution with integrated modules for e-testing, e-surveys, learning management, and learning quality management.

This is to a large extent due to the fact that our customers' requirements are our main and central focus. Every single feature of the i-qBox is based on a specific need of one or more of our customers. We always have a lot of ideas, but we only implement features based on actual training or business needs of our clients. This allows us to keep development cycles and time-to-market short, making the i-qBox a very dynamic and attractive solution.

In the past ten years, eLearning has evolved from hype to a reality in an integrated enterprise learning process. Nevertheless, structured corporate training for many companies is at the very beginning compared to the activities in the area of marketing. There is a very interesting time ahead of us where we will see a consolidation of various and sometimes quite experimental (e)Learning activities. We believe that the continuing changes in the world economic organization, i.e. globalization, rising costs for labour, etc. will continue to increase the pressure toward more structured corporate training.

Where do you see the main focus of current eLearning development?

Omar Lahyani: What has been a reality in the area of marketing for a while, now also applies to corporate education: internal and external training professionals are feeling pressure to demonstrate to senior executives that training is an effective instrument to drive business success. Therefore a close alignment to business strategy, goals, and metrics is a must.

Efficient processes and sophisticated training evaluation tools are one precondition to put learning quality management successfully into operation in the area of training and education. Our i-qBox Learning Quality Management System incorporates strong integrated online technology with a comprehensive range of features implementing a fully automated version of the Kirkpatrick/Phillips evaluation model.

Our clients' reactions prove that systematic controlling of satisfaction, learning success, transfer performance, and business impact of training measures will be a key factor for corporate training success in the future.


Are there decisive regional or international trends? If so, would you be so kind as to give an example?


Omar Lahyani: There is a theme running through the trend discussions that can easily be summed up in one word: convergence. ELearning is increasingly converging with other management tools, providing managers with a unified view of all financial, customer, and employee considerations. In this sense, we are moving one step closer to becoming more effective "life-long learning organizations."

What's also becoming clear looking further into the future is that training technologies will become so smart and intuitive that technology will no longer be the focus, as it is already the case with the i-qBox. It will be replaced by the focus in the benefits, the application of a solution, and how it serves business needs.

Beyond the next two years, computer-based training will become more and more embedded into and intermixed with business tasks, tools, processes, and applications. Ultimately the concentration will be on helping employees with the tasks they need to do, when they need to do them. One major step along this road will be the advent of competence analysis and competence management in mainstream eLearning - an area in which Comartis has been developing tools since 2001. These are now becoming part of the i-qBox as well.


Comartis have received numerous awards - among other things for the firm's ingenuity. What is the advantage for your customers?


Omar Lahyani: Generally speaking our customers' requirements are our main and central focus. We listening carefully to their requirements and jointly optimize training and business processes. Our ingenuity sometimes allows us to find unorthodox but always cost-effective solutions to tricky and challenging requirements.

David Ogilvy, a legendary American advertising expert and visionary, once said that those who have solutions to a problem are unlikely to prevent their own success.

We consider these awards a recognition for our ten-year track record and the fact that we have yet to encounter a problem for which we could not supply our international customers with a creative and intelligent solution.