Intellinex, Llc

Executive Summary

Intellinex LLC is an eLearning company that was recently spun off from its parent Ernest & Young LLP. At its inception Intellinex claimed to be one of the largest eLearning providers. They have an aggressive strategy to take advantage of the consolidating eLearning market and become a "one-stop" provider of all eLearning services for their clients. Their focus is on creating customized training for clients and helping them to implement and maintain their on-line courses. Products and services are geared toward large companies that spend approximately $1 million on their eLearning projects; not individuals or small companies. They have asserted a strenuous goal of $100 million revenue in the first year of business.

Company Background

Intellinex LLC is an eLearning provider of "one-stop learning solutions that are faster, lower in cost, more flexible, and more convenient than traditional classroom training," (www.intellinex.com). Ernst & Young LLP launched their wholly owned eLearning venture, Intellinex LLC, on October 5, 2000. Ernst & Young was the first of the "Big 5" firms to create an operating company that offers eLearning services. With less than a year of experience practicing business on their own, much of the background information for Intellinex stems from their internal work with Ernst & Young prior to the spin off. Their parent had already seen the light of eLearning and began creating training that "focused on everything a young audit person would need when first starting their career". Almost all Ernst & Young employees had begun taking eLearning courses through a unit now known at Intellinex. They found that it was less expensive to train them online than to fly them to training centers for multiple courses. Due to Year 2000 concerns, Ernst & Young changed its curriculum-development procedures and what previously took 200 hours to create 1 hour of online training now takes 20 hours. (Walsh 2) Intellinex was able to take advantage of this change. Ernst & Young already had more than 40 clients receiving eLearning services using this unit. Ernst and Young will continue to use Intellinex for internal training through a third party agreement. (Howell 2) Ernst & Young's decision to separate from its online corporate training department was in hopes of increasing the unit's profitability by acquisitions. Intellinex started with more than 400 employees and five major locations. Their focus was providing customized training for clients through satellite, desktop web casting, streaming video, and web-based courses.

Products and Services Details and Evaluation

Intellinex is a provider of a variety of eLearning solutions. They have experience in "instructional design and development, multimedia, leadership, development, measurement, performance consulting, and strategy development," (www.intellinex.com). They can design and develop customized eLearning solutions for customers based on their specific needs. They also provide subscription based and self service solutions where customers can maintain their own eLearning courses and content. Intellinex has also acquired Teach.com who provide online prepackaged courses in business and PC skills. Intellinex "eventually wants to offer its business clients a one-stop shopping for leading products, while capitalizing on Ernst & Young's strength in client service," (Khirallah 1). By building alliances in the information technology eLearning sector rather than developing their own programs they can focus on the non-IT training accounts. Forecasters say, that at this time non-IT training only accounts for 22% of the revenue but by 2003 it should generate more than half of the eLearning market value. (Howell 3) Intellinex has partnered with Doing Business Globally, an online learning solutions provider that has off the shelf content. Richard S. Bobrow, chief executive officer of Ernst & Young sites their mission is to "equip companies with customized eLearning tools, content, and delivery that can help them outsmart and outperform their competition in the global economy," (Lymer 2). Their website is very well designed and displays a professional quality of work. They provide free demos of their software. They can be downloaded in multiple zipped files and viewed from a computer. They are not interactive but do display the potential of their product and/or services. When viewing the files, they provide screen captures that guide you through the potential of their eLearning solution. The system that Intellinex would set up is very different than one of a traditional eLearning provider. They actually specialize in setting up a system very similar to that of a traditional eLearning provider. Intellinex develops a system for companies that allows them to create an index of classes. Customers can have their program set up so employees can request courses and supervisors approve the course. They provide the program that monitors the student's progress. They even have software that allows the client to set the content completely on their own. The client can choose everything from the display and content of information to the type of questions that will be developed to assess the student. Their market is larger companies that that have a need to create their own internal online courses specific to the company needs rather than an individual consumer. Individuals would have no need for their services. Their project contracts are usually over $1 million. (Howell 2)

Chairman and Employee Information

Intellinex provided very little information about their Management Philosophy and Team. They provided a short biography of their Chairman and CEO, Michael J. Powers. They sited him as contributing "a strong blend of strategic management, learning, and technology experience to his new positions," (www.intellinex.com). Prior to heading up Intellinex he was a partner with Ernst & Young and Vice Chairman - Professional and Organizational Development. There he was responsible for the learning and change management initiatives in the firm. It goes into further detail and discuss his previous experience both professionally and educationally but does not discuss him management philosophy. There is no other reference to any team that supports him. They currently employee over 500 individuals. If you were interested in a job with their company they describe the company as "a