SwissVBS has been successfully creating web-based educational solutions in both St. Gallen and Toronto for ten years now. What considerations led to the expansion into the North American markets - which are widely considered difficult to break into - instead of pursuing a European-centric growth strategy?

Dr. Sebastian Frankenberger: The North American markets are indeed demanding, but it is exactly this environment that helps us to continually improve our range of products and stay innovative. In addition, it gives us the opportunity to pick up on trends on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, which leads to a faster development in the areas of media and pedagogy.

Seven years ago we chose Toronto as our North American location because - as a "media-city" - it is home to creative minds, leading instructional designers, and media developers. The combination of this creative environment with Swiss professionalism and reliability results in a unique mixture that distinguishes SwissVBS from the competition - in Europe as well as in North America.

What does this imply for your further regional growth strategy?

Dr. Sebastian Frankenberger: We are not only seeing a lot of potential in the North American markets of Canada and the USA, but also in German-speaking Europe. Although we only began to systematically work this market two years ago, we are already able to show significant successes.


The tradeshow presentation at Swiss Professional Learning in April, 2011, as well as our participation at this year's LEARNTEC played an important role. By adding new specialists to our team, we want to continuously expand our position and establish ourselves as an innovative partner who constantly delivers the highest quality. Since the market is made mainly of regionally operating providers, we are uniquely positioned to introduce and utilize the advantage of active linguistic diversity.

Management education and learning solutions for the health sector are a significant portion of SwissVBS's content-product portfolio. Is this emphasis because of customer demands?

Dr. Sebastian Frankenberger: Yes, that's right. In cooperation with the University of St. Gallen, we have been developing sophisticated online courses in management training for executives for ten years. Right from the outset, we were able to secure a clear lead over other business schools like Harvard and Insead. We have produced a lot of interesting projects for the health sector - mainly in North America - because this industry includes early adopters of innovative eLearning solutions.


Our early portfolio consisted of product and process training programs, as well as health education and customer care. There were even times when our instructional designers almost believed that they themselves could perform spinal surgery from having worked on these programs.

Are these topics still emphasized today?

Dr. Sebastian Frankenberger: Our focus has shifted over the years. Our current customers mainly come from the areas of financial services and information technology, as well as the automotive and energy-supply fields. Last year, for example, we were able to acquire five DAX companies as new clients - all of them operating in one of the aforementioned sectors.


However, we have learned that it's not the industry that's important but the client's specific needs. Currently, we are seeing a huge demand for "Sales Force Enablement", holistic management education, and corporate sustainability. Multinational organisations are also choosing us to accompany them through their organizational and strategic change processes as well as to deliver product and technician training.

Can you please give an example of "holistic management education" in the new format?

Dr. Sebastian Frankenberger: With pleasure. A good example is our "Business Academy 2.0." This module-based, extendable concept is particularly suitable for medium to large- sized businesses who want to develop, improve, or refresh their executives' business acumen. Our clients are able to customize their specific training solution: free choice of courses, support by eMentors, presence training in "Performer's Track", customized learning sequences, qualification controlling, as well as an integrated LMS are just a few of the advantages worth mentioning.

Moreover, SwissVBS offers Technology Management services. Does this service mainly refer to the Open Source LMS ILIAS, or do you also offer consulting services for other systems?

Dr. Sebastian Frankenberger: We are primarily a supplier of content, but we also offer our customers the necessary technical infrastructure. Too many companies have had bad experiences establishing a high-priced LMS infrastructure and afterwards searching desperately for the right content. For this reason, we believe that each eLearning project should start with identifying the specific demand, the training goals, and the content, which are then prepared for a previously defined target group in an optimal way.

Therefore, we are offering more and more "hosted solutions". This way, customers are able to focus on their content, and the high initial investments for an efficient learning platform are avoided. We are using ILIAS, an open-source platform, as a basis, but we have significantly further developed and enhanced it in the past seven years.


In short, with SwissVBS, the customer receives the advantages of an open-source solution in combination with professional support. While we may, of course, have an opinion towards other established systems, we do not normally offer any consulting services for them.

SwissVBS's Mentoring Program is supposed to guarantee effective learning. How does the work of the e-Mentors differ from traditional tutors?

Dr. Sebastian Frankenberger: After relying on freelance tutors and mentors in the beginning, we have been able to establish an excellent team of permanently employed experts over the past three years. Feedback from our customers helped us to further develop these services, and we are now able to offer a broad range of consulting services. These include professional responses to participant questions, proactive guidance through the learning phase, and the organization of discussion forums.

Equally important in my opinion is the fact that our mentors are increasingly embedded in a holistic blended- learning concept. Accordingly, they are in constant touch with responsible trainers and provide them with support for the preparation of presence training sessions.

What entrepreneurial objectives does SwissVBS have for the coming years?

Dr. Sebastian Frankenberger: As a company we are striving to become the leading provider of high-quality communication and education solutions. We are convinced that we can achieve this through the combination of sound pedagogical concepts and creative, innovative, media and technology-based solutions.

Furthermore, we want to become the preferred employer in the industry, offering individual career opportunities in an open, corporate, and international context.


Since we experience how individuals unfold their potential through education on a daily basis, we also want to contribute to this by making knowledge accessible to everyone. Personally, I am very passionate about a sustainable commitment in Africa, which we can hopefully address in the near future.

Which technological tools and pedagogical strategies will be most relevant in this effort?

Dr. Sebastian Frankenberger: "One size does not fit all" - this also applies to pedagogy and technology. For this reason, we always customize our solutions according to the target group, the learning objectives, and the content, as well as the specific context. Nevertheless, we follow basic pedagogical principles that are combined with innovative media. In basic education, formal and well-structured Web-based training will always play an important role.

However, we also think that flexible, shorter learning sequences, simulations, or "Web 2.0" elements that are used in a customized way to suit the market need will prevail in the long run. One of the most important developments from our point of view is "mobile learning" - the technical component is definitely considered the simple element here. Today we are already able to produce high-quality Flash-based courses for multiple platforms including Android and iOS. More complex is how to design these courses appropriately, in a pedagogically and didactically sound way.

It cannot be the primary goal to run the same course on a PC, tablet, and smartphone. Rather, the potential of the various devices has to be used and combined in an ideal way. The interactive learning experience is the goal!