Customer Discovery Phase

Area of Study: Educational Learning Management Systems

Area of Study Discovery: We had a specific want and need for one location for all of the
learning platforms that we use for our college courses. All of the members of the group had the
same problem of multiple logins for different learning/course work platforms with no central
login. We felt the need for one platform to access all (or as many as possible) additional and
supplement learning management platforms.
Research and Analysis: Learning Management Systems are software applications and web-based
technology used to plan, implement, and access a specific online learning environment. A prime
source of consumerism in the ED-LMS industry are educational facilities that need an online
platform to provide the same level of education that can be had in person. Educators can use the
software to create/deliver content, monitor student course work, and observe student
performance. Students use this platform for educational content and course work. In 2012, LMSs
were recorded to be a $1.9 billion industry by the year 2013. Most players in the industry
connect with universities, public school systems, businesses, and similar corporations to provide
these online learning platforms for training, educational content, testing, etc. Most LMSs are
becoming more user-friendly, are being used internationally, and expanding to more universities.
They are creating a new informal learning and training environment. LMSs are taking away the
traditional classroom where learning only takes place inside of the classroom with no other
supplements. The industry can be segmented into other sub-industries such as businessorientated, education-oriented, and organization-oriented. The consumer base for the industry at
hand includes: schools, bookstores, textbook companies, and corporations. The end users
predominantly would be teachers and students. The major players in the industry are Blackboard,

Moodle, and Desire2Learn, respectively. LMSs solve the problem of educational management
of 21st century learning. They provide the tools to support an academic online environment that
is user friendly. They are successful in their own right, but when it comes to adapting other sites
until their platform, they fail. From the LMSs inability to compile external systems into one
internal system, we can identify features that they are user friendly and successful and adapt
them into our own idea.

Data: (secondary)
2013: $1.9 Billion Spent In LMS Platforms 1
More than 500 Providers in the Market; only 5 of them have 4% market share; from
that five, only 1 is and educational platform. 1

While our industry is oriented on the educational segment, in 2013 alone corporations spent over
130 billion in the United States on continuing education. This is a 9.5% increase in corporate
training from 2012. This equates to corporations needing an efficient online platform that is userfriendly and can rapidly train the masses.

Data from Customer Discovery Survey: (primary)

How many companion sites are you using for your classes this semester?
1 62.16% (46)
2 13.51% (10)
3 13.51% (10)
4 - 10.81% (8)
How many times a day would you say you use these companions?
1 41.33% (31)

2 21.33% (16)
3 22.67% (17)
4 8% (6)
5 6.67% (5)
How do you feel about having different logins to these sites?
Its a hassle 40.51% (32)
Annoying 8.86% (7)
Its a part of using the site 12.66% (10)
Minor Problem 20.25% (16)
Doesnt bother me 16.46% (13)
Didnt even notice 1.27%
Do you have trouble keeping track of assignments due to multiple companion websites?
Very much so 21.52% (17)
Yes 48.10% (38)
Not a problem 30.38% (24)
In regards to assignment grades appearing on Moodle:
They dont. 45.45% (35)
I have to wait until the end of the semester. 29.87% (23)
They appear in increments during semester. 53.25% (41)
They appear right away. 11.59% (9)

Process:
The problems that we are addressing are multiple logins (multiple passwords), multiple websites
(provides opportunity for missing assignments and resources), the disconnect between grades
and Moodle (the central hub for NC State) and no central portal and calendar for course work.
The customers that are targeting would want those problems addressed in a central
platform/product.
We plan to test out these assumptions by using surveys sent out to NC State students. We hope
to learn how students feel about multiple platforms and to learn other assumptions that we
couldnt address. [We asked the five questions listed in our data from survey monkey.] We are
hoping to get a concrete answer on what students would like to see done to online platforms
since they are the main users of educational platforms.

Conclusion:
From the Customer Discovery, we learn that there is definitely a need for our product of a central
hub for all learning management systems and companion sites that are used by university
students. This in turn, creates a market for the provide. However, due to our failure to ask if
students would want to pay for the product (if the school did not implement the system) we are
unsure where the true buyers of the product are. We found out that many students only use one
other companion site. We originally thought that more students used more than one. From the
data that we research, we did determine that the LMS industry is forecasted to grow in the next
years. This increases the chances of growth in the industry. The target market moving forward
will have to consist of universities rather than just students. The business model would be to sell

the platform to the university, which would be used by students as a companion source. The
product is scalable and repeatable. The value proposition would be to gain one central hub for
your educational needs and purposes. We would be set apart from other LMS sites because we
would use every companion site and compile it into one.