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• August 21, 2023

eLearning is one of the fastest-growing businesses in the world, especially after the outbreak of COVID-19. If you plan to start your eLearning business, you must be fully aware of the types of eLearning business models you can choose and establish a business on.

COVID-19 created a huge opportunity for the ed-tech industry as 1.37 billion learners were impacted by national school closure in March 2020. Albert Einstein once said, “In the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity .” Similarly, this crisis presented an opportunity in the form of e-learning businesses. With the massive demand for e-learning and online education across the globe, it is high time for you to start an eLearning business , and to be successful; you need to adopt an eLearning business model.

What is an eLearning Business Model?

An eLearning business model is a framework that would guide your business to generate monetary returns. It provides a roadmap to your business plans and helps you envision the long-term value of your business. Different types of eLearning business models are being used by businesses but we have gathered the most successful and proven business models for you.

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There are 3 most common and successful eLearning business models that you can follow. For your ease, we have attached an infographic below displaying the 3 eLearning models.

1. Night School Model

The term night school model came up from the concept of skill-based classes. It is a classical business model where a learner pays a one-time fee to access the course content. Courses under this business model follow a fixed framework that includes learning modules, assessments, quizzes, or examinations to test the learner. So, for example, if you are interested in learning Tableau , then you can follow the below steps:

• Search the course on an eLearning platform such as Udemy or Coursera
• Enroll by paying a nominal fee
• Access the course content
• Pass the quiz and complete the course

The night school model is most suitable for learners seeking a specific skill or learning a particular subject or a language. Most eLearning businesses adopt this model as it is a suitable alternative to physical classroom learning. This eLearning business model can be helpful for new businesses who are looking to generate cash flow by the subscriptions and sale of courses. Moreover, It is also a suitable model for businesses with high-priced courses.

However, this model has some downsides as well. The learner would only pay the course fees once and might not reinvest in your eLearning business again. In addition, if you want to focus on multiple topics, you will have to make separate courses for each of them since learners seek specific courses; hence, it is time-consuming.

There are some pros and cons of the night school model that are displayed in the table below:

2. Academy Model

The academy model is subscription-based, where the eLearning platform operates as a virtual school. An academy eLearning business model encourages students to learn and develop multiple skills and provides an extensive library of courses, videos, and other learning materials. The academy model also provides numerous features for the learners, such as live question-and-answer sessions, support groups, and one-to-one sessions with the instructors.

This model creates a long-term relationship between the platform and the learners. It is suitable for creators, fitness enthusiasts, sports fanatics, and professionals in their respective fields. The academy model covers broad topics and then covers each area in detail, attracting learners looking to learn multiple skills.

For example, you want to learn about graphic designing in an eLearning platform . The academy model would provide information about different tools and software such as Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator, and other Adobe software.

One of the plus points of this model is the constant inflow of subscription fees from the subscribed learners. Moreover, you can earn more in the future with the increase in the number of subscribers without additional effort to create more content. The pros and cons of this model are listed in the table below:

3. Combined Model

A combined model is the integration of the “Night School Model” and “Academy Model.” This model offers both subscription-based offers as well as stand-alone courses with one-time fees. This model is suitable for those students who are willing to pay extra for additional course material or courses that can help them improve their academics and skills.  

How to choose the most suitable eLearning Business Model?

You have clearly understood all three eLearning business models; now, you can find the best fit between your business and the eLearning business models. Based on your core competencies, you can assess all three options and then opt for the most suitable one.

Edly is providing free eLearning business consultancy and platform demo that you can try out before making a final decision.

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How To Start Your First eLearning Video Business – Full Guide

Learn More about Video Monetization

• What Is An eLearning Business

Why You Should Start An eLearning Business

• eLearning Business Example
• eLearning Business Plans (3 types)
• How To Start An eLearning Business (6 steps)

Starting an eLearning business can be confusing.

You know you have the skill to teach, and some people want to learn it, but connecting the two and building a business around it? Man, where do you even start?

Well, it turns out, right here. 

At Uscreen we have lots of experience helping budding business owners, like you, start and grow their eLearning business. (Even if they have no entrepreneurial experience!)

And I’d like to share some of the major insights we’ve picked up along the way. Meaning you can get to work, safe in the knowledge you’re following the right steps.

So, if you want to start an eLearning business that is both profitable and enjoyable read on to find out more. We’re going to cover:

• What is an eLearning business?
• Why there’s never been a better time to start yours
• A case study of a 5-figure eLearning business
• 3 types of successful eLearning business models
• How to start an eLearning business in 6 steps

Let’s go…

What Is An eLearning Business?

An eLearning business is an online platform that educates people, either by imparting niche-specific knowledge or teaching new skills. 

eLearning businesses generate income in a number of ways, but the most common are:

• One-off sales of products like eBooks and courses
• Subscription access to independent online schools

Self-paced online learning has become popular over the last few years – it’s worth around $103.8 billion – and the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the industry’s growth. (More on that next!)

So, what makes eLearning businesses so popular? Well, for students, it’s because they offer a lot of flexibility . They can choose their own…

• instructors 
• learning schedules
• payment options

…to create a customized experience that fits their needs. These are all important elements that aren’t typically offered by traditional offline learning environments.

Instructors can also take advantage of higher levels of flexibility and creative freedom. You’re not bound by traditional syllabuses or teaching structures.

Instead, you can cover the topics that interest you, in the niche you care about, to provide the most value to your audience. Better still, you can work on your own schedule.

At Uscreen, we’ve seen people build profitable eLearning businesses around:

• Arts & Crafts .
• Basketball.
• Self-Help .
• Musical instruments.
• Language learning.
• Many, many more.

And, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has never been a better time to start an eLearning business. Here’s why…

COVID-19 has shaken up how we approach work, learning, and recreation. And, people from all over the world are turning to eLearning platforms in the “new normal”.

Specifically, we’ve seen a rise in 3 types of learners:

• Those looking to grow and adapt to different ways of working.
• Those looking to escape the pandemic through learning new skills and knowledge.
• Those looking to learn in COVID-19 safe environments .

In fact, Google’s data shows a clear rise in people looking for terms like “online course” since the first lockdown measures were introduced:

There’s now a clear opportunity for anyone who wants to start an eLearning business. The supply of online learning resources is nowhere near the current demand for it!

The Associated Press reports that demand will grow 10% each year until 2024 when it will reach a worth of $21.64 billion . (Tapping into just 1% of that industry would be $216.4 million!)

Better still, when you build your eLearning business using online video , it can be affordable to start and manage, with potentially high returns. Let’s look at an example to show you what I mean!

How Frances Long Built A 5-Figure eLearning Business

Frances Long runs Your Book Of Memories , where she teaches people how to make their own mini albums.

Frances began by creating videos for her YouTube channel using a simple, inexpensive setup. Though the content of each video is complex, the creation of it is not.

Here’s one of her early videos so you can see what I mean:

Click here to watch the video -> youtube.com/watch?v=8idTnr4wdSk

Once she built a community on her channel, she pivoted to running her own eLearning business using Uscreen . 

Students can access her content in 2 ways:

• They can pay a monthly fee for access to her school, and access all of the tutorials in her library
• They can pay a one-off fee to access an individual tutorial

This gives Frances’s audience flexible access to her premium educational content. And, it gives Frances multiple income streams for her eLearning business.

The combination of these simple elements helped Frances bootstrap her way to $13,000 in her first 4 months after launching, and her income continues to grow.

In the next section, we’re going to look at how you can start your own eLearning business, starting with choosing the right business plan.

The 3 Types Of eLearning Business Plan s

There are 3 different types of eLearning business plan you can use:

• The “night school” model
• The “academy” model 
• The “combined” model

Let’s take a look at them and see which one is right for you…

Option 1: The “Night School” Business Model

The “night school” model is a classic if you just want to sell one-off access to a course. It’ll be familiar to you if you’ve ever taken an adult learning course.

Students…

• pay an up-front fee for the course
• follow a set structure from start to finish (with little deviation from the main topic)
• finish the course with a test or quiz to show proficiency

…making them best suited for students who are focused on learning one topic or skill. 

InkWorkshops use this eLearning business model well. They sell individual access to laser-focused tattoo workshops:

The benefit of this business model is that you receive a lot of up-front money. You can generate hype and sell access for a short time, which can translate into high earnings.

The downside is you only earn once from each customer. Once they have access, there’s no need for them to reinvest in this course.

You’re also limited to one topic per course, so you’ll need to create multiple standalone courses if you want to cover a variety of topics, which can be pretty time-consuming.

Option 2: The “Academy” Business Model

The “academy” model is a much longer-term option.  It’s where you create an online school that allows…

• your students receive recurring value
• you receive a recurring income

…in exchange for a recurring monthly subscription fee.

The academy style model allows you to focus on a breadth of skills your students will need. You can build an extensive library of tutorials to cover multiple necessary skills.

Let’s say you want to start an eLearning platform for guitarists. Instead of teaching one skill – like how to play a specific song – you could open it up to teach:

• How to practice chord progressions.
• How to restring your guitar.
• The basics of finger-picking.
• How to read sheet music.

These topics are far too complex and important to make part of one single course, so they all need to be taught as skills in their own right. 

Magic Stream does this extremely well. They’ve built an extensive catalog of videos that budding magicians can access for a minimal monthly fee:

From the business side of this, there are lots of benefits.

You can earn a recurring income every month from both past and new students. And, you can continue to earn from content you uploaded months or even years before!

Option 3: The “Combined” Model

Okay, this is my favorite eLearning business model…

The “combined” model is where you take the night school and academy models and put them together to create a supercharged income opportunity.

Here you use:

• the academy model as your core offering.
• the night school model to provide flexible options or add-ons.

It could be that your customers want access to just one tutorial from your database, or you’re offering a special live stream session that’s worth paying a few extra dollars for.

Students are ready and willing to pay for these if they feel it will help them improve at what it is they’ve come to learn from you.

This is the same model that Your Book Of Memories used earlier in the post, so you know it’s tried and tested!

How To Start An eLearning Business In 6 Steps

In this section, we’re going to explore how to start an eLearning business and share the specific steps you need to take.  You’re going to:

• Define your audience
• Identify your core content
• Pick and create 1-3 actionable lessons
• Select your eLearning platform
• Set your prices
• Market your new eLearning business

Before we start, it’s going to be useful if you already have authority within an online community, or audience you’ve created, before you begin to build an eLearning business. 

This will give you better access to content ideas, potential customers, and initial feedback. While not essential, I do recommend you have this before you follow any of the steps below!

Let’s get into it…

1. Define Your Audience

The first step is to define your target audience. 

It’s useful to think of this as a subsection of your current audience. The 20% of people who will be interested in signing up for your premium service.

Ideally, you’ll build an “avatar” that is an amalgamation of the 6-8 key characteristics, wants, and needs that your customers share.

You should ask questions like:

• How old are they?
• What gender (if relevant) are they?
• Where are they located?
• What are they struggling with?
• What do they want to achieve with the skills you’ll teach them?

The answers to these questions will differ depending on your niche and what you teach. The best way to answer them is to reach out to members of your current audience and ask them!

Here is a great video from entrepreneur, Eben Pagan , on how to create a customer avatar, with specific examples from an eLearning business:

2. Identify Your Core Content

The next step is to identify the specific lessons your audience needs the most.

These are the core skills that will have the biggest impact on your audience’s success. If they come away armed with these 1-3 things, they’ll have got their money’s worth.

This will help you ensure your existing customers are satisfied and help you to attract new customers with your core materials.

Let’s say you’re building an eLearning business for creative freelancers. You might create your core lessons around:

• Acquisition: how to find and pitch to new clients
• Productivity: how to manage your time and workload
• Negotiation: how to effectively raise your rates

This is something we do in our own eLearning products. For example, in Fitness Accelerator , we focus on 3 core categories for our video tutorials:

• Setting up: how to set up your online fitness platform
• Pro tips: how to create engaging, professional content
• Marketing: how to grow your online fitness business

Here’s how that looks on the website:

These core elements should hit the key needs and take your customers towards their desired end result.

3. Pick & Create 1-3 Actionable Lessons

In this step, you’re going to drill down and create some actionable lessons.

I recommend you create a completable “module” for each of your core content categories before you launch your eLearning business.

Sticking with the creative freelancer example from above, this might look like:

• Acquisition: how to write a high-converting outreach email
• Productivity: how to structure your working day
• Negotiation: 10 key things your proposal needs to have

The point here is to choose high-value lessons that set the tone for your future content, and can generate early results or progress for your customers!

If you’re starting off on a low budget, here is a great video from Think Media on how to create your first videos using only your smartphone:

Click here to watch the video -> youtube.com/watch?v=ek53TQ9U35o

4. Pick Your eLearning Platform

It’s time to look at where you’re going to build your eLearning business.

You may already have considered some “education” platforms that allow you to host single courses, but I’m going to recommend you consider a more comprehensive solution. 

Specifically, I’m going to recommend you use a video monetization platform. Here’s why…

Video is the most effective way of teaching people remotely. It allows you to convey complex information easily. Just ask the 86% of people who use YouTube videos to learn new skills !

You also need a platform that allows you to:

• Create your own controlled learning environment
• Connect directly with your audience within a standalone platform
• Offer a wide range of payment options
• Create combinations of monetization options
• Use analytics for both your videos and marketing
• Take control of your income

You can do all of this – and much, much more – by using Uscreen . You can find out more about us, and what we offer, by clicking here or watching the video below:

Click here to watch the video -> youtube.com/watch?v=fxAZYn6gj74

5. Set Your Prices

Next up, let’s look at how to set prices for your eLearning business.

In the video below one of our resident video experts, Nick Nimmon, will talk you through a tried and tested strategy for setting prices for online courses and eLearning businesses.

Check it out:

Click here to watch the video -> youtube.com/watch?v=0YkQySdR9VU

6. Market Your eLearning Business

The final step is to begin marketing your eLearning business. This is where having an existing audience really helps!

I recommend you start by identifying your existing marketing channels, like…

• your newsletter
• social media feeds
• YouTube channel audiences
• community forums 

…and promote your new platform there. 

You should also consider using YouTube to create a marketing “funnel”. This is where you share:

• Top-level videos to engage potential and new audience members
• Middle-level videos to begin educating them
• Bottom-level videos, like trailers, to point them towards your platform

You can learn more about how to create a YouTube marketing funnel here .

Better still….

You can use Uscreen’s marketing tools to build more comprehensive and effective marketing campaigns. With them, you can:

• send abandoned cart emails
• create “reduce churn” sequences
• offer high-converting free trials
• share promotional coupons
• connect with 1000+ tools via Zapier

…so you can build tailored campaigns to market your eLearning business, your way.

Bonus: Join Uscreen’s Instructional Video Business Accelerator

We created the Instructional Video Business Accelerator for those of you who are serious about starting an eLearning business.

The Instructional Video Business Accelerator is a self-paced program that helps you learn the core skills you need to build a long-term eLearning business. It’s made up of hours of video tutorials that will help you:

• Create your eLearning business.
• Record impactful video lessons.
• Build a community of excited students.
• Effectively market your platform.

The Instructional Video Business Accelerator is automatically accessible to all eLearning Uscreen clients. Start your free trial to get access today ! Be sure to check eLearning as your industry while signing up.

Wrapping This Up…

There has never been a better time to start an eLearning business. COVID-19 has changed the way people want and need to learn, and the demand is higher than ever.

If you want to learn more about the key skills you need to launch and grow your own eLearning platform, be sure to check out Uscreen’s Instructional Video Business Accelerator!

Care for an on-demand demo?

James Johnson

James is a Photography YouTuber from Manchester, England. A former digital nomad, he’s been working online and in the creator economy for over a decade.

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Mastering the Online Learning: 2 Lucrative eLearning Business Models

The pandemic fuelled the eLearning industry and sparked a ton of innovative business ideas. But having a great business idea is just a part of success. The eLearning business model of your edTech startup is more significant; it must be sustainable to succeed. 

Are you planning to build an eLearning business like an online tutoring marketplace , course-selling marketplace, or even a language learning marketplace like Duolingo?

To build a stable business, reach a broad user base, and grow revenue, you must choose your eLearning business model smartly.

eLearning business models

The eLearning market is one of the most crowded places out there. Without the right eLearning business model, your business venture might sink before it launches.

Before we get into the most profitable business models, what are eLearning business models exactly?

An eLearning business model is a blueprint or a framework that clearly states everything about your business, its value propositions, and how it generates revenue. In short, an eLearning business model is a roadmap to your business plan and helps outline the long-term value of your business.

Let’s explore the 2 popular and profitable eLearning business models:

Pay-per- course Model

The business model of the newest eLearning businesses or marketplaces chooses pay-per-course. It is relatively simple: tutors or instructors create courses , set a price, and learners can directly purchase it. 

Here are the advantages and disadvantages of this business model. 

• Simple and straightforward business model. There is less commitment needed from the learner side. Pay for individual classes and courses, and the commitment ends there. If they wish, they can always come back to purchase more and continue enjoying the learning experience. 
• Upselling becomes effortless when you bundle classes or courses of similar niches into bundles to sell them at premium prices.
• Learners do not feel overwhelmed by the volume of course material and the price they must consume.
• Monetization is easy; a successful eLeanring business can thrive with very few learners who are willing to splurge premium prices. 

Disadvantages

• As no recurring revenue is involved, you need to find the correct price whenever they build a course or class. 
• Ongoing creation of fresh content is important for maintaining a steady stream of earnings.

Examples of pay-per-class or course model eLearning platforms include Udemy, edX, Coursera etc. 

Subscription-based eLearning business model

The subscription-based business model is another popular eLearning business model where you make all the learning material available to all learners who pay the subscription fee. You can build two or three subscription packages or just one package according to your needs. 

Here are the advantages and disadvantages of this business model:

• A predictable and recurring source of revenue with monthly subscription renewals. 
• Business growth is easily tracked and implemented for seamless monitoring.
• Affordable subscription fees are a low entry barrier that will bring in more learners.
• Can offer more value-based services to learners and differentiate the services. 
• Churn rates can go higher. You might have spent a lot of money on gaining a learner only to lose him a couple of months later. 
• Need to create ongoing content than the per-class model. 
• The client size of your eLearning business must be large enough to generate a decent amount of revenue. Otherwise, you need to keep your subscription prices really high. 

Examples of subscription-based eLearning platforms include Skillshare. 

Freemium business model

Freemium business models are of different types, like ad-based and donation-based. While it isn’t common for eLearning businesses to use an ad-based free business model, it isn’t impossible. 

You just need to find relevant places where you can embed ads on your website or in course materials like videos, PDFs etc. 

Instead of ads, you can run your eLearning business from the revenue you receive from donations. For example, if your online course or classes target a broad market that offers high value to learners to attain specific skills or solve real-life problems, you can successfully implement this business model. 

• If there is a decent-sized audience willing to pay for an eLearning business for your niche, you can start collecting donations to get started. After your website goes live, the same people who donated can become your first set of learners and spread the word to help you expand your learner base.
• You can tap the talent of experts who are experts in their field while building an eLearning business using this business model. 
• You can teach a broad client base with this freemium business model, as none of them have to pay you in the beginning.

Disadvantage

• The business model limits your ability to become rich; your financial benefits depend on the grace of the donors. 
• It is not a sustainable business model, but it can work great when combined with other business models

One example of an eLearning business adapting this business model is Khan Academy.

Revenue sharing or commission business model

Another popular business model, a sub-division of the pay-per-course and freemium models, is the revenue-sharing model. This is basically a performance-based income model where the course marketplace takes a share of the instructor’s revenue. 

For example, Udemy splits its revenue with instructions for paid courses when a learner enrolls in a course. When a learner buys an online course through Udemy’s paid ads on Google or any other paid channels, Udemy earns 25% as commission.

If the student visits the website and buys a course without a reference link or coupon code, the educator and Udemy share 50% of the revenue.

When the learner buys the course through a coupon code or reference link, the educator can keep 97% of the revenue, and Udemy earns 3% of the revenue.

Which is the best eLearning Business Model?

Now that we have explored 2 popular eLearning business models, it’s time to choose which business model is best suited for you. 

Well, the answer depends on your business type, your requirements and what you are trying to achieve. 

• If you want to increase your revenue and can afford to create fresh content monthly, you can choose the pay-per-class or course business model. Whereas, if you want to avoid creating the content yourself, you can consider building marketplaces and allowing tutors to do it independently, just like platforms like Udemy do.

But with this business model, the revenue you can generate will fluctuate, and you will keep finding new ways to get more learners every month. A well-crafted marketing strategy is critical for the success of this business model.

• If you are looking to earn recurring and sustainable revenue, you can choose the subscription model. However, you must ensure that you offer maximum value to your learners with high-quality content. The business model needs to create more content than the pay-per-class model. 
• If you aren’t sure whether your eLearning business idea is in demand and has a sizable audience, you can choose the freemium model a nd go for donation-based mode. There are great chances that you can make money through donations to get started; Khan Academy has already proven that.

The very first step when building an eLearning business is to choose your business model. Pinlearn can be your Tech partner if you are getting started with starting an eLearning business or an online tutoring business. Get in touch with our expert team to establish your own online marketplace platform and scale your business.

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How To Build An Elearning Business In 2024: Six Approaches That Work

he global school shutdown caused by the covid-19 outbreak has offered a chance for e-learning companies to reach approximately 1.37 billion students. The desire to learn and the need to supplement limited access to educational institutions have led to a boom in the eLearning industry. The e-learning industry is projected to grow at a CAGR of 20 percent to reach $315 billion by 2028.

Thus, now is an excellent time to start your own e-learning or training business, given the worldwide demand for online and distance learning. However, implementing an e-learning business plan is no easy feat. The key to achieving success is to try things no one else has. Consider  Cathy More  and her ilk as an example. Cathy is a well-known training pioneer who has made it her mission to rid the world of boring education. Companies such as Microsoft, Pfizer, the US Army, Barclays, and the US Department of the Interior have all used Cathy's designs. 😎 

Don't be disheartened that the key players have already taken their places at the table, and you're just getting started. At least, this is why we are here to teach you how to fly.  EducateMe  outlines the fundamental but essential steps to create an e learning business in this article. Want to follow in Cathy's footsteps or perhaps join the ranks of successful e-learning companies? Buckle up and enjoy the ride as we reveal the inside scoop. 

In six steps, the following summarizes how to start an e-learning business.

1️⃣ Define your audience

2️⃣ Establish a core content

3️⃣ Choose an LMS

4️⃣ Launch your courses

5️⃣ Promote your company 

Ready to learn? Let's go! 🚀

What Is an E-learning Business? 

Too frequently, learning and  online learning  are confused with one another. Before defining an e-learning business model, it is necessary to clarify what falls within and outside the learning scope.

E-learning, often known as "virtual learning," primarily refers to an internet-based form of education. The instructor and students do not meet in person. All coursework and contact are conducted through email, message boards, chat, or video conferencing. Some schools refer to this course format as "fully online."

• Out of scope

The bulk of the coursework will be completed online through forums, shared papers, email, chat, and so on. However, this does not mean that students and teachers have no face-to-face contact. Coursework may be completed in a classroom or remotely, so long as most discussion takes place online. Online learning falls under this category.

So what Do Elearning Startups Do? 🤔

You need an e learning business if you want to effectively educate people in a specific field or teach them new skills while maximizing your resources and increasing your revenue. Consequently, learning startups refer to platforms used by instructors to administer online courses or impart curriculum-aligned learning experiences. eLearning programs may contain videos, quizzes, simulations, games, activities, and other interactive elements. Additionally, students could view a recorded lecture or attend a live lecture.

Types of eLearning Business Models

There are three primary business models for e-learning that instructors may implement. 

✅ Night School Model

The term "night school model" was coined to describe community colleges' vocational and evening courses. The majority of eLearning companies follow the model of conventional night schools. In this tried-and-true arrangement, students pay a one-time fee for curriculum access. This business model provides courses with predetermined learning modules, assessments, quizzes, and examinations that adhere to a specific structure. 

✅ The Academy Model 

The Academy eLearning model is comparable to a cyberspace membership or subscription service. Students are granted access to all content, including live classes and courses, for a monthly fee. As their expertise grows, students have a greater say in what and when they study. The business model of the academy provides students with a plethora of study materials, including courses, videos, and other media, from which they can learn and develop in various domains. 

✅ The Combined Model 

The "combined" model is a hybrid of the night school and academy models, intending to increase income. Here, the academy model is the primary offering, while the night school strategy is an optional extra. In addition to subscription-based services, this model offers both a "buy once, use forever" option and individual courses.

Who Needs an Elearning Business? 🤷‍♂️ 

Launching an e-learning startup is just one aspect of the process, but before you start, you'll need to determine if it's a good fit for you. 

Course Designers 🖼 

Online course developers are those who make courses available to students online. Packaging your expertise into an eLearning course may supplement your income or start a new one. Using an eLearning business model, you may differentiate yourself from the competition by deciding to develop courses that feature your comprehensive knowledge and skills.

Online teachers 🧑‍🏫 

Starting an online learning business requires excellent communication and teaching skills, a stable computer, and knowledge of the subject area being taught. Your responsibilities as a remote tutor may change based on the kind of eLearning company you run, the grade level you instruct, and your student's age and learning needs.

Training Camps ⛺️ 

The eLearning industry presents an opportunity for boot camp planners to integrate their events. The first guideline for managing a successful boot camp is removing students from their normal environments. Corporate learners can now interact with distant colleagues and facilitators via the eLearning industry, broadening their access to education and training opportunities.

Is Elearning a Profitable Business and Why Launch One? 

The importance of the eLearning industry has grown as the educational landscape has shifted away from classroom-based instruction to online courses. An e-learning company facilitates digital interaction between educators and their students. Several important factors are contributing to the increase in interest and participation. Listed below are the most important ones.

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The COVID-19 Pandemic has Irrevocably Altered the Future of Education, with Elearning at the Forefront of the Revolution

According to Technavio's most recent market analysis, the e-learning market's potential growth gap is  expected to increase by USD 1.72 trillion between 2021 and 2026 . The report finds that the market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 16.35% over the predicted time frame. The e-learning market's growth is largely fueled by improved learning in the academic sector. 

COVID-19 boosted e-learning revenue. In response to rising employee safety concerns, companies are adopting work-from-home policies. This hinders companies' training, communication, progress monitoring, and upskilling, fueling demand for e-learning platforms among large corporations and SMEs. 

Corporates Are Investing Heavily in R&D for Their Clientele, and Employees

Between 2022 and 2028, the service providers industry is anticipated to grow at a rate of 30% due to the increasing emphasis on portfolio expansion among Indian businesses. The rapid spread of coronavirus necessitated the closure of schools and universities, necessitating the development of online alternatives for reinstatement of regular classes. Terms such as social and  collaborative learning are becoming commonplace in fast-advancing companies. Businesses invest more money in research and development to provide new products and services to satisfy consumer demand. 

The North American Government Is Improving Its Telecom and IT infrastructures 

Increases in telecom and IT infrastructure investment, scalability of resources, and greater access to university courses have all contributed to the expansion of the eLearning industry, as have service providers' substantial According to the International Telecommunication Union, the number of internet users will increase from 4.1 billion this year to nearly 5.3 billion in 2022. (ITU). The development of the industry is being driven by the growing number of people with Internet access. As the telecommunications and broadband industries have expanded, so has the availability of inexpensive Internet connection options. 

Higher Education Now Prioritizes Scalable Resources and Expanded Course Availability

In addition, there is a great deal of encouragement to launch an eLearning company because the demand for online learning materials currently exceeds the supply, resulting in a substantial increase in the earnings potential of market participants.

What Is ROI in Elearning?

Using an economic formula known as elearning return on investment (ROI), 💰 one can calculate the financial benefits of offering online training courses or operating an eLearning business. For an eLearning project to be successful, its benefits must exceed its expenses. A calculation of return on investment justifies the investment in training by comparing the costs of development and delivery to the value or benefits realized. 

The owner of an eLearning company is understandably curious as to whether or not their online training program produced the desired outcomes, whether or not their trainees found it useful, and whether or not their company's bottom line has increased significantly. In essence, eLearning ROI is an essential performance metric for determining whether or not your eLearning organization is optimizing its financial resources.

How Do You Measure Elearning Business ROI?

When starting an e-learning business, the ROI estimate is essential. Measuring ROI enables a business to determine the success of a campaign and establish benchmarks for future campaigns. For instance, after establishing an e-learning startup, you could use ROI measurement to determine when something fails, allowing you to swiftly reevaluate or re-shape your offerings and avoid wasting time and money on something that isn't working.

Traditional Elearning ROI Calculation

ROI is frequently calculated by dividing the profit from an investment by the amount invested. The ROI of your eLearning company can be determined by comparing the cost of creating and delivering training programs to the results they produce. To determine the average eLearning ROI, simply divide the amount of money your company made due to the program by its implementation cost. You can calculate your return on investment as a percentage using this formula by multiplying the result by 100. To declare your effort a success, you must show that the benefits and value of your program outweigh the costs.

Kirkpatrick's Four Tiers Evaluation

Donald Kirkpatrick's 4-level model, which considers learner feedback, the impact on the business, and the return on investment, is the most widely used technique for determining training effectiveness. 

• The first level or stage is known as "Reaction." Students' responses to surveys and comments reveal what should be improved and whether the material was useful. 
• Each participant's learning level will determine how much they take away from experience. It assesses how well the learner is progressing toward their objectives, whether the training objectives are being met, and whether there are knowledge gaps that can be filled by modifying the course content. 
• Upon completion of a course, instructors can determine whether their students' behavior has changed and whether the skills and knowledge they gained have been applied by observing their behavior levels. 
• The effectiveness of training is determined by calculating its impact or influence on the trainees' outcomes. Productivity gains are a common indicator of success. 
• In Kirkpatrick's assessment methodology, Level 5 is the transition between the first four stages and the final step in calculating ROI for online education. The ROI of online learning can be calculated by comparing the cost of the training to the benefits it offers.

Through an LMS (the most practical method)

A learning management system (LMS) is essential software for your e-learning business. It enables you to host training and provides multiple options for collecting training data and generating reports on the fly. Using your cloud-based learning management system (LMS), students can access course materials anytime and from any location. Your learning business's return on investment (ROI) may not rack up immediately. However, your business will begin to generate a return on investment once you replace traditional training with an LMS.

How to Build an Elearning Business in 6 Steps

There are two possible routes for launching an e-learning business. The first is to create a website or mobile application to promote your business, and the second is to use an LMS to aggregate or sell courses. Custom websites and applications are an excellent concept, but they require a substantial investment and technical expertise to develop and maintain. In contrast, LMS implementation requires fewer resources and no technical knowledge. Consequently, instructors utilize LMS more frequently.

If you prefer the LMS route, the following is a 6-step guide on how to start e learning business models.

Step #1. Define Your Audience

Market research is required to determine who you should target. To narrow down your target audience, ask yourself questions like: 

• Who is my target audience? 
• What age range should I shoot for? 
• What are their annoyances or pain points? 
• What kinds of courses do they want to take? 

With the answers to these questions, you can tailor your course material to the needs of your audience.

Step #2. Determine Your Core Content

If you want to launch an e-learning startup, you should prioritize long-term value and attract prospective new learners, and keep your current customers. A list of the core skills students want to learn is extremely beneficial. Based on this data, you can decide what to focus on creating and who you're attempting to reach. Furthermore, you may complete more than one critical piece of content with different subsets of your target audience. 

Step #3. Select an LMS

When it comes to launching your eLearning business, you have some options. However, to provide students with engaging online course material, we recommend using a platform with an open-source LMS. You can customize an open-source platform to meet your specific needs. 

Step #4. Make Your Courses Available

It's a good idea to create some sample lessons and courses that cover the main features of your platform before launching it. To see high rates of early acceptance and positive feedback, ensure your material is high quality and provides value to the learner. Your students' reactions to these initial practical exercises will determine the long-term success of your eLearning platform. 

Step #5. Decide on a Price 

Every e learning business must make a profit, and detailed course pricing is one way to do so. It would help if you struck a balance between charging too little and failing to make enough to cover your expenses and charging too much and failing to attract any students. You could conduct a market study and compare the prices of similar classes on competing websites. Establishing a market presence frequently entails undercutting competitors' prices or offering discount deals. 

Step #6. Market Your Elearning Business

You won't be able to succeed without solid marketing, no matter how strong your platform is. You'll need to actively promote your business through marketing, social media, and other channels to stand out among the hundreds of eLearning platforms. 

Elearning Startups Founders' Lessons

Here are some pearls of wisdom from early learning entrepreneurs. We didn't name them but picked up their most important messages.

👉 Lesson 1. It's All about being in the Audience!

The learners are now the mainstay of education. This trend is further supported by concepts such as  cohort-based learning . As an instructor, you must capture your students' attention and reassure them that they are not alone in their struggles. When starting an eLearning company, focus your efforts on the target audience. When users feel like they belong on your eLearning platform, they have an emotional investment, which motivates them to tell their classmates about it. 

👉 Lesson 2. You Can't Ignore the Technical Sides

Technical considerations and project technology execution are equally important to the instructional component of the project. You must understand the fundamental guidelines for evaluating your eLearning business software. 

👉 Lesson 3. Do Everything You Can (Mistakes Too)

You can save money in the early stages of a project by doing as much of the work as possible on your own. Your future failures will not negate the valuable lessons you've already learned. 

👉 Lesson 4. Adopt Industry Best Practices to Increase Your Demand

The goal of online education is to make learning enjoyable and beneficial. Best practices in the industry may be used to increase sales in this manner. Suppose you want your students to be able to see how they're doing and receive feedback on how they can improve. In that case, one option is to use an artificial intelligence-powered ePortfolio module. Games can help to foster student competition.

Create an E-learning Startup on EducateMe 🔥 

Beginning an eLearning business may not be the simplest endeavor. But with an all-inclusive and feature-rich LMS like EducateMe, you can streamline the process.EducateMe is a platform that enables instructors to offer live courses, foster engagements between mentors and their students, and offer performance analytics.

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Edtech Business Models: How Edtech Companies Can Build Sustainable Business Models

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated a trend that was already happening in education – the move to online learning. As schools and universities shut their doors, they had to scramble to take courses virtually. What they found is that remote education works better than they imagined. Students and teachers adapted quickly. Digital communication and collaboration tools made it fairly seamless.

Now, the question is how do we build on this momentum?

The edtech companies leading this revolution need thoughtful business models that drive innovation while being sustainable.

There are opportunities to make education more accessible, effective, and affordable through smart integration of technology. But it can’t be done through naive idealism or strictly for profit motives – it needs a balanced approach.

In this post, I’ll share some ideas on how edtech companies can thread that needle toward models that work for all stakeholders – students, educators, parents, communities, and the companies themselves.

Types of Edtech Business Models

Here is an overview of some of the main types of business models in the edtech industry:

• Subscription Models

This model involves charging a recurring monthly or annual subscription fee to access an education platform or software. Common pricing tiers based on features are used.

Examples: Coursera, Udemy, EdX, Treehouse, Brainly

• Freemium Models

Offer a free basic product to get wide distribution, while also providing “premium” paid offerings with additional features, perks or levels of access.

Examples: Duolingo, Quizlet, Kahoot

• Advertising Model

Offer free access to educational apps, tools or content that is supported by advertisements placed within the platform. Video ads and sponsored content help monetize at scale.

Examples: YouTube Edu, Spotify podcasts

• Business to Business (B2B)

Charge other educational institutions licensing fees for proprietary tech and content. This can include tools for schools as well as corporate training.

Examples: BYJU’s WhiteHat Jr, Emeritus

• Business to Government (B2G)

Get large government contracts to provide customized educational solutions countrywide. India’s massive sector serves as a model.

Examples: Byju’s partnerships with Indian state governments

• Publisher Model

Sell proprietary books, instructional materials, assessments etc. Can be done direct to consumer or by selling through distribution channels.

Examples: Pearson, McGraw Hill, Cengage

The most sustainable models have diversified income streams across these monetization methods. They balance profit goals with purpose-driven positives for all stakeholders.

Meeting the Learning Needs of All Students

The potential of online education is huge. Tech-enabled teaching allows for more personalized and self-paced learning. Students can access courses anywhere with an internet connection. Small group and 1-on-1 instruction is feasible regardless of location. Adaptive learning software provides customized material based on real-time assessment of strengths and weaknesses.

The key is developing models that bring the power of edtech to students of all backgrounds. That means finding ways to make it affordable and accessible without diluting quality. Some ideas that show promise:

• Premium Freemium Models

Offer a free basic product to get wide distribution and also have “pro” paid offerings with additional features. Duolingo exemplifies this in language learning. Their core app is free and quite robust. But they generate revenue through premium add-ons.

• Sponsorship and Scholarship Programs

Secure funding from philanthropic partners, impact investors, or crowdsourced micro-donations to sponsor free or discounted access for disadvantaged students. Nonprofits like Khan Academy use this model.

• B2G Business Models

Sell to governments so they can provide online education platforms country-wide. Byju’s landed huge contracts from states in India that enable them to offer their service for only $10/year.

Monetizing Expertise from Educators

Creating valuable edtech products requires deep expertise from experienced educators. Teachers and academics invest their careers in developing effective instructional methods. They create high quality educational resources.

Edtech business models need to appropriately reward them for those contributions. Teachers shouldn’t be sidelined as tools get all the glory. Here are some win-win ideas:

• Revenue Sharing on Educational Content

If teachers contribute instructional content that drives product value, they should get a cut of the returns. For example, online course marketplaces can share 20-50% of enrollment fees.

• Co-Develop Curriculum and Tools

Actively involve master teachers in building the educational software, assessments, and content. Give them part ownership stake through stock or options to incentivize the partnership.

• Hire Top Talent as Salaried Employees

Bring aboard the best educators as content developers or instructional leads. Compensate them handsomely for their expertise with competitive salaries and benefits.

Data-Driven Insights Without Sacrificing Privacy

Edtech tools that leverage data analytics and AI can provide powerful insights to improve student learning outcomes. However, protecting student privacy should be paramount.

Poor stewardship of personal data can violate trust. But if done responsibly, it can drive real gains without compromising confidentiality. Some constructive approaches include:

• Aggregate and Anonymize the Data

By reporting analytics in aggregate and scrubbing it of personally identifiable information, you can still spot useful trends and patterns.

• Transparent Policies and Permission Processes

Clearly communicate how data is collected and used. Provide students and families control over what gets shared through flexible permissions.

• Student Data Stays with the Student

Systems like the Open Learning Record store secure records under student ownership. They can then manage and share their learning records however they choose.

Making Online Education a Force for Good

If balanced properly, edtech business models can empower students, reward great teachers, and bring transformative learning solutions to communities everywhere.

But if done thoughtlessly, we risk pricing out disadvantaged populations, exploiting educators, and violating privacy – deepening divides.

By grounding models in ethical priorities like inclusion, transparency, and empowerment, edtech can elevate education across the board. The companies that pull this off will also position themselves for sustainable success.

When values align, everyone wins – students thrive, teachers gain autonomy, and businesses prosper. Here’s to the edtech innovations that move us collectively towards that positive future.

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Online Educational Business Model

Certainly, you are aware of the saying “knowledge is power.” No time that this sentiment is relevant that in this decade. As the world moves to a knowledge-based economy, people and organizations are seeking learning opportunities. Everyone is finding a chance to access real-time information on emerging technologies and trends in their area.

However, attending physical classes is becoming a challenge. People have fixed work schedules that hinder them from accessing physical classes. Fortunately, you can now learn virtually and in your own time. Here is where the online educational business model comes to play. What does it involve and the benefits of using the model? Keep reading to learn more.

What is the Online Educational Business Model?

An online educational business model is an approach that involves the virtual sharing of knowledge. It is a form of business that focuses on offering online courses and training to people seeking to enhance knowledge in a particular field. Organizations using this model focus on ensuring that employees and stakeholders can access the accumulated knowledge wealth. To make this possible, they introduce online learning opportunities in return for revenue.

Also, the organization using this model seeks to offer a transformation from the traditional learning approaches by moving education to the virtual space.  This aspect allows individual to learn at their pace, unlike in the normal schools where one need to be at par with fellow students.

How Does It Work?

The goal of online education businesses is to liberalize learning. Unlike in the olden days, people no longer need to attend physical classes. This organization helps people to access learning materials using their devices. This model has three components. The first component is the educational provider. This provider can be an individual, school, or institution. They develop and determine the content to offer, deliver it, and charge or make it accessible.

The next component is the platform. This is the medium for delivering the course or training. It is where people access knowledge and learning materials. This medium is an online platform that allows a potential learner to log in to access educational content from the provider. The platform supports different types of content.

For instance, the learning materials can be lecture notes, videos, and presentations. These courses are in the form of models and units. Also, they have a set completion duration and tests for assessing whether the students got the concept.

The last part of this model is the user or learner. This is the person looking to enhance knowledge in a particular field. Learners are the content consumers and target audience of the trainer or educator. They become students by creating an account on the platform and subscribe to its terms and conditions.

As such, the online educational model aims at helping people advance or gain knowledge virtually. It brings together a learner and trainer without them having to meet physically.

Examples of Online Educational Business Model

With the desire to shift from the traditional learning approach, the world is witnessing a popup of online educational businesses. Also, different learning institution is operating a virtual branch. However, there are several examples of companies that use this model as their operational approach.

Khan Academy is an excellent example of these businesses. This online school allows students to learn at their own pace. It offers instructional materials and practice exercises on different subjects such as mathematics, biology, chemistry, physics, computer programming, history, and others. Students can utilize these resources while in class or outside. The goal of this academy is to help students master different areas without any limitations.

Coursera is another business using this approach. This online education platform offers multiple courses at various universities and tech companies. Learners have a chance to enroll in free or paid courses. Also, one can pursue a certificate, diploma, or degree from various universities. Coursera aim is to help people gain job-relevant knowledge in an affordable and flexible manner.

Others include Udemy , Edx , Skillshare , and LinkedIn Learning .

Pros and Cons of the Online Educational Business Model

No doubt, the online educational business model is a new transformation in the learning industry. The approach is changing the sharing of knowledge and information. Businesses using this model are helping individuals advance their knowledge of a particular area at their pace. However, it also has its merits and downfalls. Here they are:

Enhanced reach and accessibility

In a knowledge-driven world, everyone is in search of a learning opportunity. Engineers what to know about the new NASA developments. Managers are seeking knowledge of current business strategies that they need to introduce in their businesses.

With this aspect, learning opportunities are in high demand. By adopting the online educational model, your business can enhance its reach. Also, it will make your accumulated knowledge easily accessible to your staff and stakeholders. Hence, the model is a perfect idea for educational institutions and businesses seeking to enhance knowledge accessibility and reach their target audience.

Liberalization of learning

Initially, learning took place in brick and mortar classes. You had to attend a session on a particular day and time. Also, if you needed some learning materials, you could only access them in school or libraries. This aspect hinders many people from advancing their knowledge due to limited time. This model came to alter that aspect.

Organizations using the online education model allow individuals to learn at their pace and access any materials regardless of their location. This liberalization of learning is enhancing and promoting equity in skills development.

No social interactions and costly

With online education, there is no physical interaction. Social interactions play a central role in the education arena. The approach offers face-to-face interaction between students and lecturers. Also, it enhances networking and strengthens student relationships. These aspects are not available in the online option, which can hurt learning.  Also, it is costly to establish. The concept requires huge investment in terms of virtual and physical infrastructure.

In a word, knowledge is an essential component of this era. The online educational business model works as a perfect way to enhance this objective. Organizations using this model benefit from the broad reach and enhanced accessibility. However, implementing this model can be costly as it requires huge capital.

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Defining Optimized Business Models of Online Education Platforms in the EdTech Market (Eng)

The diversity of recently emerging EdTech platforms are beyond limit and their players makes it thus difficult to define a universal business model for online education. In fact, there is no “one-fits-all” business model and all options are continuously evolving. The growing influence of EdTech attracts new stakeholders in the market, bringing in new services, monetization methods, customers, cross-financing models, etc. The master’s thesis takes a giant leap in providing a structural overview of learning and technology symbiosis and walks the reader through the valley of EdTech innovators. Furthermore, the paper marches ahead to elaborate whether there are certain contributing factors to the sustainability of EdTech business models. The paper makes an attempt at deriving the mechanics behind already successful business models through a multiple case-analysis. The analysis suggests further study based on a cost-revenue model and a conceptualized framework for business model sustainability in this sector. Eventually, the author believes that more than innovation and technology, we need to think about how these new phenomena can help us foster a sustainable global society for the present and future generations.

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Demand for online education is growing. Are providers ready?

Interest and participation in online learning continues to grow: 2020 saw record enrollment, 1 Data are from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), National Center for Education Statistics, US Department of Education, accessed March 2022. and universities have launched new online programs to meet this increased demand. 2 For examples, see Sydney Lake, “Alabama State University to launch online MBA program,” Fortune , May 16, 2022; Jenna Tarleton, “Colorado State University Global launches new online Master of Business Administration,” GlobeNewswire, June 1, 2022; and 2U, “edX and University of Maryland launch new online product management master’s degree,” Cision: PR Newswire, May 17, 2022. From doctoral students to lifelong learners, people are increasingly accessing online tools to learn and acquire new skills. Though the increase in demand is undeniable, creating compelling offerings that appeal to prospective students is an ongoing challenge for many providers.

Many players are vying for a piece of the online education market, from local and national universities to emerging online education giants and newer nondegree providers. The magnitude of these market shifts and the increasing competition they herald suggest that online education providers may be compelled to go beyond incremental improvements and initiate big, bold moves to survive, grow, and thrive.

Major market forces

Four core market forces are reshaping the online education space, including increased competition, consolidation by a handful of big players, an influx of investments, and rising standards for quality (Exhibit 1).

As demand for online education has grown, the market has become increasingly competitive, with providers vying for attention from a broad set of prospective students.

From 2011 to 2021, the number of learners reached by massive open online courses (MOOCs) increased from 300,000 to 220 million. 3 Dhawal Shah, “A decade of MOOCs: A review of stats and trends for large-scale online courses in 2021,” EdSurge, December 28, 2021. Between 2012 and 2019, the number of hybrid and distance-only students 4 As a proxy for online learners. at traditional universities increased by 36 percent, while the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 rapidly accelerated that growth by an additional 92 percent. 5 IPEDS, distance education status as of fall 2020, accessed March 2022.

Against this backdrop of growing student interest, the market for online education has consolidated around a handful of dominant online-degree players. A recent analysis of Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) total enrollment data showed that while the overall market for degree programs decreased approximately 3 percent from 2019 to 2020, four of the largest open-access online education providers—Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), Liberty University, Western Governors University (WGU), and Grand Canyon University (GCU)—grew their total enrollment by 11 percent on average. 6 IPEDS, distance education status as of fall 2020, accessed March 2022.

But online degree-granting universities have newer, digital-native entrants nipping at their heels and targeting the same student segments. Numerous digital-education start-ups are disrupting the space, driven by a rise in venture capital funding. US venture funding for education technology (edtech) grew from $1 billion to $8 billion between 2017 and 2021. 7 “Global edtech venture capital report - Full year 2021,” Holon IQ, January 3, 2022. In 2021, the public appetite for these investments was evident in the successful IPOs of multiple edtech companies, including that of Coursera (valuation of more than $4 billion). 8 Marina Temkin, “Edtech backers rewarded as IPO pipeline heats up,” PitchBook, November 1, 2021. Edtech investment could be poised for more growth as online offerings surge and as institutions continue to shift toward blended learning grounded in cutting-edge digital technologies.

The forces propelling demand have been accompanied by rising standards for online education quality. For example, new offerings are blurring the lines between degree and nondegree learning, creating a new category of educational competitors. Google’s Grow with Google program, in partnership with Coursera, 9 The Keyword , “Opportunity for everyone,” blog entry by Sundar Pichai, Google, October 12, 2017. offers courses in high-demand areas such as user experience design and data analytics and has made significant gains in enrollment. These programs give prospective learners cost-effective, expeditious options beyond a degree program. Traditional digital-education providers that are primarily degree-focused may want to consider including such offerings in their strategies to compete and grow in the online education space.

Greater demand and rising quality standards also suggest that students are growing savvier about the returns of their educational investments. For some prospective students, especially those moving into high-paying fields such as IT, the opportunity to learn high-demand skills is more important than a program or institution’s brand. Nearly half of respondents to our learner segmentation survey said they would only consider paying for education programs that have an expected positive return on career outcomes, while 21 percent indicated they would consider attending a school to get a degree only if the school was “top ranked.” 10 McKinsey Learner Segmentation Survey (n = 3,709).

Five strategic moves that could unlock opportunities

Amid these market forces are potential growth opportunities for online education providers, but successfully unlocking these opportunities may require providers to make bold moves in adapting and pivoting strategies.

Employers in fields from healthcare to cybersecurity are struggling to find qualified workers, 11 WorkCare Blog , “Employers struggle to find qualified workers,” August 3, 2021; Matt Ferguson, “Employers struggle to find skilled workers,” CNN, 2008; David Ramel, “‘Great Resignation’ depletes already hard-to-find cybersecurity talent,” Converge360, March 24, 2022; Dave Muoio, “Staffing shortages force long-term care facilities to limit admissions, hire agency workers,” Fierce Healthcare, September 22, 2021. and online education can help adults of all ages quickly gain the skills needed to fill these positions and improve their career trajectories. At the same time, workers are reevaluating their career opportunities and looking to enter better-paying fields.

To meet these needs, capture the attention of prospective students, and distinguish themselves from competitors, online education providers could consider five strategic moves (Exhibit 2): integrate skill building and degree attainment to meet student and labor market needs, transform career planning and coaching services, revolutionize employer relationships, deliver a distinctive learning experience, and build a bold and distinctive brand.

1. Meet student and labor market needs

Educational institutions have traditionally focused on learning and knowledge building first and careers second. But students, especially prospective online learners, are focused on the ROI of their degree—specifically, what jobs their degree will prepare them for. 12 McKinsey analysis. Moreover, labor market needs are rapidly changing. As a primary pool of talent, institutions could align themselves with these shifts by rethinking program development and degree attainment to better prepare their students for a dynamic work environment. Institutions have three actions to consider:

Align programs with the needs of the market. At many institutions, including nontraditional online institutions, programs are developed through an outdated and often drawn-out process that is frequently divorced from the needs of employers and industries. This process not only leads to a mismatch in graduates’ skills but also rarely allows for the rapid development of new programs to meet current needs.

Institutions could stay ahead of the curve by adopting an iterative ‘learn and design’ program creation process that includes understanding current trends across industries, identifying shifts in technical and nontechnical skills, and revamping current programs or designing new ones to best prepare students.

For example, a university in Mexico found that new programs drove 34 percent of all new enrollment between 2016 and 2019. This institution focused on new-program development by identifying changes in job market trends and in-demand occupations, evaluating whether competitors were offering relevant programs to meet these workforce shifts, and making rapid decisions about which new programs to offer based on these factors. The creation of new programs was then centralized through an agile content development team (rather than spread across different “schools”) to ensure efficiency and speed to launch, enabling new programs to be built in less than three months. 13 McKinsey analysis.

Institutions could stay ahead of the curve by adopting an iterative ‘learn and design’ program creation process.

Integrate degree and nondegree offerings. The education sector has traditionally treated degree programs and nondegree certification programs as wholly separate. Each is valuable, and each has its shortcomings. More recently, a broader set of education programs have been gaining acceptance among adult learners, with certificate providers increasingly being considered equivalent to more traditional institutions of higher education. 14 McKinsey Learner Segmentation Survey (n = 3,709). This suggests that institutions could most effectively serve the student population by removing barriers between degree and nondegree programs and by offering an integrated package that incorporates credit-bearing credentials and certificates into the broader journey of earning a degree.

Universities don’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel to build such integrated programs. To develop an end-to-end solution for students, traditional institutions could partner with established nondegree players such Udacity or Grow with Google. Conversely, nondegree providers could seek to partner with full-degree programs so that their students could earn credit for their work and move toward a degree if they chose to.

City University of New York (CUNY), for example, partnered with the New York Jobs CEO Council to launch the EverUp Micro-Credential Program, which offers 100-hour online intensives alongside traditional degree programs. Shaped by input from the largest employers in New York City, these credentials aim to better prepare students for jobs or internships by helping them master specific job-related skills. 15 “Launch your career with EverUp Micro-Credentials!,” CUNY, accessed March 2022.

Offer multiple models for degree attainment. Respondents to the McKinsey learner survey identified a lack of hands-on experience as a top concern with online learning, with 30 percent saying it was their biggest frustration. Many learners in online-only degree programs are adults or traditional-age students from nontraditional backgrounds who cannot wait until the end of a degree program to apply their practical technical skills in paid or part-time roles. By offering stackable credentials with clear “on-ramps” and “off-ramps” that allow concurrent or sequenced work experience opportunities, programs could meet students’ unique needs and support their overall skill-building trajectory while keeping them engaged and driving completion rates.

2. Transform career planning and coaching services

According to McKinsey’s learner survey, 35 percent of respondents said their top motivation for considering additional education was a stalled career or a stalled career search (Exhibit 3). To provide learners with stronger and better-aligned career outcomes and increase job placement potential in high-paying positions, online institutions could proactively and consistently engage with students to set specific goals, work toward those goals, and adjust programming as needed.

Historically, students have started their career journeys by choosing a major in the first year or two of a degree program and trying to find a job in a related field sometime before graduation. This model assumes that learners are well informed about which programs or courses to pursue and does little to actually support learners throughout their journeys. Merely providing an educational experience with little connection to a learner’s postgraduation context is likely not enough to help students achieve career goals, especially in digital environments where networking, information sessions, and other forms of exposure to careers may lack in quality and quantity. A Strada survey revealed that more than a third of adults would change their field of study if they could do it all over again, with lower levels of regret among higher earners. 16 On second thought: US adults reflect on their education decisions , Strada Education Network, June 2017.

Provide up-front opportunities to explore interests. Before selecting a major, students could take a survey or assessment that captures their passions, skills, and experiences and points them toward multiple majors and related career options that align with their profile. Some institutions, such as Dickinson College and Boston College, have begun to integrate strength and interest exploration into summer orientation sessions to encourage students to think about majors and careers before they even start classes. 17 Jon Marcus, “Some colleges ease up on pushing undergrads into picking majors right away,” The Hechinger Report , July 23, 2021. Equipped with data and information about students’ passions and interests, institutions could help students create personalized studies and skill-building plans early in the program. Unlike degree maps that direct students to follow a predetermined path, personalized plans could break down the process of acquiring a degree and show students how they could accumulate skills over time.

Offer integrative exposure to career pathways. It is important for learners to know whether the careers that are aligned to a prospective major are a solid fit. Institutions could expand and prioritize student access to immersive career experiences, including project-based learning, research opportunities, shadowing, and career-aligned mentoring. 18 “Student outcomes beyond completion: National findings from the 2021 Strada Alumni Survey,” Strada Education Network, October 27, 2021.

Wake Forest University has garnered attention for its revitalized approach to career services. The institution emphasizes career exploration and customized exposure to careers early in the student journey by using profiles on Handshake (a job search and matching platform) to connect students with organizations and companies based on their interests and qualifications. 19 Andy Chan and Christine Cruzvergara, Outcomes and metrics that matter: Embedding career services at higher education’s core , Handshake, September 2021.

Other institutions help students build digital portfolios of work that they can show to potential employers during interviews. This allows firms to see precisely what skills students are learning and how those skills relate to specific job roles through, for example, an employer-facing dashboard that links courses, student activities, and work experiences to specific skills and industries. 20 “Career e-portfolios to help land a job,” San José State University, accessed May 2022.

Adjust and iterate on studies and career plans. As a student progresses through the educational journey, institutions could perform check-ins, advise, and reevaluate personalized course plans more frequently. For example, the University of Colorado Boulder’s Program in Exploratory Studies provides personalized attention to help undergraduate students discover their interests, realign on a major and potential career paths, and adjust course plans accordingly. When the program launched in 2019, about 40 percent of Boulder students were switching majors after realizing a new one might be a better fit. The new advising approach gives students the ability to shift plans with ease. 21 “Some colleges,” July 23, 2021. Some other institutions also offer the ability to flex major requirements or stack credentials when pivoting to another field.

3. Revolutionize employer relationships

Online education providers are uniquely positioned to develop close B2B partnerships with organizations looking to upskill their employee bases and attract new talent. The ability of these providers to rapidly adjust their curricula, combined with their history of serving adult students looking to advance their careers, suggests that such partnerships could be a strong driver of growth.

A recent study by Udacity found that roughly 60 percent of employers said talent gaps are having a major or moderate impact on their business, while a majority of younger people across all regions believe their employers should invest in their future by giving them skill training. 22 Talent transformation global impact report , Udacity and Ipsos, January 2022. However, few educational institutions have made B2B a meaningful source of enrollment growth. Traditional B2B strategies often fail to sufficiently address the talent transformation needs of corporate partners. With employers facing unprecedented talent challenges and prospective students looking for career linkages, the moment may be ripe for rethinking how digital educators pursue B2B partnerships. While the nature of B2B strategies may vary across institutions, we have identified a few emerging, innovative approaches that could help institutions build strong B2B partnerships.

With employers facing unprecedented talent challenges and prospective students looking for career linkages, the moment may be ripe for rethinking how digital educators pursue B2B partnerships.

Focus on career-specific skills that can quickly address employer pain points. Many online institutions offer a broad range of certificate and training programs and seek to show the general value of their education to a potential partner instead of focusing on the skills needed for a specific industry or job function. By researching certain industries or roles, online education providers could identify very specific and practical skills that may meet the most acute talent development pain points. A skills-based approach often requires institutions to develop new content, bundle it, and sequence it in new ways while incorporating project-based learning. Scarce resources can make it difficult for universities to modularize all content simultaneously. Focusing on specific industries and professions can help them get started.

Develop comprehensive enterprise plans for upgrading and adding talent. Online education providers could differentiate their B2B offerings by thinking of themselves as talent development partners or as part of a “corporate academy.” By partnering with learning and development (L&D) teams to offer value-added services such as enterprise-wide assessments for talent transformation, these institutions could increase the value of educational partnerships and help ensure that it results in meaningful ROI for B2B partners. Once a business is enrolled, online education providers could develop personalized plans for each employee and create enterprise-specific reporting platforms that track and display the collective progress of the company’s talent pool. Moreover, providers could offer select student support services that are tailored for a given partner. In addition to developing existing talent, online education providers could innovate go-to-market approaches for attracting new talent to fields with significant labor shortages. For example, they could develop degree and training programs in partnership with employers who promise tuition assistance and jobs for students who complete the program. Talent attraction and development are more important than ever; by solving these problems, an online education provider could become integral to the core business instead of simply a benefit for employees.

Measure impact and ROI. Deeper partnerships that meet the specific needs of employers could drive real business value by filling talent gaps. However, very few, if any, online education providers have measured that impact or demonstrated the full ROI of upskilling employees. This suggests there is a unique opportunity for a nimble, forward-thinking provider to structure partnerships in which ROI is front and center. Measuring the impact of programs that build digital skills could also help unlock more B2B partnerships and greater enrollment growth.

4. Deliver a distinctive learning experience

The COVID-19 pandemic has further influenced consumer behavior and expectations across industries, 23 For more, see “ US consumer sentiment and behaviors during the coronavirus crisis ,” McKinsey, December 14, 2021. including education. Approximately 20 percent of respondents to our survey of US learners said their biggest frustration with online learning was “engaging in real-time conversations through a virtual medium.” About 18 percent of respondents said their top frustration with online learning was “getting the technology to work.”

To meet evolved student expectations, online institutions may want to upgrade their overall digital experience across core content delivery, build supporting tools and infrastructure, and apply best practices in customer experience. In our recent article on improving online higher education, 24 Felipe Child, Marcus Frank, Mariana Lef, and Jimmy Sarakatsannis, “ Setting a new bar for online higher education ,” McKinsey, October 18, 2021. we share the findings of our survey on academic research as well as the practices of more than 30 institutions, including both regulated degree-granting universities and nonregulated lifelong-education providers.

To deliver an outstanding learning experience and better outcomes for students, institutions could focus their efforts on three overarching principles (Exhibit 4):

Seamless journeys. Exceptional delivery includes a user-centered learning platform that is easy to navigate and highly interactive. Elements could include movie trailer–like course previews presented by top instructors, real-time progress dashboards across programs and courses, and integrated, timely alerts that let students know when they are not investing enough time on a topic and offer suggestions for study resources.

An engaging teaching approach. While top-notch faculty and teachers, interactive lessons, and high-quality content are all critical, exceptional delivery also includes supporting a variety of learning settings to adapt to different learning needs. Enabling students to choose a learning format they prefer is one example. Real-time collaboration via group work, breakout rooms for discussion classes, Q&As with professors, and free, embedded access to external resources—such as professional-association standards and newspaper articles—could also help strengthen learning.

A caring network. Strong networks offering both academic and nonacademic support could help institutions accelerate learning and foster the well-being of students. This could include easily accessible, 24/7 troubleshooting support via a live service desk for urgent learning and teaching problems. Other initiatives to consider are program-specific opportunities to enhance student life online, such as personalized meet and greets, special academic invitations, and thematic social clubs, as well as using the right technologies to allow for just-in-time community or adviser support where needed.

5. Build a bold and differentiated brand

In today’s highly competitive market, building a distinctive brand is more important than ever. Our independent analysis of the fastest-growing online universities revealed that their success was due, at least in part, to investing marketing dollars in raising broad-based awareness of their educational offerings. By sustaining these efforts over time, they were able to increase awareness and inbound interest, which ultimately helped drive enrollment. Through our work and our research, we’ve identified three marketing and branding benchmarks providers may want to consider:

A compelling brand message. By initiating the four moves listed above, online education providers could lay the foundation for a distinctive brand message that cuts through the “sea of sameness” that typifies most online education advertising. Simply emphasizing affordability and flexibility may not be enough. Successful brands are not afraid to be bold and elicit both emotional and rational responses from consumers. Shaping a brand message that speaks to people’s dreams for the future, and shows how an institution is innovating to deliver on that promise, could help the institution stand out and motivate prospective students to learn more about it. There are many ways for an institution to differentiate its brand, including focusing on a particular student segment (such as veterans), focusing on a particular field of study (such as healthcare or nursing), or focusing on a distinctive student experience (such as through a differentiated online platform or student support network).

A balanced marketing media mix that delivers sustainable student acquisition costs. Many online education providers developed their marketing strategies during a time of ever-growing demand and limited competition. Those strategies tended to emphasize “bottom of the funnel” tactics such as affiliate marketing and paid-search marketing that aimed to convert prospective students who were close to making a decision. Given the marked increase in competition and growing per-click costs, this strategy may not prove sustainable. Our research shows that the most successful institutions invest at least half of their marketing dollars in broad-reach media that drives organic traffic. While investing more in brand marketing does require patience, it could establish a brand that generates sustainable student acquisition costs over time while helping increase conversion rates across all channels and throughout the enrollment process. The use of digital channels such as video, social media, and audio could allow institutions to reach a broad but still relevant audience. These tactics may also allow institutions to track the impact of these broader marketing efforts by looking at organic traffic and search data.

Our research shows that the most successful institutions invest at least half of their marketing dollars in broad-reach media that drives organic traffic.

Use of authentic voices to build credibility. Institutions may benefit from creating opportunities for current and former students to communicate the value of their programs to the broader public. Successful students take great pride in their accomplishments and are often happy to share their experiences. Moreover, they can deliver authentic and credible messages. As more and more prospective students turn to TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube to research schools, promoting user-generated content could go a long way toward driving interest and enrollment growth.

Institutions may also want to ensure that their branding is sustained throughout the admissions process. Instead of using a rigid, sometimes overly persistent model that focuses on outbound phone calls and cookie-cutter information, institutions can instead adopt a flexible engagement model that provides personalized information and respects the audience’s time.

Admissions teams could also diversify how they interact with prospective students and work seamlessly across SMS, email, phone, and videoconferencing to provide information and answer questions. In this new model, admissions officers become more than a single point of contact, instead connecting students to online information and to people in other parts of the organization, such as alumni or faculty, who could help them make informed decisions.

This new approach to branding and admissions might sound like common sense, but many organizations have optimized their old models over decades. Thoroughly changing a branding strategy often requires a fundamental restructuring of the way institutions work, the skills they employ, and how they measure success.

While making progress in these five strategic areas could yield growth, doing all five in unison is likely to produce the greatest impact.

To compete and grow, digital-learning providers may benefit from moving fast and cross-functionally and making rapid decisions based on data. Executing these five big moves will likely require the investment and involvement of the full organization. McKinsey analysis suggests that for most institutions, this path will represent a full transformation of current operations; lessons discussed in other education insights may be helpful in that effort. This path also requires a willingness to look beyond education for ideas and expertise and to find new technologies from across the digital economy. Blazing the path to a new frontier of online education is daunting, but those that do it could grow their impact while supporting students.

Nadine Diaz-Infante is an associate partner in McKinsey’s Mexico City office, Michael Lazar is a partner in the New York office, Samvitha Ram is a consultant in the New Jersey office, and Austin Ray is a consultant in the Atlanta office.

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Edtech Startup Business Model: Which One is Right for You?

2020 was an amazing year for edtech. The pandemic fueled the industry and sparked a ton of innovative ideas. But having a good product is just a part of success. Your edtech startup business model should actually be sustainable.

And this isn’t only about earning more than you spend.

According to CBS Insights , 42% of startups fail because their product doesn’t solve a real problem.

As an edtech development firm , MindK has seen many startups with a vague E dtech business plan and a vague idea of how they will earn money. Some of them ran out of cash before their product was ready. Others managed a valuable exit. But if you want to achieve success in the long term, you need to think about something that people really want. And then ask yourself: how can I create a sustainable business around this value? 

Most of the edtech business models look pretty similar to what you can see in other niches. Yet, there are some specifics you should know before launching your startup.

So, here are the top 7 types of business model for education startups you can use to rock the EdTech market in 2022 and beyond.

Edtech business model canvas

You can download a blank canvas template to quickly systematize your business model

Freemium (aka Coursera business model)

Give users a freebie and offer a more advanced plan as an upgrade. What could be easier?

It’s an attractive model for startups as it allows you to establish trust in your brand and quickly become a niche leader.

Initially, Coursera offered free courses on a variety of topics with an option to pay for a certificate. Powered by $210+ million of investments, the company quickly became an edtech powerhouse.

In 2020, Coursera gained 30+ million new users.

Introducing a free enterprise tier brought $22 million in revenue and attracted 4,000+ institutions, which the company intends to monetize sometime down the road.

Yet, Coursera still reported a net loss of $67 million.

And this leads us to the the two main challenges with the freemium model:

• You will burn through lots of cash acquiring and supporting a large number of free users – marketing alone accounts for 36.5% of Coursera’s revenue.
• You’ll need to somehow convert these free users (and this can be harder than it seems ).

So, is there anything you can do to improve your chances of success?

For starters, you can charge a small one-time payment for your basic plan (aka Cheapium ) to filter out freeloaders and convert users with subscription fatigue.

Or you could go the free trial route (which I’ll explain next, so read on;)

Free trial + paid subscription (aka Mystery Science business model)

This approach is similar to freemium. The only difference is that you offer a complete package right off the bat, but for a short period of time.

After the trial runs out, people either stop using your app or purchase an upgrade. This means that at any point in time, most users will be paying customers generating early revenue, especially, if the trial automatically changes to a paid subscription.

Some users may simply forget to unsubscribe, others will be too lazy. But if you offer a valuable service, most will stay as your loyal customers.

For example, Mystery Science is successfully using the free trial model to help kids fall in love with science. They offer a ton of free lessons on a variety of STEM-related topics.

The company uses a somewhat unusual spin on the free-trial model. Most teachers learn about Mister Science from a friend or a colleague. They can use the product free of charge. At the end of a school year, their school or a district buys a membership for all the teachers.

Read more: 7 edtech market trends to keep an eye on in 2022.

Edtech marketplace (aka Udemy business model)

Few startups have enough resources to produce educational content at scale. This is one of the reasons why edtech marketplace is such a popular business model.

The idea is simple – build a platform where creators can make money from their educational content and take a share of their revenue.

Udemy is one of the world’s most valuable edtech companies, worth $3.3 billion.

The platform hosts thousands of 3rd-party courses from businesses and individuals offering a full set of tools to produce, market, and monetize learning materials.

Posting a course is free but Udemy takes 50% of the creator’s revenue. There are other edtech revenue models you can use, like charging an upfront fee for hosting a course or taking the first $50,000 earned on the platform like edX.

But the marketplace model isn’t only suitable for the edtech giants.

Tyoch Learning is a Luxembourg-based platform that unites coaches, enterprises, and professionals. As a self-funded startup, it couldn’t afford a massive custom platform. Using our experience with existing Learning Management Solutions, our engineers built an MVP that allowed Tyoch to take off.

The platform now hosts a variety of courses in leadership, time management, communication, and professional skills. It has both B2C and B2B models with one-time purchases and enterprise coaching programs.

Read more: how to build a Learning Management System .

Advertising + ads-free subscription (aka Duolingo business model)

Duolingo started back in 2009, when language learning software cost hundreds of dollars apiece.

But the app went with a very different business model. Duolingo planned to provide the service 100% free and charge businesses for user-translated texts.

The company spent its early years growing the user base. They tested every little detail, measured user behavior, experimented with gamification, and iterated to make the app as engaging as possible.

Usage grew at a steady pace, but the startup wasn’t making any money.

In 2013, the company partnered with CNN and BuzzFeed, translating 600+ articles a day.

Over the next few years, Duolingo built a flashcard app called TinyCards and introduced paid language testing which accounts for about 20% of the company’s bottom line.

Yet, these revenue streams were insufficient to make the app profitable. Instead of focusing on the B2B service that was bringing money, the founders went back to the core idea – provide the best way to learn a language, free of charge.

They started showing ads at the end of a lesson with an option to pay for the ads-free experience. Combined, this earned the company almost $180 million in 2020.

The key to succeeding with an ad-based model is to make it your ads as unobtrusive as possible. User experience is still the king!

Whatever model you choose, Duolingo proves it’s essential to test all your assumptions with real users, experiment in quick iterations, and pivot if necessary.

Duolingo Plus combines freemium and free trial models

Institutional model (selling to school/district admins)

This is a traditional model for the K12 sector.

The concept is simple – pitch your product to school districts, university administrations, and other decision-makers.

This model can be a winning choice if your product benefits organizations more than individuals. Or if it needs to be integrated into data systems at the district level.

Schoolzilla offers interactive dashboards to 140+ school districts across the US. Its main benefit is better decision-making, which appeals to principals and district admins. So the top-down approach was a natural extension of the product.

However, it’s not a one-fits-all solution.

There are over 16,000 districts in the US alone. Some of them big, some small and there can be large differences in the procurement process.

You can, of course, sell to individual schools instead of districts. According to Y Combinator’s CEO Geoff Ralston, schools now have bigger IT budgets and often employ directors of technology to help with purchasing decisions. Getting to know people those might be the key to your success.

However, to scale effectively, this model might require a large number of people doing the groundwork across the country.

Another challenge is that your end-users (teachers and schoolchildren) are often not your customers (people who pay for your product).

SharpScholar founders had to reboot their product because it had too many approval layers. The buy-in process involved both teachers, admins, and students. This resulted in a lack of focus and muddied positioning.

Their advice is to reduce the layers of approval and maintain a direct relationship with your customers, whoever they may be.

Enterprise/B2B sales (aka Udacity business model)

A similar top-down approach works if you work in B2B and association management niches.

Enterprise models involve pitching your product to decision-makers within large organizations. The contracts usually have a fixed duration, designated value, and come with a renewal at the end of the term.

Benefits are two-fold – large deals for some early revenue and long-term partnerships you can use to produce high-value content for the B2C sector.

Udacity is a $1.1 billion unicorn that sells educational courses both to businesses and users. These so-called nano degrees are created in partnership with companies like Google and Amazon. This makes them more attractive for the students and helps the company stand out from the crowd.

The company also has a successful B2B model with on-site training for corporate clients.

By combining different B2C and B2B models, Udacity managed to increase its revenue by 260% in 2020.

AlreadyOn is more of a niche player targeting Norwegian communities and associations. They evolved from a pure enterprise model (sell the product to organization leaders as a single transaction) to a more traditional SaaS business.

A self-service portal we built for them can be easily customized for any organization, be it a professional association, a political party, or a business entity.

The subscription is based on the selected modules and the number of members in your system.

Learn how MindK can help you build a successful edtech business as a custom software development company .

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Top 9 EdTech Challenges and Opportunities for Startup Founders

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How to Create an eLearning Organization Business Model

Having accumulated a wealth of knowledge in an organization, managers are looking for ways to make it available to employees in a meaningful way. We see a plethora of eLearning organizations springing up to respond to these needs.

It’s a lucrative, but a competitive eLearning market out there! Without the right eLearning business model, your eLearning venture may sink before it launches!

In this article, we will share with you some best practices in developing the right eLearning business model for your eLearning organization.

So, you have finally decided to test the eLearning business waters. You have researched the market trends of eLearning offering organizations and you feel you can offer better eLearning products to the market. Congratulations on this noble idea!

Let’s help you make it a successful reality. If you don’t have a business model, then it’s never too late. Simply apply our strategy to your eLearning venture.

If you already have an eLearning business model, then compare yours with ours. Share any additions you made in the comments section, or any new points you can share. Sharing is caring!

Before you begin working on your new eLearning business organization, determine a list of knowledge, learning needs and wants of a typical organization. What has been frustrating people in the presence or absence of an eLearning program? What are the gaps in eLearning offerings? What kind of eLearning programs are more in demand?

Also, make a note of the groups of learners you would be serving. Are they large in size, geographically distributed and/or what is their level of expertise? Are there any culture and language considerations required for your learners? Get to know your learners well in order to study your target market.

Once you have defined the target market and its segments for your eLearning organization, begin developing your business model. Your goal is to determine what makes you unique and stand-out in comparison to your competitors.

The journal MERLOT (Journal of Online Learning and Teaching) is rife with research findings that suggest core strategies to develop an eLearning business model.

Here are the latest on an eLearning business model development. Answer these questions to define your eLearning program offering:

• Will you be serving all the members of the target market or a subset?
• What makes you unique: in what situations will your target market turn to you for their eLearning needs?
• How competitive is your selling strategy? What factors will drive your customers to your business?
• Are your courses all about purchase-and-download-eLearning-programs? Or, do you have eLearning facilitators that will interact directly with course participants?
• What content area will you be focusing on?
• What content would be beyond your scope?
• Who are your competitors?
• What is the frame of reference used in your courses? For example, which country and economics are your courses based on?
• Define the value you will provide your learners. A value not present in the market.
• What values are you NOT providing?
• What existing eLearning frustrations are you addressing?
• How will the learners be affected from your eLearning offerings?
• What are the distinguishing factors that set you apart in the market?
• Why can’t these factors be copied?
• Define effective methods to develop eLearning programs.
• Effective methods to market your eLearning program.
• How will you keep your courses current – content and technology included?
• Define strategies to learn about current learner needs.

Developing an eLearning business model early in your organizational development process is crucial to its success. Simply define these parameters orf your eLearning business and you can be on your way to sell online courses .

And do consider creating a web presence for your new eLearning venture.

No matter how good your organization is in terms of skills and experience to develop the right eLearning courses, without an insightful eLearning business model, you cannot go too far.

A strong business model will enable you to focus on the desired target market and improve your eLearning offerings to satisfy them. Apply these five questions to your model to get started or to steer your business in the right direction.

Improve your employee, partner and customer training with our enterprise-ready learning management system. Book a demo now and see why our diverse portfolio of customers consistently give us 5 stars (out of 5!)

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GUEST POST from Arlen Meyers

The business model canvas is one of many useful tools to design, evolve and test products and services business models.  While the original model was proposed to help founders create a viable and scaleable business model,  it has also helped non-profit executives, as  the mission driven business model,  and those looking to make a career change, using a personal business model as the  Business Model You.

The construct is also useful if you are an edupreneur, trying to create and launch new educational products and services, including new courses, certificates, programs or degree offerings.

Edupreneurship rests on several foundational principles:

• Having an entrepreneurial mindset
• Intra- and entrepreneurial knowledge, skills, abilities and competencies
• Design thinking  focused on creating stakeholder and beneficiary defined outcomes
• A systems engineering approach to  solving wicked problems,  like how to fix outcomes disparities and their social determinants
• A different business model
• More respect for and attention to edupreneurial champions
• Better teacher education and training
• An incentive and reward system for not just tweaking a failed system , but rather, making it obsolete given the basic structural changes in the US economy
• Eliminating unnecessary and burdensome bureaucracy, credentialing that does not add value and administrivia
• Paying more attention to and measuring student defined outcomes
• Better public-private integration
• K-20 integration and alignment

13.  Teaching students what they need to win the 4th industrial revolution

14.  Embracing cradle to career integration

15.  Creating a competent diverse and equitable talent pipeline

We has seen several recent advances in edupreneurship.

Here is the boomer’s guide to teaching millenials.

The UGME steering committee recognizes that medical education programs are faced with the ubiquitous challenge of repeated calls for innovation and that, frequently, these calls do not adequately address the associated resource demands. As medical educators, we have become highly creative in identifying strategies to do more with less, but as we know, this is not a sustainable model of stewardship. In 2016 and 2017, the UGME section collaborated with the Group on Business Affairs (GBA) to explore evolving models to support and sustain UGME programming. A result of this work is the Business Model Canvas for Medical Educators. The original Business Model Canvas was proposed by Alexander Osterwalder in 2008 and has been modified over time to fit other needs.  The Table of Contents will direct you to resources, including the Business Model Canvas for Medical Educators template and two examples submitted by institutions who have successfully used the template to secure funding from within their own institution.

The edupreneurship business model canvas has a few modifications to the traditional startup one:

Customer segments:  The primary customer are students. However, there are many other education stakeholders, including admininstrators, alumni, donors, employers and parents.  In addition, for any given subject, potential students will have different backgrounds  and experience in the subject, will have different jobs they want done, and, therefore, will have different applications for what they learned, be it finding a job, getting a promotion, or adding value where they presently work.

Value proposition : For each customer segment , you have a specific value proposision. You typically describe it in the course syllabus, telling users about the intended audience, the goals of the course, the learning objectives, and the curriculum. For example, the value proposition for a course I teach to xMBA/HA students is :

This course will introduce graduate level students in healthcare administration and leadership to the principles and practice of healthcare innovation and entrepreneurship defined as the pursuit of opportunity under volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous conditions with the goal of creating stakeholder defined value through the deployment of innovation using a valid, automatic, scaleable and time sensitive (VAST) business model.

Following completion of this course, you should be able to:

1. identify gaps in your health entrepreneurship competencies and develop a personal and professional development plan to address them

2. create an organizational culture of innovation, lead innovators and overcome the barriers to healthcare innovation dissemination and implementation

3. identify the multiple clinical and non-clinical ways to practice healthcare entrepreneurship

4. Create a plan to solve a problem inside or outside of your organization that meets the goals of the quintuple aim (Quality, cost, access, experience, waste/business operations)

5. Identify the startup life cycle and challenges at each stage

Channels : This describes how you will deliver your course. Will it be face to face, online or some hybrid model with elements of both?

Customer relationships:  This describes how you will get, keep and grow the numbers of students who will take the course, e.g. promoting in the course catalog, attending a career or course proposal day, creating awareness on social media or using word or mouth dissemination from previous students.

Revenue model : This describes how your employer or you will generate revenue from the products. Traditionally, universisty based courses use a “butts in the seats” model, but COVID and new eductional technologies have radically changes the revenue generating possibilities, inluding advertising, freemium models, subscription models and others.

Key resources:  This describes the human, physical, intellectual property and financial resources you will need to build, execute and scale your initiative. For example, do you want to copyright your materials, or , do you want to make them an  open educational resource using a Creative Commons license?

Key activities:  This what you need to do to perform and deliver on your value proposition, like what you will do using a learning management system, like create videos, run office hours, moderate asynchronous virtual discussions and design and grade exams and quizzes

Key partnerships : This describes who can help you, be they guest faculty, educational technology partners, corporate sponsors, e.g. if you are using project based learning techniques or online tools and resouce producers, e.g cases from the Harvard Business School collection.

Costs:  This describes the tangible and intangible costs to produce your product. In most instances, your time, opportunity costs and effort will overshadow the monetary costs.

COVID has accelerated the pace of change in higher education,  forcing them to create entrepreneurial universities.  Teaching faculty how to use the education business model canvas should be part of faculty development to mimimize projecdt and product failure.

Here is what I learned, using the business model canvas, teaching sickcare innovation and entrepreneurship to first year medical students at the University of Colorado.

In this post ,  Steve Blank offers a new definition of why startups exist : a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model .

So is a new course or certificate. Use the education driven business model to make your product desireable, feasible, viable and adaptable and be sure to document your success when it comes time for your evaluation,promotion and tenure review. More likely, though, you will be  including it in your failure resume,  since, like the vast majority of new products,  yours is likely to fail  because 1) you offered a product students don’t want to buy or someone does not want to pay for, and 2) you do not have a  VAST  educational product business model.

Image credits: Strategyzer

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• Developing Design Thinking Skills Through Experiential Learning

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Create Your Course

The top 10 online learning platforms for 2024, share this article.

There are a lot of online learning platforms out there, so how do you choose? Start by exploring these top picks!

Online learning platforms are great for helping you set up or teach a course. Often, you can also leverage them to monetize your own content, too!  Creators everywhere are learning how to build an online learning platform so that they can generate new revenue streams. 

But, there are a lot of online learning platforms out there, so how do you choose? Start by exploring these top picks!

Skip ahead:

• The value of online learning platforms

How to choose the best online learning platform

• The difference between online learning platforms and learning management systems

LinkedIn Learning

Openlearning, masterclass, khan academy.

• Tips to monetize your courses

What value do online learning platforms bring?

In a paper titled Online Learning Platforms: Reconstructing Modern Higher Education , Zi-Yu Liu, Natalya Lomovtseva and Elena Korobeynikova argue that online learning platforms can change the way higher education works in the future. They said the greatest benefits to this type of tool includes, “ greater freedom of access, lower education prices, the possibility of dividing the content of the e-course into modules, flexibility of education, the ability to keep up with modern pace of life, and the ability to define criteria for assessing knowledge.”

In general, you should look at structure, course content, community and price when evaluating which online learning platform is best suited for you. This will apply regardless if you’re using it to learn or to monetize your content! 

Choosing the right online learning platform will generally mean balancing these four aspects in a way that works best for you.

Structure of the platform

Course structure is important because it leads to a better learning experience and more effective delivery of professional development programs . As an example , you can probably piece together knowledge on almost any topic through YouTube, but it would lack a structured and progressive environment. This would make it hard for students to learn independently. 

Available course content

Looking at the course content is key to whatever you’re planning to learn or teach . All online degree programs and course materials are somewhat unique in how they approach any given subject. Take web development or programming, for example. There are so many principles, languages and frameworks that you can learn that it can’t simply be covered by individual courses. Some specialization is necessary.

If you’re planning to deliver a course through an online learning platform, it will help to look for ones that offer similar topics already. You can also look for platforms that offer similar set-ups. Free or mini courses attract a much different audience than Bachelor’s degree programs! 

Community support

Community makes the learning process much more fun and effective. When you’re stuck and can ask your peers for help, it reinforces what you’ve just learned with another perspective. Plus, doing something with a cohort of students is much more motivating than going alone.

From the teaching perspective, you can leverage learning communities to empower brainstorming, independent problem-solving, and passion-building for the course topic.

Price is another key factor in selecting course materials that work for you. There are many free courses available but paid ones tend to be more engaging and of higher quality. Some courses offer free trials while others offer refunds if you don’t like it. Some courses give you lifetime unlimited access while others rely on a subscription model or only work for a limited time.

Whether you’re monetizing or purchasing a course, you need to consider the value that the course provides to the student. Is the topic of interest, and does it provide enough content to be worth the pricing model offered?

When you’re selling through an online learning tool, you’ll also want to consider if there are any added costs. Sometimes the cost is accrued per sale, and sometimes it is a monthly fee. 

What’s the difference between online learning platforms and learning management systems?

When you’re researching which online learning platform is right for you , it’s important to know how it differs from other similar solutions such as learning management systems (LMS) and online course websites .

An online learning platform is a user-facing environment where students can learn new skills. In comparison, a learning management system is a back-end solution that provides all the necessary tools to the online learning platform so it can function smoothly. This would provide features like uploading videos, creating quizzes, grading assignments and much more.

Online learning platforms are similar to online course websites. In practice, the difference is that the online learning platforms tend to offer more flexibility than course websites . Online course websites are used for course creation, whereas online learning platforms can encompass all kinds of learning experiences, from short videos to online degrees.

10 Best online learning platforms

Now that you know what online learning platforms offer, and have a general idea of what you’re planning to study or teach , you can see which one of these 10 top-notch learning platforms suits you best. 

Skip ahead here:

Start by looking into the most flexible online learning platform of all — Thinkific.

Thinkific is not a gallery of courses, rather it’s one of the best platforms to create learning products and organize a custom learning experience for your team. The flexibility of the platform makes it work great for educating students, training employees, and building product education programs, or anything else you can dream up!

Not sure where to start? Thinkific Academy will teach you how to build with an online learning platform, as well as how to price and market your courses effectively.

G2 Score: 4.7/5

Thinkific Pricing

Thinkific has a free plan that allows you to start building courses right away. Paid plans provide you with access to more engagement, tracking, and monetization features, and start at $149 per month.

For learners, Thinkific’s courses are all priced independently by the course creators using the platform. Take some time to research a topic that you love and you’ll likely find a bunch of free courses, too! 

Being one of the largest online learning platforms in the world, Coursera has millions of students and partners with over 200 top universities and companies to produce the best courses across a wide variety of subjects. The platform also offers specific course playlists to help you develop the necessary skills for the job of your dreams! 

There are individual courses, certificate courses, and university-level courses available. Some are free and others are paid. You can buy each course separately or enroll in a Coursera Plus plan, which gives you access to all courses for a yearly subscription fee. Note that enrolling in a free Coursera program won’t provide you with a certificate at the completion point.

G2 Score: 4.5/5

Coursera Pricing

Lots of courses are available for free. Paid courses start at $9.99, with certificate-level courses beginning at $39, and university courses at $2,000. You can also choose to pay $59 a month or a $399 annual fee to unlock all the courses on Coursera. However, the monthly or yearly subscriptions do not include university degrees or MasterTrack certificates. 

• Coursera Alternatives

Started as Lynda.com back in 1995, LinkedIn Learning features over 17,000 courses on topics across business, technology and creativity. Experts in their respective fields use LinkedIn Learning as a platform to share their knowledge to others who want to step into the industry.

LinkedIn Learning is great at teaching you how to do complex things, simply . It does this by breaking big, technical topics down into bitesize components. For example , you can learn the ins and outs of Adobe apps like Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator as well as rendering in Blender, SketchUp and Maya, and much more.

You can buy courses individually or get a recurring subscription. Any certificates can be automatically displayed on your LinkedIn profile. 

G2 Score: 4.4/5 

LinkedIn Learning Pricing

Individual courses vary between $20 and $50. LinkedIn Learning costs $39.99 for a monthly subscription, and $239.88 for an annual plan ( which is a 50% savings! ) These plans also give you access to LinkedIn Premium, with advanced networking and career-building tools. 

Bulk pricing is also available for companies or educational institutions who want to offer the platform to their organization.

Anyone who’s into creative arts or acquiring new creative skills would appreciate Skillshare. While it is less formal than many other online learning platforms, Skillshare focuses on practical skills rather than degrees or certificates.

Courses on Skillshare are often led by creatives who are well known in their field. The courses rarely go beyond two hours in length and are broken down further into 3 to 5 minute episodes so they’re easier to digest . This makes learning on Skillshare accessible even for people who don’t have a lot of free time at once.

There are some free introductory courses but to get access to the full catalog, you need to purchase a subscription.

G2 Score: 3.4/5

SkillShare Pricing

The pricing seems to depend on the country where you reside. However, on average, you can expect to pay $168 per year, or $14 per month . 

Related: Skillshare vs Thinkific – A detailed comparison

If you’re looking for a more formal learning environment, edX is one of the best options available online. This platform partners with top universities, from Harvard to MIT to Berkeley, to offer real university courses online. This is especially great for learners in remote locations or anyone who doesn’t want to commute to an in-person class for their degree. 

Most courses tend to skew into the STEM fields, such as data analysis, engineering, or math. But there are plenty of others too (out of 4,000+ total courses on the platform ). You can take the majority of classes for free if you don’t need the certificate. 

edX Pricing

Free classes do not offer certificates. Courses that come with certificates cost between $50 and $300. Full degree programs combine multiple courses and are usually $1,000 or higher . 

OpenLearning, an Australian platform, partners with leading institutions and offers more than 4,000 courses on a variety of subjects. What sets OpenLearning apart is an engaging and supportive community of more than 3 million learners. Students interact with each other constantly through comments, submissions and publicly tracking their progress.

You can find short individual courses on the platform as well as OpenCreds, which you can use to get actual credits in Australia’s universities. They call these microcredentials and they fit into specific frameworks for bigger programs you might want to take in the future. 

As a bonus, OpenLearning leverages AI technology to continually provide new information and better flow of the online learning experience! 

G2 Score: 4.6/5

OpenLearning Pricing

Lots of courses on the OpenLearning platform are free. Although the ones to get university credentials usually cost anywhere between $150 and $500. It costs between $900 and $3,450 per year to create courses on OpenLearning. 

With more than 213,000 courses, 60,000 instructors, and 62 million students , Udemy is the largest online learning platform out there, covering every niche you can think of.

There’s no unifying theme on Udemy — you can really learn anything, from graphic design to personal development. Most classes also use multimedia technologies, mixing video, images, text, quizzes, etc. 

Udemy Pricing

Each course on Udemy is sold separately, from as little as $10 and up to $200. Udemy subscriptions are not available to all students. Hence, you may have to shell out on individual courses if you are looking for premium learning. Note that only a selection of 10,500 courses from the full catalog are provided to subscribers on the Personal Plan. 

• Udemy vs Thinkific – A detailed comparison
• Top alternatives to Udemy

Web development or programming are hot topics to learn about! And the best online learning platform to do that is Treehouse.

Treehouse specializes in teaching people how to code in an interactive environment. While all courses can be taken individually, most are grouped into tracks to give you well-rounded knowledge of topics like frontend development, cybersecurity, or mobile app development.

Besides videos, Treehouse courses also contain a working text editor you’ll use to complete quizzes and test projects.

G2 Score: 4.3/5

Treehouse Pricing

Treehouse charges $25 per month for regular memberships, or $250 for the annual plan (which essentially gives you two free months ). If you want a certificate, however, there are even more structured Techdegree programs starting at $49 per month.

MasterClass is a platform that lets anyone learn from the world’s best practitioners, be it Gordon Ramsey for cooking, or Martin Scorsese for film directing.

There are over 180 courses currently available. All beautifully shot, produced and broken down into 15 to 20 bite-sized lessons. The advice is often practical and there are workbooks with extra information available. However, the platform works best for those who want to expose themselves to an overview of lots of different crafts. Or, for those who want to learn from their favourite celebrities! 

For content creators, unfortunately, you won’t be able to create and launch a course with MasterClass unless you are pre-approved by them. 

MasterClass Pricing

Billed annually, MasterClass costs $10 per month on an Individual plan, $20 for Duo ( which allows access on 2 devices) and $23 for Family ( up to 6 devices).

Another one of the top online learning platforms is Khan Academy. Started by Sal Khan as a way to help his cousins study math, today, Khan Academy features over 10,000 video lessons on various topics. 

Most of the platform revolves around foundational topics that you would learn in school such as sciences, math, accounting, physics, and economics. It’s a great resource center for parents that want to help their child access an informative, engaging, and affordable version of online tutoring. 

Over 999 million lessons have been delivered on the platform, helping people of all ages and levels of study with their homework ! There are streaks and other gamification features built-in to motivate students to learn more, and there are clear progressions for most tracks, sometimes enough for years of study. 

Khan Academy Pricing

Absolutely free! Khan Academy is a non-profit.

How to monetize your own content on online learning platforms

There are so many online learning platforms and so much to learn on almost any subject imaginable. The best thing is that once you acquire enough knowledge, you can start monetizing it as well through your own courses in your own unique way. All you need is the platform to do it!  

For example, Ellie Diop, owner of Ellie Talks Money , launched her course based on personal financial challenges she’s experienced. When looking for some way to generate a new revenue stream, she said her first thoughts were to, “[write] down all the things I knew how to do, all my experience. What I learned working a nine-to-five, and everything I knew about business finance. I looked at how I could give those skills directly to the marketplace, as a coach. ” This led her to eventually create 6 courses, which have generated over 3,000 students and over $1,000,000 in revenue within her first year! 

As you build your course, a few tips to keep in mind are:

• Reflect on the skills you currently have
• Consider what other people want to learn
• Figure out the best structure for your course
• Determine how to price your course
• Consider how you’ll market your course
• Get feedback from your students about what they like or don’t like
• Continually optimize and refresh your content over time 

Start building an online learning platform with Thinkific

Thinkific is an intuitive and easy-to-use course-creation solution that enables you to build and sell courses of any complexity. No coding skills required — just use a professionally designed template and customize it to your liking using a drag-and-drop editor. As a result, you can create a course in an hour and monetize it for years to come.

Sign up for free here!

This blog was originally published in January 2023, it has since been updated in February 2024 to include top learning platforms for 2024.

Colin is a Content Marketer at Thinkific, writing about everything from online entrepreneurship & course creation to digital marketing strategy.

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Using the Business Model Canvas to develop your online learning product

Posted in: Adding Value , Business Model , product , value proposition By Andy Jack, January 25, 2019

We’re big fans of the Business Model Canvas here at Candle Digital. We often use this with partners who want to flesh out their initial ideas around online learning.

In short, the Business Model Canvas is a framework that can be used to visualise all the core elements of a business model, including the value proposition, target customers, route to market and costs and revenues.

(Here’s a quick introduction to the canvas from Strategyzer, the company behind it.)

Many of our partners are training companies looking to take their existing expertise online. Typically, they’re delivering training courses with larger clients on-site and want to explore how digital products can add more value to their customers.

We’ve found that the Business Model Canvas allows us to easily riff on business ideas, giving our partners an early chance to spot the strengths and challenges. Often, working through the canvas poses questions that might not have been considered yet and gives an early sense of the viability of the business plan as a whole.

We typically take the following approach to working through the canvas:

1. customer segments.

We recommend tackling this section first, as the decisions you make about your target customers will heavily influence the decisions you make through the rest of the sections.

If you’re considering offering digital products both directly to consumers (B2C) and businesses (B2B), it’s useful to complete each section of the canvas twice – once for each customer segment you’re aiming at. Alternatively, you can use the same canvas but use different coloured post-its for each customer type.

It’s important not to assume that the value proposition, the commercial model and how you build relationships will be the same for each type of customer (as, in our experience, they rarely are).

2. Value Propositions

Next, complete the ‘Value Propositions’ section. Work out the problem you’re solving for each customer segment and the value you’re creating for them. Think about the pain points your solution can address and the gains your online product can provide them with.

Ideally, you should complete the Value Proposition Canvas , which, as you might have guessed, is a tool specifically designed to tease out your value proposition. Given the smart way they’ve been designed, the two tools work very well together, with the Value Proposition Canvas as a plugin to the wider Business Model Canvas.

3. Channels and Customer Relationships

In the ‘Channels’ section, think about all the ways you’re going to reach your target customers. In the ‘Customer Relationships’ section, decide how you’re going to connect with your customers, stay top of their minds and adapt to their changing needs.

Again, the choice around B2B and B2C audiences has a huge bearing here. If you’re already delivering your product and service into B2B channels, you can simply piggy-back onto these channels with your new addition. If you’re wanting to move into a B2C market, you’re likely to need a significantly different marketing approach to succeed in this area.

4. Key Resources, Key Activities and Key Partners

Next, start to consider the left side of the canvas, which is all about how you’ll deliver your product or service. Ask yourself what your company’s most important activities and key resources are. Who are the key partners you’ll need to help with the delivery?

If you’re aiming to offer a rich, and perhaps ‘live’ experience (e.g. through webinars), you’ll need to ensure you have the correct expertise to deliver this. Consider the administrative resource needed to manage your new students as well as the services you’ll need to provide to the client, such as progress reporting.

5. Cost Structure

Now, think about the costs associated with your product.

Online courses are often seen as having a significant initial investment (to create the learning experience and content) and minimal marginal costs. But how does this stack up with the experience you’re trying to create and, ultimately, will it help deliver the change in knowledge/skills/behaviour your learners and clients are looking to see?

6. Revenue Streams

Finally, consider how you will monetise your online learning. Will it be a subscription model, a licencing model, or one-off charges? Each revenue model may have a significant influence on the learning experience you provide, and in turn may change the cost structure, activities, partners through the business model – we call this the ripple effect in our office!

Once you have this in place, you’ll be in a better position to evaluate the business model behind the product as you’ll have a more holistic view of your idea. The beauty of it is, if it doesn’t work, or doesn’t feel right, you can have another go! In fact, it’s likely that you’ll need several iterations before you’re in a position to turn it from an idea into an initial prototype.

Have a go at using the Business Model Canvas to sketch out your next idea. We’d love to hear how you get on. Alternatively, if you’d like us to help you flesh out your idea, ask us about our consultancy sessions and workshops.

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3 Benefits of Transitioning to a Platform Business Model

• 16 May 2024

In a world dominated by digital innovation, platform business models aren’t just reshaping industries but redefining the market. From startups disrupting traditional markets to established companies pivoting to platform strategies, innovation is critical to staying relevant.

“Platform companies have become increasingly important to the global economy and are some of the largest and most valued companies today,” says Harvard Business School Professor Feng Zhu, who teaches the online course Winning with Digital Platforms .

If you're considering a platform business model for your company, here's what transitioning to one involves and its strategic advantages.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is a Platform Business Model?

A platform business model capitalizes on digital infrastructure to facilitate interactions between user groups. Organizations that use such models generate value and revenue through transaction fees, advertising, and data monetization.

Platform business models fall into two categories:

• Open: Platforms designed to be accessible and flexible with no single gatekeeper controlling access to or regulating them
• Closed: Platforms owned and heavily controlled by one company to protect its interests at all costs

When it comes to your business, you don’t need to choose one or the other.

For example, Adobe transitioned from licensed software to a digital platform, Creative Cloud, by combining a subscription-based model for its core software with an open platform community, Behance. This enabled Adobe to control who accesses its tools and services while allowing users to engage and share resources and creations with each other.

Related: Digital Platforms: What They Are & How They Create Value

“Companies transition to a platform model for many reasons,” Zhu says in Winning with Digital Platforms . “For one thing, the fact that more and more companies are becoming platforms means that you could lose ground to competitors who have capitalized on the benefits of platform transformation if you fail to make the jump.”

If you’re interested in bringing your business into the digital age, here’s how transitioning to a platform business model can benefit you.

1. Expanded Market Reach

One advantage of transitioning to a platform business model is that you can expand your market reach exponentially. By leveraging your existing user base, you can harness network effects —which occur when your service’s value increases as more users join—and help your business grow.

Network effects include:

• Direct/same-side network effects: A situation in which the value the user receives changes with the number of all users in the same group or side
• Indirect/cross-side network effects: Increased users in one group or side (e.g., sellers) enhance value for those in the other (e.g., buyers) by boosting variety or service quality
• Data network effects: Data generated from user activities improves your platform's services, attracting more users and creating a reinforcing cycle that enhances your offerings

As HBS Associate Professor Chiara Farronato notes in Winning with Digital Platforms , network effects have contributed to the success of social media companies like TikTok and Facebook.

“The more users are actually using TikTok or Facebook and creating content—distributing content on those platforms—the more valuable that platform is for every other user who's considering joining it,” Farronato says. “This is a form of direct, or same-side, network effects. The fact that there are many other users like me participating in a platform makes me more willing to participate in that platform.”

Utilizing network effects can rapidly increase user engagement and participation—in turn, broadening your platform business's impact and reach.

2. Better Scalability

Transitioning to a platform business model also offers scalability opportunities. By taking a digital-first approach, you can connect supply and demand without extensive physical infrastructure—reducing barriers to expansion and adapting quickly to market shifts.

In Winning with Digital Platforms , CEO of Zé Delivery Rodolfo Chung shares how the platform improved scalability with the support of its parent company, AB InBev, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using partner networks and existing corporate structures, the beverage delivery service pivoted and expanded its operations, achieving growth that would’ve taken months without AB InBev’s resources.

“With tapping through the InBev ecosystem, we did it in a matter of weeks,” Chung says in the course. “In less than a month, we were able to have the sales team explaining, expanding the ecosystem, gathering new partners in over 300 cities throughout Brazil because you already had people in all those locations.”

The synergistic relationship and accelerated scaling not only served as a strategic advantage but provided a buffer against market volatility.

3. Cost Efficiency

Beyond improving scalability, transitioning to a platform business model can lower operational costs.

Unlike companies with traditional models, platform businesses act as intermediaries that facilitate transactions and interactions, meaning they don’t need to invest heavily in production, inventory, and resources.

For example, e-commerce platform eBay doesn’t hold inventory, instead providing a marketplace where sellers can list items that buyers can purchase. Its model eliminates the risks and costs associated with inventory management, such as storage, obsolescence, and supply-chain logistics.

This can be advantageous when transitioning to a platform model. Since starting a business from scratch often demands substantial upfront investment, it helps if you already have existing digital infrastructure—which generally requires less capital.

Shifting from a capital-intensive to an asset-light approach for your platform can allow you to better deploy funds and invest more in technology and customer acquisition.

Transitioning to a Platform Business Model

Transitioning to a platform business model calls for reassessing your product and service offerings, redefining your customer acquisition strategies, and embracing technological upgrades.

One of the best ways to prepare for the process is by enrolling in an online course, such as Winning with Digital Platforms . The course can not only enrich your understanding of platform business models through real-world examples but connect you with fellow learners from diverse professional backgrounds .

Do you want to learn more about the digital platform landscape and launching and scaling a platform business? Explore our online course, Winning with Digital Platforms , and download our free entrepreneurship e-book to discover how you can take your career to the next level.

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These computer science terms are often used interchangeably, but what differences make each a unique technology?

Technology is becoming more embedded in our daily lives by the minute. To keep up with the pace of consumer expectations, companies are relying more heavily on machine learning algorithms to make things easier. You can see its application in social media (through object recognition in photos) or in talking directly to devices (like Alexa or Siri).

While  artificial intelligence  (AI),  machine learning  (ML),  deep learning  and  neural networks  are related technologies, the terms are often used interchangeably, which frequently leads to confusion about their differences. This blog post clarifies some of the ambiguity.

The easiest way to think about AI, machine learning, deep learning and neural networks is to think of them as a series of AI systems from largest to smallest, each encompassing the next.

AI is the overarching system. Machine learning is a subset of AI. Deep learning is a subfield of machine learning, and neural networks make up the backbone of deep learning algorithms. It’s the number of node layers, or depth, of neural networks that distinguishes a single neural network from a deep learning algorithm, which must have more than three.

Artificial intelligence or AI, the broadest term of the three, is used to classify machines that mimic human intelligence and human cognitive functions like problem-solving and learning. AI uses predictions and automation to optimize and solve complex tasks that humans have historically done, such as facial and speech recognition, decision-making and translation.

Categories of AI

The three main categories of AI are:

• Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI)
• Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
• Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI)

ANI is considered “weak” AI, whereas the other two types are classified as “strong” AI. We define weak AI by its ability to complete a specific task, like winning a chess game or identifying a particular individual in a series of photos. Natural language processing and computer vision, which let companies automate tasks and underpin  chatbots  and virtual assistants such as Siri and Alexa, are examples of ANI. Computer vision is a factor in the development of self-driving cars.

Stronger forms of AI, like AGI and ASI, incorporate human behaviors more prominently, such as the ability to interpret tone and emotion. Strong AI is defined by its ability compared to humans. AGI would perform on par with another human, while ASI—also known as superintelligence—would surpass a human’s intelligence and ability. Neither form of Strong AI exists yet, but research in this field is ongoing.

Using AI for business

An increasing number of businesses, about  35%  globally, are using AI, and another 42% are exploring the technology. The development of  generative AI , which uses powerful foundation models that train on large amounts of unlabeled data, can be adapted to new use cases and bring flexibility and scalability that is likely to accelerate the adoption of AI significantly. In early tests, IBM has seen generative AI bring time to value up to 70% faster than traditional AI.

Whether you use AI applications based on ML or foundation models, AI can give your business a competitive advantage. Integrating customized AI models into your workflows and systems, and automating functions such as customer service, supply chain management and cybersecurity, can help a business meet customers’ expectations, both today and as they increase in the future.

The key is identifying the right data sets from the start to help ensure that you use quality data to achieve the most substantial competitive advantage. You’ll also need to create a hybrid, AI-ready architecture that can successfully use data wherever it lives—on mainframes, data centers, in private and public clouds and at the edge.

Your AI must be trustworthy because anything less means risking damage to a company’s reputation and bringing regulatory fines. Misleading models and those containing bias or that  hallucinate  (link resides outside ibm.com) can come at a high cost to customers’ privacy, data rights and trust. Your AI must be explainable, fair and transparent.

Machine learning is a subset of AI that allows for optimization. When set up correctly, it helps you make predictions that minimize the errors that arise from merely guessing. For example, companies like Amazon use machine learning to recommend products to a specific customer based on what they’ve looked at and bought before.

Classic or “nondeep” machine learning depends on human intervention to allow a computer system to identify patterns, learn, perform specific tasks and provide accurate results. Human experts determine the hierarchy of features to understand the differences between data inputs, usually requiring more structured data to learn.

For example, let’s say I showed you a series of images of different types of fast food—“pizza,” “burger” and “taco.” A human expert working on those images would determine the characteristics distinguishing each picture as a specific fast food type. The bread in each food type might be a distinguishing feature. Alternatively, they might use labels, such as “pizza,” “burger” or “taco” to streamline the learning process through supervised learning.

While the subset of AI called deep machine learning can leverage labeled data sets to inform its algorithm in supervised learning, it doesn’t necessarily require a labeled data set. It can ingest unstructured data in its raw form (for example, text, images), and it can automatically determine the set of features that distinguish “pizza,” “burger” and “taco” from one another. As we generate more big data, data scientists use more machine learning. For a deeper dive into the differences between these approaches, check out  Supervised versus Unsupervised Learning: What’s the Difference?

A third category of machine learning is reinforcement learning, where a computer learns by interacting with its surroundings and getting feedback (rewards or penalties) for its actions. And online learning is a type of ML where a data scientist updates the ML model as new data becomes available.

To learn more about machine learning, check out the following video:

As our article on  deep learning  explains, deep learning is a subset of machine learning. The primary difference between machine learning and deep learning is how each algorithm learns and how much data each type of algorithm uses.

Deep learning automates much of the feature extraction piece of the process, eliminating some of the manual human intervention required. It also enables the use of large data sets, earning the title of  scalable machine learning . That capability is exciting as we explore the use of unstructured data further, particularly since  over 80% of an organization’s data is estimated to be unstructured  (link resides outside ibm.com). 

Observing patterns in the data allows a deep-learning model to cluster inputs appropriately. Taking the same example from earlier, we might group pictures of pizzas, burgers and tacos into their respective categories based on the similarities or differences identified in the images. A deep-learning model requires more data points to improve accuracy, whereas a machine-learning model relies on less data given its underlying data structure. Enterprises generally use deep learning for more complex tasks, like virtual assistants or fraud detection.

Neural networks, also called artificial neural networks or simulated neural networks, are a subset of machine learning and are the backbone of deep learning algorithms. They are called “neural” because they mimic how neurons in the brain signal one another.

Neural networks are made up of node layers—an input layer, one or more hidden layers and an output layer. Each node is an artificial neuron that connects to the next, and each has a weight and threshold value. When one node’s output is above the threshold value, that node is activated and sends its data to the network’s next layer. If it’s below the threshold, no data passes along.

Training data teach neural networks and help improve their accuracy over time. Once the learning algorithms are fined-tuned, they become powerful computer science and AI tools because they allow us to quickly classify and cluster data. Using neural networks, speech and image recognition tasks can happen in minutes instead of the hours they take when done manually. Google’s search algorithm is a well-known example of a neural network.

As mentioned in the explanation of neural networks above, but worth noting more explicitly, the “deep” in deep learning refers to the depth of layers in a neural network. A neural network of more than three layers, including the inputs and the output, can be considered a deep-learning algorithm. That can be represented by the following diagram:

Most deep neural networks are feed-forward, meaning they only flow in one direction from input to output. However, you can also train your model through back-propagation, meaning moving in the opposite direction, from output to input. Back-propagation allows us to calculate and attribute the error that is associated with each neuron, allowing us to adjust and fit the algorithm appropriately.

While all these areas of AI can help streamline areas of your business and improve your customer experience, achieving AI goals can be challenging because you’ll first need to ensure that you have the right systems to construct learning algorithms to manage your data. Data management is more than merely building the models that you use for your business. You need a place to store your data and mechanisms for cleaning it and controlling for bias before you can start building anything.

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• Open access
• Published: 08 May 2024

The digital transformation in pharmacy: embracing online platforms and the cosmeceutical paradigm shift

• Ahmad Almeman   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6521-9463 1  

Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition volume  43 , Article number:  60 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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In the face of rapid technological advancement, the pharmacy sector is undergoing a significant digital transformation. This review explores the transformative impact of digitalization in the global pharmacy sector. We illustrated how advancements in technologies like artificial intelligence, blockchain, and online platforms are reshaping pharmacy services and education. The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the growth of online pharmacy platforms and the pivotal role of telepharmacy and telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, it discusses the burgeoning cosmeceutical market within online pharmacies, the regulatory challenges faced globally, and the private sector’s influence on healthcare technology. Conclusively, the paper highlights future trends and technological innovations, underscoring the dynamic evolution of the pharmacy landscape in response to digital transformation.

Introduction

Digital technology is driving a massive shift in the worldwide pharmacy industry with the goal of improving productivity, efficiency, and flexibility in healthcare delivery. In the pharmacy industry, implementing digital technologies like automation, computerization, and robotics is essential to cutting expenses and enhancing service delivery​​ [ 1 ]. With a predicted 14.42% annual growth rate, the digital pharmacy market is expanding significantly and is expected to reach a market volume of about $35.33 billion by 2026. This expansion reflects the pharmacy industry’s growing reliance on and promise for digital technologies​ [ 2 ].

Pharmacy services have always been focused on face-to-face communication and paper-based procedures. However, the drive for more effective, transparent, and patient-centered healthcare is clear evidence of the growing need for digital transformation. Breakthroughs like mobile communications, cloud computing, advanced analytics, and the Internet of Things (IoT) are reshaping the healthcare sector. These breakthroughs have the potential to greatly improve patient care and service delivery, as demonstrated in other industries including banking, retail, and media [ 3 ].

In the pharmacy industry, a number of significant factors are hastening this digital transition. Important concerns include the desire for cost-effectiveness, enhanced patient care, and more transparency and efficiency in medication development and manufacture. This change has been made even more rapid by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted the necessity for digital solutions to address the difficulties associated with providing healthcare in emergency situations [ 4 ].

In terms of specific technologies being adopted, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are playing a pivotal role. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that AI in the pharmaceutical industry could generate nearly $100 billion annually across the U.S. healthcare system. The use of AI and machine learning enhances decision-making, optimizes innovation, and improves the efficiency of research and clinical trials. This results in more effective patient care and a more streamlined drug development process​ [ 5 ].

The digital transformation in the pharmacy sector represents a pivotal shift in the delivery and experience of healthcare services. This evolution is more than a transient trend; it’s a fundamental alteration in the healthcare landscape [ 6 ]. The adoption of digital technologies is reshaping aspects of healthcare, including patient engagement and medication adherence, leading to enhanced healthcare outcomes. Research indicates that digital tools in pharmacy practices have resulted in more individualized and efficient patient care. Telehealth platforms, exemplified by companies like HealthTap, are being increasingly incorporated by pharmacies to augment patient care via technological solutions. The contribution of digital health technology to medication adherence is notable, employing a variety of tools such as SMS, mobile applications, and innovative devices like virtual pillboxes and intelligent pill bottles. These advancements are pivotal in addressing the critical issue of medication nonadherence in healthcare. Furthermore, digital health tools are empowering pharmacists with expanded clinical responsibilities, particularly in the management of chronic diseases like diabetes, where apps and smart devices provide essential features such as blood glucose tracking and medication reminders. This comprehensive integration of digital health into pharmacy practice signifies a transformative era in healthcare delivery and patient management [ 7 ].

Online platforms are being used increasingly by the pharmaceutical sector and educational institutions to improve efficiency, flexibility, and accessibility. The telepharmacy program at CVS Pharmacy is an example of how telepharmacy services, which provide remote counseling and prescription verification, bring pharmaceutical care to underprivileged communities [ 8 ]. Prescription accuracy and drug management are enhanced by e-prescribing software like Epic’s MyChart and digital health apps like Medisafe [ 9 ; 10 ]. Blockchain technology is also being investigated for transparent and safe supply chain management. Continuous learning and professional networking are made possible in education by Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) like Moodle [ 11 ], simulation software like SimMan 3G Plus [ 12 ], Continuing Professional Development (CPD) platforms like the American Pharmacists Association [ 13 ], and online conference platforms, as shown in Fig.  1 . While these platforms offer significant benefits like enhanced access and cost-effectiveness, they also present challenges, including addressing the digital divide and ensuring the quality and credibility of online services to maintain professional standards and patient safety.

In this review, we summarized the digital transformation in the pharmacy sector, emphasizing the integration of online platforms and the emerging significance of cosmeceuticals. We discussed the global shift towards digital healthcare, including telehealth and online pharmacy services, and how these changes have been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper also examined the impact of digital technologies on pharmacy practice and education, with a focus on telepharmacy services, e-prescribing software, and digital health apps. Additionally, it addresses the challenges and opportunities presented by this transformation, including regulatory and safety concerns, and the need for continuous professional development in the digital era.

Comprehensive overview of different platforms in the pharmaceutical industry and education illustrating purposes and exemplary cases

The global impact of online pharmacy platforms

In recent years, the landscape of pharmacy practice and education has undergone a significant transformation, driven by technological advancements and catalyzed by the global COVID-19 pandemic. A study highlighting the increasing consumer trust in online medication purchases pre, during, and post-pandemic reveals a shift in consumer behavior towards online pharmacies [ 14 ]. This trend underscores a greater reliance on these platforms, where the perceived benefits significantly outweigh the perceived risks, indicating a positive reception and growing trust in digital healthcare solutions.

The adoption of telehealth, including telepharmacy, exemplifies this shift. In the United States, patient adoption of telehealth services surged from 11% in 2019 to 46%, with healthcare providers expanding their telehealth visits [ 15 ]. This shift is a reflection of how adaptable the healthcare sector is to digital platforms and how customer acceptance is increasing. The epidemic has also served as a catalyst, hastening the creation and uptake of online telepharmacy services throughout the world. The “new normal” has forced the addition of new platforms to support established sources of health information. The creation and evaluation of an online telepharmacy service in the Philippines during the pandemic serves as an example of this, demonstrating how quickly the global pharmacy industry adopted digital solutions. These services are essential for providing and elucidating pharmaceutical information within the context of primary healthcare delivery; they are not merely supplementary [ 16 ].

Simultaneously, pharmacist-led companies such as MedEssist and MedMehave, innovated digital platforms to facilitate services like flu shots or COVID-19 tests, reflecting a move towards customer-centric, digital-first services [ 17 ]. This transition enhances convenience and access to care but also introduces significant regulatory challenges. As the growth of online medicine sales disrupts traditional pharmacy markets, navigating these challenges becomes crucial for maintaining patient safety, quality standards, and fostering a trustworthy online healthcare environment [ 18 ].

Parallel to the practice changes, educational platforms for pharmacy have also evolved, especially under the impetus of the pandemic. These platforms have integrated a mix of traditional and student-centered teaching methodologies, including remote didactic lectures and on-site experiential training. The implementation of blended learning approaches, which combine remote lectures with on-site laboratory classes, reflects a broader educational trend towards hybrid models. This approach aims to leverage the advantages of both online and traditional methods, offering a more flexible and potentially more effective educational experience [ 19 ].

It takes more than just implementing new tools to integrate educational technology into pharmacy education, it also requires understanding how these technologies affect instruction and student learning. To effectively improve the educational experience, their utilization must have a purpose. There is an increasing amount of scholarly interest in this field, as evidenced by systematic reviews of the effects of new technologies on undergraduate pharmacy teaching and learning [ 20 ]. These digital platforms will probably become more significant in the future of pharmacy education, helping to mold the profession and guaranteeing that pharmacists are equipped to fulfill the ever-changing demands of the healthcare system. This development is indicative of a larger trend in the healthcare industry toward a more flexible, patient-focused, and technologically advanced environment [ 21 ].

Digital transformation in global healthcare

The recent advancements in digital transformation within global healthcare are significantly reshaping the landscape of healthcare and pharmacy services. These transformations are largely driven by the integration of digital technologies, which are redefining the tools and methods used in health, medicine, and biomedical science, ultimately aiming to create a healthier future for people worldwide [ 22 ]. In a 2018 report [ 23 ], Amazon’s potential entry into the $500 billion U.S. pharmacy market, the second-largest retail category, through mail-order and online pharmacies was highlighted as a significant industry disruptor. With licenses in at least 12 states in the US and a strategy focused on bypassing middlemen, Amazon’s historical success positions it to transform the pharmacy landscape, promising enhanced efficiency and cost savings for consumers.

One of the critical areas identified in recent research is the establishment of five priorities of e-health policy making: strategy, consensus-building, decision-making, implementation, and evaluation. These priorities emerged from stakeholders’ perceptions and are crucial for the effective integration and adoption of digital health technologies​ [ 24 ]. This holistic approach is increasingly relevant for scholars and practitioners, suggesting a focus on how multiple stakeholders implement digital technologies for management and business purposes in the healthcare sector [ 25 ]​​. The deployment of technological modalities, encompassed within five distinct clusters, can facilitate the development of a digital transformation model. This model ensures operational efficiency through several dimensions: enhanced operational efficacy by healthcare providers, the adoption of patient-centered methodologies, the integration of organizational factors and managerial implications, the refinement of workforce practices, and the consideration of socio-economic factors [ 25 ].

Studies focusing on value creation through digital means suggest healthcare as a consumer-centric realm ripe for center-edge transformations, characterized by self-service and feedback cycles. These transformations are vital in addressing inherent tensions between patients and physicians, steering the focus towards value co-creation and service-dominant logic [ 26 ]. Participatory design and decision-making approaches are emphasized for enhancing health information technology’s performance and institutional healthcare innovation. Such approaches are particularly crucial in developing national electronic medical record systems and improving chronic disease treatment through electronic health records. Additionally, telehealth research integrates patients’ perceptions, contributing to the understanding of technology, bureaucracy, and professionalism within healthcare [ 27 ].

The impact of health information technology (HIT) on operational efficiencies is profound. Empirical studies, such as those by Hong and Lee [ 28 ], Laurenza et al. [ 29 ], and Mazor et al. [ 30 ], demonstrate positive correlations between HIT and patient satisfaction, quality of care, and operational efficiency. However, challenges remain, as Rubbio et al. [ 31 ] highlight deficiencies in resilience-oriented practices for patient safety. Organizational and managerial factors in digital healthcare transformation also receive significant attention. Hikmet et al. [ 32 ] and Agarwal et al. [ 33 ] investigate the role of organizational variables and barriers in HIT adoption, whereas Cucciniello et al. [ 34 ] delve into the interdependence between implementing electronic medical records (EMR) systems and organizational conditions. Further, Eden et al. [ 35 ] and Huber and Gärtner [ 36 ] explore workforce adaptations and the implications of health information systems in hospitals that can increases transparency of work processes and accountability. Lastly, examining healthcare financialization and digital division provides an international perspective, contrasting the regulated environment in the EU with the US’s use of online medical crowdfunding as a potential solution to reduce bankruptcy [ 37 ; 38 ]. Collectively, these studies suggest a comprehensive model where stakeholders leverage digital transformation for management, enhancing operational efficiency in healthcare service providers.

Marques and Ferreira [ 39 ] performed a systematic literature review of digital transformation in healthcare, spanning the period from 1973 to 2018. Utilizing the SMARTER (Simple Multi-attribute Rating Technique Exploiting Ranks) method, 749 potential articles were analyzed, culminating in the prioritization and selection of 53 articles for detailed examination. The literature was organized into seven thematic areas: (1) Integrated management of IT in healthcare, (2) Medical images, (3) Electronic medical records, (4) IT and portable devices in healthcare, (5) Access to e-health, (6) Telemedicine, and (7) Privacy of medical data. It was observed that the predominant focus of research resides in the domains of integrated management, electronic medical records, and medical images. Concurrently, emerging trends were identified, notably the utilization of portable devices, the proliferation of virtual services, and the escalating concerns surrounding privacy. See Fig.  2 for visual representation of multifaceted digital transformation in healthcare.

Visual representation of multifaceted digital transformation in healthcare: a synthesis of provider-patient dynamics, HIT impact, and strategic management. HIT; health information technology, HC; healthcare, EMR; electronic medical records. IT; information technology, Pt.; patient

Telehealth and online pharmacy advancements in pandemic management

In the realm of online pharmacies and telehealth, digital health technologies have been instrumental in managing the COVID-19 pandemic through surveillance, contact tracing, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. These technologies ensure that healthcare, including pharmacy services, is delivered more effectively, addressing the challenges of accessibility and timely care. The role of telemedicine and e-pharmacies, in particular, has been emphasized in improving access to care worldwide. By enabling remote consultations and drug delivery, these platforms are making healthcare more accessible, especially in regions where traditional healthcare infrastructure is limited or overstretched [ 40 ].

The Canadian Virtual Care Policy Framework advocates for the swift adoption and integration of virtual care, propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic. It emphasizes enhancing access and quality, ensuring equity and privacy, and devising appropriate remuneration models, employing a collaborative, patient-centered approach while addressing digital disparities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadian provinces and territories rapidly adopted virtual health care, leading to 60% of visits being virtual by April 2020, up from 10 to 20% in 2019. However, these implementations were often temporary and not fully integrated into healthcare systems. By August 2020, virtual visits decreased to 40%, with variations across regions, while provinces and territories used temporary billing codes for these services. The framework’s “Diagnostique” provides a thorough analysis of policy enablers and strategies for virtual care, underscoring the need for comprehensive policy and partnership engagement [ 41 ]. In the context of digital transformation in pharmacy, the Hospital News article outlines the application and infrastructure of telepharmacy services in Canada, highlighting the geographical challenges and the early adoption of telepharmacy in certain regions since 2003. It notes the use of various technologies like Medication Order Management, Videoconferencing, and Remote Camera Verification. Although lacking specific quantitative data, the article underscores the necessity for expanded telepharmacy services to ensure uniform care quality across diverse locations [ 42 ].

Similarly, Telehealth offers extensive resources for patients and providers in the United States, emphasizing programs like the Affordable Connectivity Program and Lifeline to facilitate access. The Health Resources and Services Administration enhances telehealth through support services, research, and technical assistance, reflecting a significant outreach impact [ 43 ]. The Office for the Advancement of Telehealth (OAT) under Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) works to improve access to quality health care through integrated telehealth services in the US. It supports direct services, research, and technical assistance, with over 6,000 telehealth technical assistance requests sent to Telehealth Resource Centers and approximately 22,000 patients served [ 44 ].

Internationally, In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) spearheads digital health and care, providing significant innovation opportunities through vast data management. Support for digital health spans various stages, from discovery with organizations like Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and Intelligent Data Analysis (IDA) research group, to development with networks such as Catapults and CPRD, and delivery with entities like the Academic Health Science Networks (AHSNs) and DigitalHealth.London. Regulatory bodies like the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and NICE ensure safety and efficacy. The collaborative ecosystem involves academic, healthcare, and industry stakeholders, aiming to enhance health and care services through technology and innovation [ 45 ].

In Australia, the government’s investment of over $4 billion into COVID-19 telehealth measures has facilitated universal access to quality healthcare. This initiative has provided over 85 million telehealth services to more than 16 million patients, with approximately 89,000 healthcare providers engaging in this service delivery. From 1 January 2022, telehealth services, initially introduced in response to COVID-19, will become an ongoing part of Medicare. This will allow eligible patients across Australia continued access to general practice (GP), nursing, midwifery, and allied health services via telehealth, deemed clinically appropriate by the health professional [ 46 ].

European nations such as the Netherlands, Austria, and Italy are at the forefront of implementing cross-organizational patient records, significantly enhancing telehealth communication and facilitating cross-border healthcare. The role of strong government support in advancing telehealth is pivotal. Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, has been a prominent advocate for eHealth. She proposed the establishment of a European Health Data Space to streamline health data exchange across member states. France, a leader in telehealth legislation for nearly a decade, has pioneered a public funding scheme for tele-expertise at a national scale. Despite these advancements, challenges like legislative barriers and the lack of consistent political direction continue to impede progress in the telehealth domain​ [ 47 ].

The Asia-Pacific region anticipates a surge in telehealth adoption driven by digital demand and pandemic-induced behavioral changes, while South East Asia exhibits widespread telehealth growth across healthcare aspects [ 48 ]. The telehealth adoption across the Asia-Pacific region has shown remarkable growth between 2019 and 2021 and is projected to continue rising by 2024. China’s adoption nearly doubled to 47% and is expected to reach 76%. Indonesia’s usage more than doubled to 51%, with a forecast of 72%. Malaysia and the Philippines both anticipate reaching a 70% adoption rate, increasing from 30% to 29%, respectively. India’s adoption is projected to more than double to 68%, while Singapore, which had a significant increase from 5 to 45%, is expected to achieve a 60% adoption rate. This trend indicates a robust uptake of telehealth services in the region [ 48 ].

Global telemedicine and E-pharmacy policy dynamics

In the context of telemedicine and e-pharmacy regulations within South East Asia, a notable distinction emerges with Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia being the only countries to have formalized legal frameworks governing both telemedicine practices and the dissemination of electronic information. In these countries, tele-consultation is restricted to patients already under the care of healthcare practitioners or as part of ongoing treatment, specifically in Singapore and Malaysia. Additionally, for scenarios requiring more intensive medical intervention, such as new referrals, emergency cases, or invasive procedures, both Malaysia and Indonesia mandate physical presence and face-to-face consultations, emphasizing a cautious and regulated approach to remote healthcare. In Malaysia, the regulations further stipulate that online prescriptions, excluding narcotics and psychotropic substances, are permissible solely under the continuation of care model, reflecting a judicious use of digital prescription services [ 49 ].

In Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), telemedicine has experienced substantial growth, primarily catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which necessitated rapid advancements in technology and alterations in healthcare practices. The region’s robust digital infrastructure, coupled with the innovative drive of local companies and the challenges posed by an aging demographic, has significantly contributed to this expansion. According to the European Commission’s Market Study on Telemedicine, the global telemedicine market was projected to grow annually by 14% by 2021, a rate that was likely surpassed due to the pandemic’s impact. More specifically, the Europe Telehealth Market, valued at US $6,185.4 million in 2019, is anticipated to witness an annual growth rate of 18.9% from 2020 to 2030. This trend underscores the increasing reliance on and potential of telemedicine in addressing healthcare needs in the CEE region [ 50 ].

In the Middle East, telehealth and telepharmacy, have seen varied degrees of adoption and progress. Despite attempts to reform healthcare delivery in the region, the progress of telemedicine has been somewhat slow, with certain expectations yet to be fully realized. However, there has been notable development in the use and adoption of these technologies [ 51 ]​. In a survey comparing the utilization of digital-health applications in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), it was observed that a higher percentage of Saudi participants have utilized online pharmacy services (48%) compared to the UAE (36%). Conversely, awareness of teleconsultation services without prior use was higher in the UAE (43%) than in Saudi Arabia (35%). Retention data indicates that a significant proportion of users in both countries continue to engage with these services, with 80% of Saudi participants and 71% of UAE participants using teleconsultations at varying frequencies. Notably, a substantial majority of users in Saudi Arabia reported regular use of online pharmacies (90%), slightly higher than the UAE (78%), reflecting robust ongoing engagement with these digital health modalities. Notably, consumer adoption of telehealth products is primarily driven by time savings (48%) and convenience (47%), with 24-hour accessibility and efficacy both influencing 34% of users. Affordability and personal recommendations are also notable factors, while a wide range of options and quality are lesser but relevant considerations [ 52 ].

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a cross-sectional study was conducted among 391 licensed community pharmacists in the United Arab Emirates to assess the adoption and impact of telepharmacy services. The study revealed a predominant use of telepharmacy services, particularly via phone (95.6%) and messaging applications (80.0%). The findings highlighted that pharmacies with more pharmacists and those operating as part of a group or chain were more likely to implement a diverse range of telepharmacy services. The study identified significant barriers to telepharmacy adoption in individual pharmacies, including limited time, inadequate training, and financial constraints. There was a noticeable shift in service provision during the lockdown, with an increased reliance on telepharmacy, especially among pharmacies serving 50–100 patients per day. However, a reduction in services such as managing mild diseases and selling health products was observed during the lockdown period. The study concluded that telepharmacy played a pivotal role in supporting community pharmacies during the pandemic, with its expansion facilitated by the UAE’s advanced internet infrastructure, supportive health policies, and widespread digital connectivity [ 53 ]. Collectively, these insights reflect a global shift towards integrating and enhancing telehealth services as a response to emerging healthcare needs and technological advancements.

Unni et al. [ 54 ] provided an extensive review of telepharmacy initiatives adopted globally during the COVID-19 pandemic. Predominantly, virtual consultations were utilized to enable at-risk patients and others to remotely access pharmacists, thereby monitoring chronic illnesses, optimizing medication usage, and providing educational support [ 55 ]. Home delivery of medicines was widely implemented to decrease the necessity for in-person visits and mitigate exposure risks [ 56 ]. Additionally, patient education was prioritized to ensure effective management of health conditions from a distance [ 57 ]. Notably, a network of hospitals in China developed cloud-pharmacy care, allowing patients to consult pharmacists via text and the internet, while Spain utilized information and communication technologies for remote pharmaceutical care [ 58 ; 59 ]. Zero-contact pharmaceutical care, introduced in China, facilitated online medication consultations, eliminating direct contact [ 60 ]. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other regions adapted new e-tools and teleprescriptions to enhance service accessibility [ 61 ]. The U.S. focused on credentialing pharmacists for telehealth to ensure competent service provision, and New Zealand implemented hotline numbers for phone consultations to further reduce physical visits [ 62 ; 63 ]. These initiatives reflect a significant shift towards innovative, technology-driven solutions in pharmaceutical care during a global health crisis. Refer to Fig.  3 for a graphical depiction of the worldwide distribution and applications of telepharmacy initiatives.

The global distribution of telepharmacy programs with an analysis of geographical distribution, technological applications, and associated benefits

Tracing the Private Sector’s Impact on Healthcare’s Technological Transformation

The role of the private sector in the fourth industrial revolution.

The World Economic Forum underscores the private sector’s leading role in digital inclusion and the acceleration of actions pertinent to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This revolution affects economies, industries, and global issues profoundly, indicating the private sector’s critical role in driving technological advancements and digital platforms that deliver impactful healthcare solutions [ 64 ].

Mapping digital transformation in healthcare

A comprehensive analysis performed by Dal Mas et al. [ 65 ] meticulously maps the intricate terrain of digital transformation in healthcare, spotlighting the private sector’s instrumental role. Initially, the investigation encompassed an extensive array of diverse studies, leading to the identification of five main areas of digital technologies: smart health technologies, data-enabled and data collection technologies, Industry 4.0 tools and technologies, cognitive technologies, and drug & disease technologies. These domains frame the future research pathways, primarily steered by the private sector’s innovative drive. A significant proportion of the literature addresses healthcare broadly, suitable for both private and public sectors, yet a notable segment specifically focuses on the private sector’s endeavors, with a pronounced emphasis on the pharmaceutical domain [ 66 ; 67 ].

Public-private partnerships in healthcare delivery

The highlighted technologies, including digital platforms and telemedicine, exemplify the private sector’s trailblazing contributions to digital healthcare advancements. For instance, public-private partnerships (PPP) in India have emerged as a pivotal model for realizing universal healthcare (UHC), especially against the backdrop of acute healthcare shortages and urban-rural divides. Notably, mega PPP projects have successfully deployed technology-enabled remote healthcare (TeRHC), demonstrating its feasibility and impact in reaching isolated communities. These initiatives, overcoming various challenges, serve as a compelling example for global adoption, underscoring the transformative role of PPP in healthcare delivery [ 68 ].. Furthermore, a considerable majority of the literature in telemedicine underscores the necessity for profound research implications, yet a significant minority suggests policy implications [ 69 ; 70 ], reflecting a complex synergy between the private and public sectors in sculpting the digital healthcare framework [ 71 ]. This synthesis underscores the private sector’s critical influence in propelling the digital transformation in healthcare, charting a course that progressively fuses technological innovation with healthcare provision.

A study highlights Indonesia’s strategic initiatives to capitalize on telehealth business opportunities, driven by the Ministry of Research and Technology’s robust support for Technology-Based Start-up Company schemes [ 72 ]. With a demographic boon of 298 million from 2020 to 2024, escalating non-communicable diseases (71%), and a growing base of 222.4 million JKN participants, the stage is set for transformative growth. Despite a critical shortage of health workers (0.4 doctors per 1000 population), the enthusiasm for telemedicine is evident, with 71% satisfaction in hospital telemedicine and 32 million active telehealth users. The Ministry’s foresight in fostering technology start-ups, exemplified by the TEMENIN platform with its 11 health platforms, is steering Indonesia towards a future where high-quality healthcare is accessible and sustainable.

Lab@AOR: a model for PPPs in healthcare sector

The “Lab@AOR” initiative stands as a paradigmatic example of PPPs effectuating digital transformation within the healthcare sector. This strategic collaboration, between the University Hospital of Marche and Loccioni [ 73 ], a private entity, underscores the capacity of PPPs to navigate intricate challenges, stimulate international cooperation, and contribute to the development of sustainable, patient-centric healthcare solutions. Specifically, Lab@AOR was instituted to confront the nuanced challenges associated with the robotization of healthcare service delivery, highlighting the initiative’s role in fostering technological advancement through public and private sector synergy [ 74 ]. The project illustrates the evolution of Lab@AOR through three main phases: the pioneering stage, where groundwork for collaboration was laid; the nurturing stage, where collaborative exchanges were fostered; and the harvesting stage, wherein the potential of the PPP was fully unleashed. In the pioneering stage, Lab@AOR focused on a critical healthcare service component: the in-hospital preparation of medications for oncological patients. The University Hospital of Marche identified a need for innovation to improve service quality, efficiency, and safety, while Loccioni sought a real-life setting to test and refine its robotized system, APOTECAchemo [ 75 ]. This convergence of needs led to a symbiotic partnership aiming to enhance healthcare delivery through technological advancement.

During the nurturing stage, the partnership expanded the scope of APOTECAchemo to include non-oncological medications and developed additional tools like APOTECAps for manual preparation support. This phase was characterized by intensive collaboration, knowledge sharing, and continuous innovation, demonstrating the dynamic capability of the PPP to adapt and evolve in response to emerging healthcare challenges. The harvesting stage marked the international expansion of Lab@AOR, transforming it from a local initiative to an international community focused on leveraging digitalization and robotization to improve care quality and patient-centeredness. The PPP’s growth was catalyzed by its open perspective and inclusive approach, engaging entities from various cultural and institutional contexts, and fostering a network of 31 nodes across 19 countries and 3 continents.

Advancements in telehealth business models and frameworks

In their investigative study, Velayati et al. [ 76 ] delved into the articulation of emergent business models in telehealth and scrutinized the deployment of established frameworks across a variety of telehealth segments. The research spanned an extensive range of sectors, notably telemonitoring, telemedicine, mobile health, and telerehabilitation, alongside telehealth more broadly. The scope further extended to encompass niche areas such as assisted living technologies, sensor-based systems, and specific fields like mobile teledermoscopy, teleradiology, telecardiology, and teletreatment, presenting a thorough analysis of the telehealth landscape. Within the telemedicine and telehealth services sector, Barker et al. [ 77 ] introduced the Arizona Telemedicine Program (ATP) Model, a quintet-layer approach aimed at efficiently distributing telemedicine services throughout Arizona. Complementing this, Lee and Chang [ 78 ] proposed a four-component model specifically tailored for mobile health (mHealth) services pertaining to chronic kidney disease, focusing on offering a cost-effective platform for disease support and management. In the realm of telemonitoring, Dijkstra et al. [ 79 ] utilized the Freeband Business Blueprint Method (FBBM), which includes service, technological, organizational, and financial domains, to facilitate multiple telemonitoring services. Furthermore, the systemic and economic differences were explored in care coordination through Business to customer (B2C) and business (B2B) models for telemonitoring patients with chronic diseases, with the B2C model’s economic advantages were highlighted [ 80 ].

General telemedicine frameworks also received attention. Lin et al. [ 81 ] constructed a six-component framework analyzing major telemedicine projects in Taiwan, while Peters et al. [ 82 ] developed the CompBizMod Framework in Germany, encompassing value proposition, co-creation, communication and transfer, and value capture, designed to evaluate and enhance competitive advantages in telemedicine. In the specialized field of telecardiology, a comprehensive nine-component sustainable business model was crafted to facilitate mutual benefits for service providers and patients. This model emphasizes the importance of a holistic approach in ensuring the longevity and effectiveness of healthcare delivery within this domain [ 83 ]. Meanwhile, Mun et al. [ 84 ] presented a suite of five teleradiology business models aimed at providing effective, high-quality, and cost-efficient diagnoses.

The teletreatment sector saw innovative models from Kijl et al. [ 85 ], who designed a model for treating patients with chronic pain, focusing on the interrelation of components in the value network and the role of information technology. Complementarily, Fusco and Turchetti [ 86 ] introduced four models for telerehabilitation post-total knee replacement, emphasizing partnerships between care units and equipment suppliers to reduce costs and waiting lists. The mHealth and assisted living technology sector witnessed the introduction of a wearable biofeedback system model by Hidefjäll and Titkova [ 87 ], which employed Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas and focused on a comprehensive commercialization process. Additionally, Oderanti and Li [ 88 ] presented a seven-component sustainable business model for assisted living technologies, aimed at encouraging older individuals to invest in eHealth services while reducing the pressure on health systems. These diverse clusters and models reflect the multifaceted nature of telehealth, each tailoring its approach to meet the unique demands of its domain. They collectively aim to optimize service delivery, stakeholder involvement, cost efficiency, and patient care quality, marking significant strides in the ongoing evolution of digital healthcare.

Challenges and biases in healthcare technology

One key aspect is the emergence of novel medical technologies and their potential biases. These biases are often a result of insufficient consideration of patient diversity in the development and testing phases. For example, disparities in the performance of medical devices like pulse oximeters among different racial groups have been observed, potentially due to a lack of diverse representation in clinical trials. This indicates a tendency for the development of healthcare technologies that may not adequately serve all patient populations [ 89 ]. A study on the profitability and risk-return comparison across health care industries highlights the use of return on equity (ROE) as a measure of profitability from a shareholder’s perspective. This measure combines profit margin, asset utilization, and financial leverage. The study analyzed financial data of publicly traded healthcare companies, providing insights into the financial dynamics of the healthcare sector. It revealed that while companies like Pfizer Inc. and UnitedHealth Group reported similar profitability, they had substantial differences in profit margin and asset utilization, indicating diverse financial strategies within the healthcare sector. This study underscores the complexity of financial performance in healthcare, where profitability measures need to be balanced with risk assessment and the broader impact on healthcare provision​ [ 90 ].

Additionally, an article discusses the benefits, pitfalls, and potential biases in healthcare AI. It emphasizes that as the healthcare industry adopts AI, machine learning, and other modeling techniques, it is seeing benefits for both patient outcomes and cost reduction. However, the industry must be mindful of managing the risks, including biases that may arise during the implementation of AI. Lessons from other industries can provide a framework for acknowledging and managing data, machine, and human biases in AI. This perspective is crucial in understanding how the integration of advanced technologies in healthcare can be influenced by the drive for profitability and efficiency, possibly at the expense of equitable and patient-centered care [ 91 ; 92 ].

Cosmeceuticals in the online pharmacy market

Cosmeceuticals, a term derived from the combination of cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, refer to a category of products that are formulated to provide both aesthetic improvements and therapeutic benefits. These products, typically applied topically, are designed to enhance the health and beauty of the skin, going beyond the mere cosmetic appearance. The exploration of cosmeceuticals in the online pharmacy market reveals a multifaceted and rapidly expanding industry. Bridging the gap between cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, they form a significant portion of the skincare industry. Cosmeceuticals are formulated from various ingredients, with their main categories being constantly discussed and analyzed in the scientific community [ 93 ]. They have taken a considerable share of the personal care industry globally, constituting a significant part of dermatologists’ prescriptions worldwide [ 94 ]. This surge is further fueled by increasing consumer demand for effective and safe products, including anti-aging skincare cosmeceuticals, a need which has been intensified by concerns over pollution, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic [ 95 ].

The global cosmeceuticals market is experiencing robust growth. Valued at USD 56.78 billion in 2022, it’s projected to expand to USD 95.75 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.45%. This growth trajectory is propelled by the innovative integration of bioactive ingredients known for their medical benefits​ [ 96 ]. Another report confirms this upward trend, indicating the market was worth $45.56 billion in 2021 and is on a path of significant growth to USD 114 billion by 2030. The global disease burden is significantly impacted by various skin diseases, with dermatitis, psoriasis, and acne vulgaris among the most prevalent, contributing 0.38%, 0.19%, and 0.29% respectively. The pervasive nature of these conditions drives a substantial demand for effective treatments, propelling the integration of cosmeceuticals into the online pharmacy market. This integration not only offers convenient access to a range of therapeutic skincare products but also caters to the rising consumer inclination towards self-care and preventive healthcare. As a result, the online availability of cosmeceuticals is not just addressing the immediate needs of individuals suffering from skin conditions but is also reshaping the landscape of personal healthcare by making specialized treatments more accessible and customizable [ 97 ]. See Fig.  4 .

The left panel presents the market share distribution for key segments in the cosmeceuticals industry in 2021, including Skin Care Segment, and Supermarket & Specialty Stores, for Asia Pacific Revenue, with percentages for each category. The right panel displays the market value progression over time from 2021 to the projected value in 2030, with bold numbers indicating the value in billion USD for each year. The lower horizontal bar chart depicts the percentage contribution of various skin diseases to the global disease burden

Several factors are contributing to this expansion of the cosmeceuticals market. The market is driven by innovation in natural ingredients and a significant penetration of internet, smartphone, and social media applications, which attract potential consumer populations and reflect constantly changing consumer behavior [ 98 ]​​. The cosmeceuticals market’s robust CAGR and revenue share, especially in regions like Asia Pacific, further signify its burgeoning presence and potential within the global market [ 99 ]​. Integration into online pharmacies is a key aspect of this market’s evolution, offering easier access to these products for a wider customer base. As the market continues to grow, it’s anticipated that the blend of cosmeceuticals with online pharmaceutical platforms will become increasingly seamless, offering consumers a diverse range of accessible, effective, and beneficial skincare and health products. This integration is likely to be driven by the growing trend of e-commerce and digitalization in healthcare and personal care sectors.

The landscape of online pharmacies, particularly concerning cosmeceuticals, is evolving. While the overall penetration for non-specialty drugs in mail-order and online pharmacies is low, they represent a significant portion of specialty prescription revenues at 37%. Despite this, only 13% of consumers consider these as their primary pharmacy choice, indicating a growing but still emerging market​​​​. Strategies are in place to enhance the market appeal of these pharmacies, focusing on speed, convenience, and personalized experiences, such as video telehealth visits, to attract a broader consumer base [ 100 ].

The dissertation “L’Oréal Portugal: A Digital Challenge for the Active Cosmetics Division” authored by Ascenso [ 101 ] provides an in-depth examination of the impact of digital evolution on the Portuguese cosmeceutical sector and its implications for L’Oréal, a significant cosmetics company. It posits that while L’Oréal has foundational digital competencies, the rapidly evolving digital landscape presents a broad spectrum of potential risks and opportunities. The study details the operations of L’Oréal’s Active Cosmetics Division, which manages brands predominantly sold in pharmacies and parapharmacies, and explores the potential repercussions of digitalization on L’Oréal Portugal’s strategic and operational frameworks. Furthermore, the thesis highlights the expanding role of e-pharmacies and the need for legal reforms to facilitate their operation. It discusses the prevalent trends in the cosmetic industry, such as the increasing demand for natural, male-focused, and environmentally friendly products. The dissertation scrutinizes L’Oréal’s strategic pillars, including innovation, acquisition, and regional growth, emphasizing the need for the company to integrate advanced technologies and recalibrate its business methodologies in light of digital progression [ 101 ]. Although L’Oréal has initiated some digital strategies targeting consumers and pharmacies, there’s a recognized need for an intensified focus on digital marketing aimed at clients. An exploratory attempt by L’Oréal to implement an online ordering platform for pharmacies did not meet success, indicating possible industry unreadiness for such advancements. This case study serves as a critical examination of how traditional companies in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics sectors must adapt to the digital age’s challenges and opportunities [ 101 ].

In a collaborative endeavor with L’Oréal, an associated digital agency provided a comprehensive suite of services that encompasses the full management of social media pages, the development of e-commerce websites, the establishment of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platforms tailored for pharmacies, and the execution of digital campaigns leveraging QR codes, SMS marketing, and newsletters. These digital tools confer a competitive edge, facilitating a deeper comprehension of consumer behavior and the potential to augment value extraction from customer interactions. For the laboratories, particularly those associated with cosmetics, the advantages are twofold: an increase in sell-out figures, thereby enhancing direct sales to end consumers, and a boost in sell-in metrics, reflecting a rise in transactions to pharmacies or wholesalers. The online ordering feature, as noted by João Roma, a manager at La Roche-Posay, could result in a cacophony of processes if laboratories were to individually develop distinct methods. He advocates for the utilization of pre-existing platforms, such as the established e-learning infrastructure, to spearhead ventures into the online marketplace [ 101 ].

A survey conducted specifically for L’Oréal’s e-learning platform, cosmeticaactiva.pt [ 102 ], across the Portuguese landscape garnered responses from 324 participants, comprising 71% general pharmacists, 13% technical assistants, 8% directors, 7% individuals responsible for procurement from laboratories, and 2% beauty/cosmetic advisors. The findings from this survey underscore the pervasive adoption of digital tools within the pharmacy sector: 82% of respondents affirmed the presence of their pharmacies on social media platforms, 80% reported the use of basic management software, 64% indicated the deployment of advanced management systems, 61% were conversant with online ordering systems directed at laboratories, 38% utilized a store locator, 28% had an established website presence, and a smaller segment of 12% offered online shopping facilities.

Another survey conducted within this study to evaluate the significance of dermocosmetic products in pharmacies yielded a mean importance rating of 4.38 out of 5, indicating that a majority of pharmacists consider these products to be highly important to their business operations. Factors critical to the differentiation of a proficient laboratory/supplier were innovation and cost-effectiveness, with mean scores of 1.9 and 2.7 respectively, on a scale from 1 (most important) to 5 (least important). A substantial majority of pharmacists, amounting to 81.8%, perceive their pharmacies as beacons of innovation and modernity. Detailed interviews elucidated that digital tools are indispensable in augmenting sales for cosmeceutical products by catalyzing demand—a dynamic not feasible with medicinal products. These tools are paramount in managing customer loyalty, facilitating enhanced communication with existing clients via online and mobile channels. Despite the challenges posed by digitalization, particularly in the realms of logistics and human resources, the management at L’Oréal is well-equipped to swiftly adapt to the evolving business landscape, as evidenced by the proactive adoption and integration of these digital strategies [ 101 ] as illustrated in Fig.  5 .

Results from Ascenso [ 101 ] survey assessing digital challenges for L’Oréal in the Portuguese cosmeceutical sector. Digital Tools Usage in Pharmacies (upper left) : the bar chart showing the percentage of respondents using various digital tools in pharmacies. Suppliers’ Choosing Factors (upper right) : the bar chart displaying the mean scores of factors that distinguish a good laboratory/supplier. General Pharmacists Opinion (lower left) : A line chart illustrating the mean ratings of pharmacists’ opinions on whether the pharmaceutical sector is modern, changing, conducive to innovations, adapted to consumer needs, and more developed than other sectors. Importance of Digital Development Tools for Pharmacies (lower right) : A vertical bar chart demonstrating the mean scores for the importance of different digital development tools for pharmacies

The digital transformation strategies, exemplified by companies like L’Oréal, extend beyond the mere targeting of end consumers, encompassing the perspectives of various stakeholders, including retailers. This broadened focus reflects a holistic and integrated approach to digital marketing and customer engagement, indicative of a larger trend within the market. The significance of digital channels in facilitating comprehensive customer interaction and brand development is increasingly recognized. The distinction of organizations such as L’Oréal in their digital initiatives highlights the competitive advantage that can be garnered through innovative digital strategies.

The receptiveness of industry professionals, such as pharmacists, to emerging digital trends, along with the readiness of companies to engage in non-face-to-face sales models, marks a paradigm shift in traditional sales and distribution methods. This shift is reflective of a broader market trend where digital platforms are becoming integral to the customer journey. Furthermore, the potential for online sales in specialized sectors, such as dermocosmetics, and the benefits that organizations derive from the technological advancement of their client base, underscore an escalating acknowledgment of e-commerce and digital tools as crucial elements of a business strategy. This trend, with L’Oréal as a prime example, emphasizes the broader market movement towards digital transformation, not merely as an option but as a necessity for maintaining relevance and competitiveness in an ever-evolving market landscape.

The global regulatory landscape for cosmeceuticals

Sophisticated regulatory legislation and enforcement mechanisms characterize many developed countries such as the USA, EU Member States, Canada, and Japan. These nations, along with influential organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO), significantly shape international market rules and regulations due to their market size and regulatory capacity [ 103 ]. The WHO is particularly noted for its crucial role in setting global standards, with a focus on developing and promoting international standards related to food, biological, pharmaceutical, and similar products [ 104 ]. In contrast to pharmaceuticals, the cosmetic industry necessitates a more advanced international regulatory framework due to consumers’ extensive exposure to these products. The distinction between cosmetics and pharmaceuticals varies significantly across different countries, with the USA employing a voluntary registration system for cosmetics and the EU and Japan requiring mandatory product filings prior to marketing [ 105 ]. Concerns over the safety of pharmaceutical and cosmetic products are highlighted, with an increasing consumer focus on “natural, ecological, and clean” products [ 106 ]. However, the lack of a regulatory framework for these categories underscores the need for more advanced regulations to mitigate health risks.

Intergovernmental cooperation is emphasized, with the US and EU portrayed as dominant players in the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries, respectively. Regulatory capacity, which is essential for defining, implementing, and monitoring market rules, varies among countries and markets. This capacity depends on several factors, including staff expertise, statutory sanctioning authority, and the degree of centralization of regulatory authority [ 103 ]. The regulatory systems of the EU and US are explored, focusing on their unique approaches to medicine authorization and regulation. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) in the EU and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US serve as pivotal regulatory bodies [ 107 ; 108 ]. The EMA’s centralized procedure and the FDA’s premarket approval process are detailed, along with subsequent postmarket regulatory procedures. For instance, EU and US cosmetic regulations are compared, revealing differences in their approaches and the evolution of the EU’s regulatory landscape through various amendments and directives. In particular, directive 76/768/EC has been superseded by Regulation (EC) N° 1223/2009, serving as the principal regulatory framework for finished cosmetic products in the EU market. This regulation enhances product safety, optimizes the sector’s framework, and eases procedures to promote the internal cosmetic market. Incorporating recent technological advancements, including nanomaterials, it maintains an internationally acknowledged regime focused on product safety without altering existing animal testing prohibitions [ 109 ].

The Eurasian Economic Union’s (EAEU) regulatory framework for medicines and medical devices is detailed, including the legal framework established for regulating the circulation of these products. The conformity assessment methods, such as the EAC Declaration and the State Registration process, are required for manufacturers to demonstrate their products’ compliance with the standards [ 110 ]. Armenia is also part of the EAEU’s legal framework, which aims to unify regulations for the production and registration of pharmaceuticals and medical products by 2025. This unification is expected to reduce administrative costs for manufacturers and improve medicinal products for patients. Despite significant developments in the cosmetics industry, Armenia does not have an extensive regulatory framework for it. Prior to joining the EAEU, the only regulation concerning cosmetic products was the Order of the Minister of Health of the Republic of Armenia on “Hygiene Requirements of the Production and Safety of Perfume-Cosmetic Products.” Since joining the EAEU, Armenia has unified its national legislation with EAEU regulations, but there are challenges and gaps in the direct applicability of the EAEU’s technical regulations in the country [ 111 ].

In the context of the necessity for clear regulatory framework stems from two reasons. Firstly, cosmeceuticals - products straddling cosmetics and drugs - demand intensified regulatory attention. Examples include the 2007 FDA seizure of Jan Marini’s Age Intervention Eyelash, which contained the drug ingredient bimatoprost, and products boasting human stem cell cultured media, which claim rejuvenating effects but may pose safety risks due to minimal oversight [ 112 ]. A noted 1450% increase in FDA warnings (from 4 to 62 letters) between 2007 and 2011 and 2012–2017, with 8 targeting stem cell ingredient promotions, underscores the growing concern [ 113 ]. The FDA’s limited capacity to identify and assess potential drug-adulterated cosmetics raises concerns.

The second aspect focuses on the necessity for a more comprehensive and unbiased scientific and medical perspective in the FDA’s ingredient review process. The Personal Care Products Safety Act proposes a balanced committee formation including industry, consumer, and medical representatives, yet advocates for the inclusion of specialized professionals like chemists, dermatologists, toxicologists, and endocrinologists. Specific ingredients like diazolidinyl urea and quarternium-15, although effective antimicrobials, are flagged for potential skin allergy risks and formaldehyde release. The preservative 4-methylisothiazolinone, banned in Europe for rinse-off products, is noted for increasing allergic contact dermatitis cases in the US [ 114 ]. The lag in US cosmetic regulation compared to the EU is acknowledged, with the Personal Care Products Safety Act considered a significant advancement, albeit in need of further refinement [ 115 ].

The importance of consumer safety in the global regulatory landscape for cosmeceuticals, particularly for products that blur the line between cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, is a critical issue due to several key factors. Firstly, the cosmeceutical market is expanding rapidly, driven by new ingredients promising various skincare benefits like anti-aging and photoprotection. This growth necessitates clear regulatory guidelines to ensure that these products are safe and their claims are clinically proven. The FDA, for instance, differentiates between cosmetics and cosmeceuticals based on their intended use, particularly if a product is marketed as a cosmetic but functions in a way that affects the structure of the human body, classifying it as a cosmeceutical [ 116 ].

Secondly, the legal and regulatory distinctions between drugs and cosmetics are significant. Drugs are subject to FDA approval based on their intended use in treating diseases or affecting the body’s structure or function, whereas cosmetics are not. This difference becomes crucial when products are marketed with drug-like claims but are not regulated as drugs, potentially leading to consumer safety issues. For example, botanical cosmeceuticals, which contain natural ingredients like herbal extracts, need thorough evaluation to ensure consistency in therapeutic effects [ 117 ]. Additionally, cosmeceutical manufacturers must be careful with marketing and advertising claims to avoid legal implications. Misleading claims can lead to lawsuits and regulatory actions, as seen in past cases where companies faced consequences for unfounded product claims. Moreover, the FDA advises cosmeceutical manufacturers to follow Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) to reduce the risk of misbranding or mislabeling. These guidelines include production practices and specific warning statement guidelines, emphasizing the importance of substantiating the safety of these products [ 118 ].

The global regulatory landscape for online pharmacy

Online pharmacies pose various risks to consumers, including the potential health hazards from counterfeit or substandard medications and the inappropriate use of prescription drugs. The regulatory landscape for these pharmacies varies significantly across nations, with some countries like the United States implementing specific laws, while others, such as France, have instituted outright bans [ 119 ]. The European Union, for instance, has implemented a mandate effective from 1 July 2015, which requires member states to adhere to legal provisions for a common logo specific to online pharmacies. This is coupled with an obligation for national regulatory authorities to maintain a registry of all registered online medicine retailers, as detailed by the European Medicines Agency [ 120 ]. Furthermore, the sale of certain medications online within the EU is permissible, contingent upon the registration of the pharmacy or retailer with respective national authorities​ [ 121 ]. Additionally, the Council of Europe’s MEDICRIME Convention introduces an international treaty that criminalizes the online sale of counterfeit medicinal products, enforcing prosecution irrespective of the country in which the crime is perpetrated [ 122 ].

Switzerland presents a unique stance, where Swissmedic strongly advises against the online purchase of medicines due to the high risk of illegal sourcing and poor quality. However, Swiss mail-order pharmacies with a valid cantonal license to operate a mail-order business are exempted from this advisory​ [ 123 ]. The Swiss Mail-Order Pharmacists Association and its affiliates, such as Zur Rose AG and MediService AG, actively advocate for a modern and equitable regulation of mail-order medicine sales​ [ 124 ]. The legislative framework is further bolstered by the Federal Act on Medicinal Products and Medical Devices, which regulates therapeutic products to guarantee their quality, safety, and efficacy​ [ 125 ]. In the Middle East, community pharmacy practice is predominantly governed by national Ministries of Public Health or equivalent governmental entities, with most community pharmacies being privately owned​ [ 126 ]. The region’s involvement in the Global Cooperation Group, which encompasses various international regulatory bodies like the EMA and USFDA, signifies a collaborative approach towards drug regulatory affairs in the MENA region [ 127 ]. Despite these advances in regulatory collaboration, it is notable that currently no specific regulations have been detected for online purchases from online pharmacies in the Middle East, highlighting a significant area for potential regulatory development. Furthermore, a notable transition is observed in pharmacy education across several Middle Eastern nations, with an inclination towards introducing Pharm.D degrees to replace traditional pharmacy degrees, reflective of evolving educational standards in the pharmaceutical field [ 128 ]. This shift in education parallels the need for updated regulatory frameworks, especially in the context of the burgeoning online pharmacy sector.

Furthermore, Australia permits the sale of both Prescription-Only Medicines (POMs) and Over-the-Counter (OTC) medications online, provided that brick-and-mortar pharmacies comply with all relevant laws and practice standards [ 129 ]. In contrast, South Korea maintains a stringent stance, prohibiting the online sale of both POMs and OTC medicines, with sales confined exclusively to physical stores registered with the Regulatory Authority (RA) [ 130 ]. China, Japan, Russia, Singapore, and Malaysia exhibit a more selective regulatory framework. China and Russia allow the online sale of OTC medicines only, with China imposing additional restrictions on third-party e-commerce platforms and Russia having introduced a draft law in December 2017 to formalize this practice [ 131 ; 132 ]. Japan permits the online sale of certain OTC medicines, explicitly excluding specific substances such as fexofenadine and loratadine [ 133 ]. Similarly, Singapore and Malaysia endorse the online sale of specific OTC medicines only, adopting a “buyers beware” approach to caution consumers about the associated risks [ 134 ; 135 ]. Lastly, the legal landscapes in India and Indonesia remain ambiguous. India’s RA has effectively banned the online sale of medicinal products, yet this prohibition lacks legislative backing. Indonesia, too, grapples with unclear regulations, leaving the legal status of online pharmacies indeterminate [ 136 ].

In response to these risks, several initiatives have been developed to guide and certify online pharmacies. In the United States, LegitScript offers certification to online pharmacies that comply with criteria such as appropriate licensing and registration [ 137 ]. Similarly, the Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites (VIPPS) program, accredited by the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, ensures pharmacies adhere to licensing requirements in the states where they dispense medications [ 138 ]. Internationally, the Health On the Net Foundation has introduced the HONcode, an ethical standard for health websites globally. This code certifies sites that provide transparent and qualified information. However, due to the absence of international harmonization, the HONcode’s certification is limited to US and Canadian pharmacies verified by VIPPS [ 139 ]. The lack of a harmonized international approach presents significant challenges. Consumers do not have access to a comprehensive, global repository of all certified pharmacies. The diverse certification schemes are not well articulated or interconnected, leading to consumer unawareness about their significance or existence. Moreover, enforcing standards across different legal jurisdictions is complex without a unified agreement. To enhance consumer protection, it is imperative to develop and promote a standardized, minimal international code of conduct for online pharmacies. Such a code would unify requirements and allow all initiatives to clarify their roles under a common framework. Adequate oversight in the borderless online pharmacy market can only be achieved through collaborative efforts. To visualize the infographic of the global regularity landscape for the online pharmacy see Fig.  6 .

Comprehensive representation of the regulatory landscape for global online pharmacies, detailing international and national initiatives, certification programs, and conventions aimed at minimizing risks associated with the purchase of medications via online platforms

Technological innovations and Future trends in global pharmacy

The global pharmacy sector is undergoing a transformative shift, driven by the rapid advancement of technological innovations. As the world becomes increasingly digital, the integration of cutting-edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and blockchain is setting the stage for a new era in pharmaceutical care and management. These advancements promise to revolutionize the industry by enhancing efficiency, accuracy, and security, ultimately leading to improved patient outcomes and a more streamlined healthcare experience [ 140 ].

Walgreens, in partnership with Medline, a telehealth firm, has developed a platform for patient interaction with healthcare professionals via video chat. AI’s role extends to inventory management in retail pharmacies, allowing pharmacists to predict patient needs, stock appropriately, and use personalized software for patient reminders. Although not all inventory management software in retail pharmacies utilizes AI, some, like Blue Yonder’s software developed for Otto group, demonstrate the potential of AI in predicting product sales with high accuracy, thus enhancing supply chain efficiency [ 141 ; 142 ]. At the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center, robotic technology is employed to improve patient safety in medication preparation and tracking. This technology has prepared medication doses with a notable error-free record and surpasses human capabilities in accuracy and efficiency. It prepares both oral and injectable medicines, including chemotherapy drugs, freeing pharmacists and nurses to focus on direct patient care. The automated system at UCSF receives electronic medication orders, with robotics handling the picking, packaging, and dispensing of individual doses. This system also assembles medications on bar-coded rings for 12-hour patient intervals and prepares sterile preparations for chemotherapy and intravascular syringes [ 143 ].

In the realm of global pharmacy, blockchain technology emerges as a pivotal force, driving advancements across various facets of healthcare and pharmaceuticals. At the forefront of its application is the enhancement of supply chain transparency [ 144 ]. Blockchain’s immutable ledger ensures the provenance and legitimacy of medical commodities, offering an unprecedented level of visibility from manufacturing to distribution. This is particularly vital in areas plagued by counterfeit drugs, where systems like MediLedger are instrumental in verifying the legality and essential details of medicines [ 145 ].

The utility of blockchain extends to the implementation of smart contracts — scripts processed on the blockchain that bolster transparency in medical studies and secure patient data management [ 146 ]. These contracts find extensive use in advanced medical settings, as evidenced by a blockchain-based telemonitoring system for remote patients and Dermonet, an online platform for dermatological consultation [ 147 ].

Furthermore, blockchain is revolutionizing patient care through patient-centric Electronic Health Records (EHRs). By decentralizing EHR maintenance, blockchain empowers patients with secure access to their historical and current health records [ 148 ]. Prototypes like MedRec and systems such as MeD Share exemplify how blockchain can provide complete, permanent access to clinical documents and facilitate the sharing of medical data between untrusted parties, respectively, ensuring high information authenticity and minimal privacy risks [ 149 ; 150 ]. In verifying medical staff credentials, blockchain again proves invaluable. Systems like ProCredEx, based on the R3 Corda blockchain protocol, streamline the credentialing process, offering rapid verification while allowing healthcare entities to leverage their existing data for enhanced transparency and assurance about medical staff experience [ 151 ].

The integration of blockchain with Internet of Things devices for remote monitoring marks another leap forward, significantly bolstering data security. By safeguarding the integrity and privacy of patient data collected by these devices, blockchain mitigates the risk of tampering and ensures that only authorized parties can access sensitive information [ 152 ]. Besides, a blockchain-based drug supply chain initiative, PharmaChain, utilizes AI for approaches against drug counterfeit and ensures the drug supply chain is more traceable, visible, and secure. For online pharmacies, this means a more reliable supply chain and assurance of drug authenticity, crucial for maintaining trust and safety [ 153 ].

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the PharmaGo platform has emerged as an innovative solution in Sri Lanka, revolutionizing the delivery of pharmacy services. As traditional pharmacies grapple with the challenges of meeting all customer needs in one location, PharmaGo addresses this by providing a comprehensive online pharmaceutical service. It allows customers to access a wide range of medications through a single platform, reducing the need to visit multiple pharmacies. Utilizing image processing technology, pharmacy owners can accurately identify prescribed medicines, while the system’s predictive analytics forecasts future drug demands, enhancing stock management. Additionally, PharmaGo’s AI-powered medical chatbot offers real-time guidance, ensuring a seamless and efficient customer experience. This platform represents a significant advancement in healthcare accessibility and pharmacy service delivery in the pandemic era [ 154 ]. In the same context, ontology-based medicine information system, enhancing search relevance through a chatbot interface was presented by Amalia et al. [ 155 ]. Addressing conventional search engines’ limitations in interpreting data relationships, it employs semantic technology to represent metadata informatively. The ontology as a knowledge base effectively delineates disease-medicine relationships, with evaluations indicating a 90% response validity from the chatbot, offering a robust reference for medical information retrieval and its semantic associations.

Future trends for the digital transformation of in the pharmaceutical sector

Future trends for the digital transformation of pharmacies globally are heavily influenced by the transformative impact of digital technologies on healthcare delivery. The integration of telemedicine, electronic health records, and mobile health applications is pivotal in enhancing patient care. These technologies are instrumental in improving data sharing and collaboration among healthcare professionals, increasing the efficiency of healthcare services. Additionally, they offer significant potential for personalized medicine through data analytics and play a crucial role in patient engagement and self-management of health. The importance of these technologies in creating a more connected and efficient healthcare system is underscored, marking a significant shift in the global healthcare landscape [ 156 ].

In the pharmaceutical sector, the COVID-19 pandemic has catalyzed a significant shift towards Pharmaceutical Digital Marketing (PDM), particularly for over-the-counter drugs. This shift focuses on utilizing online pharmacies and digital platforms for targeted advertising, directly reaching consumers. The trend towards purchasing OTC drugs online has grown, driven by the convenience and efficiency of digital channels. While PDM faces challenges like regulatory constraints and the need for digital proficiency, it offers substantial opportunities in enhancing customer engagement and precise marketing. The future of PDM is poised to be more consumer-centric, integrating advanced technologies like AI, and emphasizing personalized marketing strategies to strengthen brand engagement and customer interaction [ 157 ].

Artificial intelligence holds immense potential to revolutionize the field of pharmacy, offering numerous benefits that can significantly enhance efficiency and patient care. One of the primary applications of AI in this sector is the automation of routine tasks. By utilizing AI, pharmacies can automate critical processes such as prescription processing, checking for drug interactions, and managing inventory. This automation not only streamlines operations but also minimizes the likelihood of human error, thereby increasing the overall efficiency of pharmacies [ 158 ].

Furthermore, AI can play a pivotal role in personalized medication management. This is particularly beneficial for patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes who require careful management of their insulin dosages, as fluctuations in blood sugar levels can lead to serious complications. AI systems can monitor patients continuously, provide timely reminders for medication intake, and dynamically adjust treatment plans based on individual health data. Such personalized management ensures that patients receive optimal care tailored to their specific needs, potentially improving treatment outcomes. Incorporation of AI into electronic health records presents another significant advancement. By integrating AI with EHRs, healthcare providers can access real-time patient data. This integration empowers healthcare professionals to make more informed care decisions, enhancing the quality of patient care. Moreover, it significantly reduces the likelihood of medication errors, a critical concern in healthcare.

Likewise, AI’s capability to analyze extensive patient data is invaluable. It can identify patterns and trends in medication adherence, detect potential drug interactions, and pinpoint adverse drug reactions. These insights are crucial for healthcare professionals and researchers. By understanding these patterns, they can develop more effective medication adherence strategies and support systems, contributing to better patient outcomes and advancing the overall field of pharmaceutical care.

In the expansive realm of chemical space, the pharmaceutical industry faces the continual challenge of identifying new active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for diverse diseases [ 159 ]. High throughput screening (HTS), despite its advancements in recent decades, remains resource-intensive and often yields unsuitable hits for drug development. The failure rate of investigational compounds remains high, with a study citing only a 6.2% success rate for orphan drugs progressing from phase I to market approval [ 160 , 161 ].

Machine learning presents a transformative approach to this challenge. It offers an alternative to manual HTS through in silico methodologies. ML-driven drug discovery boasts several advantages: it operates continuously, surpasses the capacity of manual methods, reduces costs by decreasing the number of physical compounds tested, and early identifies negative characteristics of compounds, such as off-target effects and sex-dependent variability [ 162 ].

A substantial advancement in the realm of machine learning has emerged from major pharmaceutical entities, notably AstraZeneca, in conjunction with research institutions. This progress is evidenced by the development of an innovative algorithm that demonstrates both time efficiency and effectiveness in the sphere of drug discovery. The recent introduction of this algorithm significantly enhances the process of determining binding affinities between investigational compounds and therapeutic targets. It surpasses traditional in silico methods in terms of performance. The application of this algorithm underscores the remarkable potential of machine learning in accelerating the identification and development of novel therapeutic agents [ 163 ].

Moreover, the proficiency of machine learning in managing vast and intricate datasets has rendered it indispensable in research focused on cancer targets, utilizing diverse and extensive datasets. This approach is fundamental in numerous drug discovery initiatives, especially those targeting various forms of cancer. A wide array of ML techniques, ranging from supervised to unsupervised learning, are employed to discern chemical attributes that are indicative of potential therapeutic efficacy against a spectrum of cancer targets. This methodology is crucial in identifying novel compounds that could be effective in cancer treatment, leveraging the rich and complex data available in oncological research [ 164 ].

The digital transformation in the pharmacy sector is significantly reshaping healthcare delivery, driven by the integration of cutting-edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence and blockchain. This transformation is marked by a substantial growth in the digital pharmacy market, with a projected annual growth rate of 14.42%, leading to a market volume of approximately $35.33 billion by 2026​​.

One major aspect of this transformation is the growing reliance on online pharmacy platforms, largely influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Consumer trust in online medication purchases has significantly increased, indicating a shift towards digital healthcare solutions. The adoption of telehealth services, including telepharmacy, has surged, with patient adoption in the United States increasing from 11% in 2019 to 46%. This shift towards digital-first services enhances convenience and access to care but also introduces regulatory challenges, particularly in maintaining patient safety and quality standards in the rapidly evolving online healthcare environment​​.

The cosmeceuticals market, a segment within online pharmacies, is experiencing robust growth. Cosmeceuticals, which bridge the gap between cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, have become a significant part of the skincare industry. The market, valued at USD 56.78 billion in 2022, is projected to expand to USD 95.75 billion by 2030. This expansion is driven by factors like innovation in natural ingredients and significant penetration of internet, smartphone, and social media applications. Despite the growth, the overall penetration for non-specialty drugs in mail-order and online pharmacies remains low, representing a significant portion of specialty prescription revenues. The evolving landscape of online pharmacies in the cosmeceuticals sector reflects a trend towards more accessible and customizable personal healthcare solutions​​.

Technological innovations are setting the stage for a new era in pharmaceutical care and management. AI’s role extends to areas like inventory management in retail pharmacies, where it predicts patient needs and enhances supply chain efficiency. Blockchain technology enhances supply chain transparency and legitimizes medical commodities, especially crucial in areas affected by counterfeit drugs. Blockchain also plays a vital role in patient-centric Electronic Health Records and telemonitoring systems. For instance, PharmaGo, an innovative platform developed in response to the pandemic, provides a comprehensive online pharmaceutical service, demonstrating the significant advancements in healthcare accessibility and pharmacy service delivery​​.

These technological advancements are instrumental in improving data sharing and collaboration among healthcare professionals. They offer significant potential for personalized medicine through data analytics, playing a crucial role in patient engagement and self-management of health. The future trends in the pharmaceutical sector, particularly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, indicate a shift towards Pharmaceutical Digital Marketing (PDM) and a more consumer-centric approach. AI’s potential in revolutionizing pharmacy includes automation of routine tasks, personalized medication management, real-time patient data access, and the identification of patterns in medication adherence and potential drug interactions​​.

Data availability

No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

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The researcher would like to thank the Deanship of Scientific Research, Qassim University for funding the publication of this project.

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Almeman, A. The digital transformation in pharmacy: embracing online platforms and the cosmeceutical paradigm shift. J Health Popul Nutr 43 , 60 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41043-024-00550-2

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Getting started with Google Ads, Google's advertising service once known as AdWords: What it is, how much it costs

• Google Ads was initially launched as Google AdWords, then renamed and revamped in recent years.
• Google has offered paid advertising on its search engine and other platforms since the year 2000.
• Google Ads uses a "pay per click" model where you pay a fee to Google when users click on your ads.

Google Ads is Google's advertising platform that businesses, brands, influencers, nonprofits, and anyone else willing to shell out some cash can use to place advertisements on various corners of the world wide web. 

Google Ads can pop up at the top of search results or in social media feeds, be displayed on websites embedded among webpage content, or run before or during YouTube videos.

The type of ad that internet users see, the frequency with which the ad is served, and the quality of the placement of a given Google Ad all depend on the advertiser's spend and the online behavior of the people who end up seeing it. This confluence helps make Google Ads a good investment for the advertiser and — often, anyway — a relevant experience for the people who see and may click on the ads. 

Launched as Google AdWords in 2000, the platform's name switched to Google Ads in 2018 and it's diversified in many ways in recent years.

Google Ads: The price and the potential

"Why is Google Ads so expensive?" is one of the most common questions associated with Google Ads. The simple answer is because it's effective and popular.

With so many different businesses, brands, and individuals vying for visibility on Google, the higher-ranking search terms get more and more expensive.

The average cost per click is around $3. In some cases, for search terms with very little competition, you may pay mere pennies for each ad click. Other ads may cost their creators $50 or more for every single click.

That's a lot of money for someone clicking on an image, video, or text ad that will lead them to your site, feed, or product — but it's no guarantee they'll take further action that will be profitable to you. 

But remember, you don't pay anything until that click happens. you'll never be hit with a surprise expense that's beyond your budget because you set a maximum spend for each ad. Plus, you know that every time you do pay for your Google ad, it's because someone took the exact action you hoped for.

Related stories

So, to address another common question, "Is Google Ads free?" the answer is a resounding no. Unlike Google Business Profile , the free service to let business owners control how their business appears in Google search results, Google Ads will cost you.

Is Google Ads worth it, given the potentially high cost per click? If used well, absolutely yes.

Different types of Google Ads serve different purposes

There are five primary types of Google Ads: Search ads, which appear above and among the organic search results; video ads, which run before or during YouTube videos; Google Display Ads, which are embedded among the content of websites; Google Shopping Ads, which pop up with images, brief text, and pricing info when someone searches for a specific product or product category; and Google app ads, which are app-related and show up in the Google Play store, among search results, and on YouTube and other sites.

Google also offers more specialized ad campaigns, such as Performance Max, which comes with AI optimization to help your ads perform as well as possible. In February 2024, the company announced that the Google Gemini AI model will be incorporated into Performance Max to help advertisers build more effective campaigns.

The incorporation of AI into Google Ads has sparked concerns within Google and the advertising industry that automation will replace workers. Late in 2023, numerous media outlets reported that Google Ads would undergo a restructuring, to include layoffs.

Google's layoffs also affected Waze, the company's traffic and navigation app, in 2023 when its advertising system merged with Google Ads technology.

How to make money with Google ads

All Google ads offer advertisers the ability to tailor the ad to users. Said action can be a purchase, a subscription, a share, and more. 

The targeting comes in the form of selecting user traits like age, location, and interest.

Of course, the ad type you choose should be well-reasoned: if you're selling gardening tools, a search or shopping ad probably makes the most sense. But if you're trying to spread awareness of a new VR video game, then an ad on YouTube is a savvy idea.

The care with which you choose terms in a Google ad will help the advertisement perform well, although it's more expensive when you place high-ranking terms in your ad. That's because Google's algorithms deem advertisements with well-chosen and well-used keywords — words that read organically rather than stuffed in — as more relevant and will serve such ads more often and more prominently.

So, choose your words carefully, pick your ad type thoughtfully, set your budget realistically, and then prepare to edit and adapt your advertising strategy as the clicks roll in or don't. Google Ads is worth the money, but only if you also put in the effort.

On February 28, Axel Springer, Business Insider's parent company, joined 31 other media groups and filed a $2.3 billion suit against Google in Dutch court, alleging losses suffered due to the company's advertising practices.

Watch: Ad spend is growing, says General Mills' chief brand officer, Doug Martin, as more people eat at home to save money

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Mapúa launches streaming platform for education

by Patricia Mirasol , Producer

Mapúa University launched on May 15 Mapúa X, its streaming platform for education.  

The platform offers courses in subjects including technology, engineering, and creative arts, with video lectures, interactive simulations, and real-time feedback embedded in each.  

Mapúa X caters to both traditional students and lifelong learners, according to university president Dodjie S. Maestrecampo.  

“Workplaces are searching for agile, entrepreneurial professionals who can quickly adapt and pivot in a very competitive and dynamic economy,” he said in a May 16 press statement.  

“To meet that demand, we had to move beyond traditional learning methods and adopt new approaches that will better prepare students for these volatile work environments,” Mr. Maestrecampo said.  

The university partnered with Anthology, an education technology company, to build the platform.  

“Our collaboration with Anthology allows us to use a training and development manager approach built within a robust LMS [learning management system] platform,” Mr. Maestrecampo said. This enables students to remotely self-enroll in courses and earn credentials, he added.  

Accessibility features have been added to the platform, according to Ericson D. Dimaunahan, director of the university’s Center for Teaching and Learning – Digital.  

“Content can be converted into the desired file format,” he said at the May 15 event. “For example, our text formats can be converted to e-Braille [a formatted document that can be read on an electronic Braille machine] … We have transcription for video content too.”  

Academic learning is a given within a campus, “but also important is a student’s holistic wellbeing and growth,” said Samuel Tang, Anthology’s country manager for the Philippines.  

“What we want to focus on right now is the area of teaching and learning,” he said at the same event. “I think the concept of lifelong learning, and of providing continuing education in a bite-sized manner, where courses can be stacked, [is a part of that].”  

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