Running Case

LearnInMotion.com

Introduction

The main theme of this book is that HRM—activities like recruiting, selecting, training, and rewarding employees—is not just the job of a central HR group, but rather one in which every manager must engage. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in the typical small service business, where the owner-manager usually has no HR staff to rely on. However, the success of such an enterprise often depends largely on the effectiveness with which workers are recruited, hired, trained, evaluated, and rewarded. To help illustrate and emphasize the front-line manager's HR role, throughout this book we will use a continuing ("running") case, based on an actual small business in Ottawa's high-tech region. Each segment will illustrate how the case's main players—owner-managers Jennifer Lau and Pierre LeBlanc—confront and solve HRM problems each day by applying the concepts and techniques presented in that particular chapter. Here's some background information you'll need to answer questions that arise in subsequent chapters.

LearnInMotion.com: A Profile: Jennifer and Pierre graduated from university as business majors in June 2000, and got the idea for LearnInMotion.com as a result of a project they worked on together their final semester in their entrepreneurship class. The professor had divided the students into two- or three-person teams, and had given them the assignment "create a business plan for a dot-com company." The two students came up with the idea of LearnInMotion.com. The basic concept of the Web site was to list a vast array of Web-based, CD-ROM-based, or textbook-based continuing education-type business courses for working people who wanted to take a course from the comfort of their own homes. The idea was that users could come to the Web site to find and then take a course in one of several ways. Some courses could be completed interactively on the Web via the site; others were in a form that was downloadable directly to the user's computer; others (which were either textbook or CD-ROM based) could be ordered and delivered (in several major metropolitan areas) by independent contractor delivery people. Their business mission was "to provide work-related learning when, where, and how you need it."

Based on their research, they knew the market for work-related learning like this was booming. At the same time, professional development activities like these were increasingly Internet-based. Tens of thousands of on- and off-line training firms, universities, associations, and other content providers were trying to reach their target customers via the Internet. Jennifer and Pierre understandably thought they were in the right place at the right time. And perhaps they were.

When the two graduated in June 2000, it looked like the Internet boom would go on forever. Jennifer's father had some unused loft space in Kanata, so with about $45,000 of accumulated savings, Jennifer and Pierre incorporated and were in business. They retained the services of an independent programmer and hired two people—a Web designer to create the graphics for the site (which would then be programmed by the programmer), and a content manager whose job was to enter information onto the site as it came in from content providers. By the end of 2000, they had also finished upgrading their business plan into a form that they could show to prospective venture capitalists. They sent the first version to three Canadian venture capitalists. Then they waited.

And then they waited some more. They never heard back from the first three venture capitalists, so they sent their plan to five more. By now it was October 2001, and a dramatic event occurred: The values of a wide range of Internet and Internet-related sites dropped precipitously on the stock market. But they pressed on. By day they called customers to get people to place ads on their site, to get content providers to list their available courses, and to get someone—anyone—to deliver textbook- and CD-ROM based courses, as needed, across Canada. By May 2002, they had about 300 content providers offering courses and content through LearnInMotion.com. In the summer of 2002, they got their first serious nibble from a venture capital firm. They negotiated with this company through much of the summer, came to terms in the early fall, and closed the deal—getting just over $1 million in venture funding—in November 2002.

After a stunning total of $75,000 in legal fees (they had to pay both their firm's and the venture capital firm's lawyers to navigate the voluminous disclosure documents and agreements), they had just over $900,000 to spend. The funding, according to the business plan, was to go toward accomplishing five main goals: redesigning and expanding the Web site; hiring about seven more employees; moving to larger office space; designing and implementing a personal information manager (PIM)/calendar (users and content providers could use the calendar to interactively keep track of their personal and business schedules); and, last but not least, driving up sales. LearnInMotion was off and running.