**7. Conclusions**

competitive market. The new strategy for the next year should include a realistic assessment of the company goals. Using the technique of scenario, the thinking in options was encouraged and some future versions were discussed with the staff in a one-day workshop. The final

The conclusion was that the company has, on the one hand, a strong business unit with a diverse range of products. On the other hand, the company's focus cannot be identified. The company offers products in many areas, but it is not really excellent or clearly perceptible in any one of these areas. In future, new media should be used to advertise the products and increase the focus on the customers. More knowledge of competitors' products is necessary. The staff should participate in qualification courses and informal learning should be recog‐ nized as a learning method in the company. These changes have been discussed during another

To present the scenarios at the workshop, the workshop leaders held presentations supported by animations and web-based material about possible strategies. So the company staff was

decision is presented in the scenario below.

496 E-Learning - Instructional Design, Organizational Strategy and Management

**Figure 9.** Advanced E-Learning course

workshop by using scenario-based learning.

To conclude from literature research and projects, it is evident that small and medium sized companies remain vital to the European economy but many of them fail in the first five years; so it is important to ensure the survival of these companies and encourage them to grow. In today's business world, SMEs are competing with a larger number of companies, many of these are multinationals; they have a greater number of staff and a wider pool of skills. So it is important for SMEs to acquire the relevant strategic skills as quickly as possible to remain ahead of the competition. To do this while trying to sustain an organization can be difficult as a lot of SME managers' time is spent on ensuring the company's survival. By allowing SMEs to leverage off external expertise through the use of E-Learning through the latest technologies such as Cloud Computing, new skills can be accessed in time.

New media can allow managers to access real-time information in a chunked manner as needed. Cloud Computing can allow them to access the material anytime, anywhere. But the advantages as well as risks of Cloud Computing to support business and learning in SMEs are not thoroughly explored.

The results of focus discussion groups with SME staff and education experts organized in the projects presented briefly in this paper, and workshops and work sessions organized at different conferences sustain our hypothesis that besides adequate education and training, by using E-Learning, blended learning, and other forms, Scenario-based E-learning can motivate SME staff to learn and prepare for future work.
