Learn to Desire (LTD): a Canadian tech Company with International Success Student Entrepreneur Located in a century-old leather tannery building in London, Ontario, Canada, Learn to Desire (LTD) is a highly successful, cutting-edge, education technology (edtech) company founded in 1999. The founder and CEO, Robert Russ, was a third-year engineering student when he was assigned a project: he needed to invent a problem and determine an economical solution to solve it. At the time, his brother was taking a distance education course using cassette tapes and textbooks; assignments were submitted via fax. Watching his brother struggle to learn through outdated technologies, Robert began to consider how he could apply what he knew about web-based technologies to change the way distance learning was done and improve the learner experience. After helping five professors at his university put their materials online, Robert officially became an entrepreneur and eventually launched LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD). Since then, the company has grown quickly and opened offices in Australia, the U.S., Brazil, Singapore, the U.K. and the Netherlands. LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD) employs 800 team members, has 1,100 clients and is supporting over 15 million learners worldwide. A Bright Future The edtech company's flagship product, Brightspace, is the world's first truly integrated learning platform. Brightspace is essentially a smart and adaptable Learning Management System (LMS) that can be used by educational institutions to place their content online. The LMS can also assist educators with tracking students' progress and grades, uploading tests and exams, facilitating online discussion, plus several other tasks. As one example, LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD) recently announced the capability to predict a given student's course results based on the first few weeks of course participation. This capability would allow educators to step in and provide assistance before the student might normally appear to require it. Through a series of key acquisitions of technology companies and a number of strategic partnerships with content developers, LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD) is able to offer Brightspace as an integrated platform. Partnerships are an essential part of LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD)'s success, with two notable partners being software giants IBM and Microsoft. The company has teamed up with resellers, service providers, training partners and accessibility experts to help build its international business model and create tailored solutions for its clients. Rather than exporting its products and services with each new client, LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD) has team members and partners located around the world to sell its products and assist clients with planning, implementation and support. In addition to this, in countries where it operates, LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD) has built multiple data centers to provide the IT infrastructure required to host the Brightspace platform for its clients. Partnership as a Sales Strategy Partnership is also the selling point that seems to win LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD) a large number of its international clients. In order to be successful in the competitive edtech sector, LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD)focuses on customizing the solution to the client, providing assistance at every stage of implementation and seamlessly integrating all client processes within the platform. Singapore Management University adopted the LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD) learning suite to eventually move all its undergraduate courses onto the online learning space. While researching solutions to meet its needs and working with the Canadian company, May Lit, the senior manager of integrated information technology services at the university, said, "We are very impressed with Learn to Desire (LTD)'s willingness to work closely with us throughout the process. It has worked diligently to understand and address our needs and plans for e-learning." The university was searching for a tailored solution to its very specific needs and for a company that would assist it through the process, and LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD) was offering exactly that. Another client with far different needs who adopted the LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD) virtual learning environment is Nottingham Trent University, one of the U.K.'s largest post-secondary institutions. The university's objective was to offer flexible learning to its students and gain the ability to diversify and reach new markets. In addition to this, the integrated platform solution would assist the university with providing training for its faculty to help support its professional development program. Professor Nagy Bassili Jones, senior pro-vice-chancellor of academic development and research, described LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD) as the clear winner in a rigorous tender evaluation process. Clearly, the partnership strategy is a major contributing factor to LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD)'s international success. Unlimited Possibilities In 2012 and 2014, LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD) raised CAD 80 million and CAD 85 million, respectively, in venture capital in response to record growth on the international marketplace. President and CEO Robert Russ used the funds to further the company's international expansion, provide greater support for predictive analytics and develop technology to make learning in the online space increasingly perceptive and personalized. The injection of funds also played a role in gaining market share against LEARN TO DESIRE (LTD)'s largest competitors.

When preparing its proposal for the Nottingham Trent University project tender, what knowledge of the target market would have been useful to LTD