Tuesday, January 8, 2002

UNext, Hoping to Bolster Sales, Signs 2 Big Marketing Deals By KATHERINE S. MANGAN UNext, a major provider of online management education, has signed agreements with two electronic-information companies to market and sell its courses. The move is intended to bolster sagging sales, which forced UNext to lay off 135 of its 325 workers in September. (See an article from The Chronicle, September 13, 2001.) Thomson Learning will market UNext's courses to large businesses, and Knowledge Universe will target smaller companies. Working with those large, well-established companies will give UNext entrée into more businesses -- and thus to more potential students, company officials say. "In today's world, large corporations are fearful of dealing with start-up corporations in any area," says UNext's chairman, Andrew M. Rosenfield. "We're trying to reach people in corporations all over the world, and the time and effort needed to reach them are formidable." By entrusting that job to Thomson and Knowledge Universe, which already have large international sales forces, UNext will no longer need about 70 of its current employees, who have been warned that their jobs are likely to be cut early this year. The courses that Thomson and Knowledge University will be selling are aimed at business executives who don't want to take time off from their jobs to pursue graduate management courses or degrees. The courses and an M.B.A. degree are offered through UNext's online subsidiary, Cardean University. They're developed with the help of a consortium of universities, including Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, the London School of Economics and Political Science, Stanford University, and the University of Chicago. The universities share in the profits when courses are sold. Cardean currently offers approximately 150 courses in accounting, marketing, economics, e-commerce strategy, and business policy. Background articles from The Chronicle: UNext Lays Off 135 Employees, Citing Need to Spend Conservatively (9/13/2001) UNext Seeks to Restructure Its Relationships With Universities (8/7/2001) Rich in Cash and Prestige, UNext Struggles in Its Search for Sales (5/4/2001) Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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