What’s bigger is not necessarily better, and that also applies to the LMS world. Before you assume every large LMS company with a reputation for being an industry leader is a great fit, you might want to evaluate that position more closely.
Small LMS companies can provide many of the benefits you can’t get elsewhere – and we’re not simply talking about platforms. We’re also referring to sales, customer support, and culture, to name a few. This also includes the ability to tailor an LMS to what your organization truly needs — which comes from an underestimated skill: listening.
The Big Players Walk the Walk — But Are Their LMS Systems as Versatile as They Claim?
A simple HR-based model that’s often favored by big firms tends to focus on relatively straightforward issues, like workplace safety. So a big player could claim its LMS covers a lot of different areas of training — some even say they do “any kind of training.”
However, that claim of unparalleled versatility is not entirely accurate.
For example, if an individual doesn’t understand the training concepts within the LMS offered by a large firm, is that large firm truly going to care enough to offer help? Not likely.
More frequently, organizations tell us they get pushback from the big player who finds no fault with their own LMS. “You must not have followed the training accurately,” is a popular response from large firms.
The benefit of a smaller LMS company, among other things, is that you’re dealing with a level of customer service intent on understanding your challenges and feedback, then building a platform around that.
In the case of LatitudeLearning, our focus is ensuring that the management and delivery of your training is tailored to fit your needs exactly. Every LMS platform needs to be made for you for it to work for you.
Building an LMS with a Far More Customized Approach
When we talk about tailoring an LMS around the customer, we’re describing a sea change in how people think about a training program and the LMS platforms that support it.
A large LMS company’s perspective on the process consists of building the platform by putting their preferred components into place. Whether you want those components or not, it makes little difference. They’re not going to adjust the platform just for your business.
HR systems, in general, are often let off the hook when it comes to tying their LMS platforms to business benefits. Is the customer getting value and making money? Hard to say. Unfortunately, most people will say, “Well, it basically does what it needs to do,” and settle for that outcome.
The other side of the equation is the smaller LMS organization that strives to ensure the platform meets your needs. The result is a best-of-both-worlds solution that is truly tailor-made for you with all the same advantages as other large platforms in the industry.
When done correctly, this training can truly drive value in the organization, resulting in lower warranty costs, higher customer satisfaction scores, and improvement of your network performance overall. All of which are apt to be the key driver and differentiator among those considerations for LMS.
At LatitudeLearning, LMS sales and delivery are made in lockstep, which is often not the case for large companies. No wonder there can be a disconnect between what’s been promised and what the implementing organization is capable of doing.
In contrast, our relationships over the last 20 years are a “glass pipeline” that enables customers to view our processes from beginning to end, so they’re intimately familiar with us the entire way. It’s the most comfortable place we want to be at LatitudeLearning. And it’s the way we continue to thrive.
To learn more about leveraging skills-based training in your organization through the LatitudeLearning LMS, subscribe to the LatitudeLearning blog for the latest advancements in the extended enterprise learning space.
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