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Schools, universities, colleges, restaurants, and multibillion-dollar corporations—nearly every organization has incorporated an LMS or is on the verge of getting a learning management system (LMS). If you haven’t heard of an LMS, you may be curious about what it is, what its uses are, how you can use it to benefit your business, and more.
What does ‘LMS’ stand for?
The acronym LMS stands for Learning Management System, and it does exactly what it says. It is a system that manages learning in your organization.
In layman’s terms, LMS is software that allows you to relay information to those in your organization who require it.
Sharing safety and health training with construction workers is one such example. Another example can be – delivering coursework to a group of college-going students. It can be any other diverse combination in which you have pertinent information and require an ideal way for a certain audience to access it.
LMSs are usually classified into two types: “installation” and “cloud-based.” Each one has its own distinct characteristics.
Installation LMS is locally hosted. That is, once you have downloaded the software, it is permanently installed on your computer.
Purchasing an Installation LMS usually entails paying a direct fee. It is followed by an additional payment, probably once a year, to keep your license required to use the product actively.
The benefit of a locally hosted learning management system is that you are less likely to encounter security issues. But once you install an LMS, you are automatically responsible for its maintenance. This includes upgrades and dealing with any technical issues that might arise on the go.
A cloud-based LMS is an online LMS hosted by a vendor. You gain access by entering your password and username on the LMS website.
To access your training materials on an online LMS, you must have an internet connection. Nonetheless, some vendors allow users to download course content and work offline.
You can have full access to a web-based online LMS by making monthly payments; the fee structure is determined by the number of features and the number of users you require. It will go over automatic updates, technical support, and platform maintenance. This frees you up to concentrate on training.
Top use cases of LMS
You now understand what LMS is, but the next question is, how does it apply to your company? What exactly can you do with it?
There is no single answer. Every person must acquire knowledge that is useful and relevant to them. It is the same with each organization. Each will be using their LMS for a unique set of purposes.
Here are a few examples of common applications:
- Academic:
Academia frequently employs LMS solutions to incorporate blended learning strategies into its curriculum. Students participate in live ILT sessions, accompanied by online self-study activities such as branching scenarios or virtual simulations that demonstrate how the subject matter relates to real-world applications.
An LMS also allows online learners to polish up on skills and broaden their knowledge in their own time, rather than waiting for the next class session to bridge gaps.
- Compliance Training:
It is vital to train the employees on the company’s updated policies, rules, and regulations in heavily regulated industries like healthcare. Employees must stay up to date on current compliance to reduce training costs and increase employee safety.
Modern learning management systems (LMSs) like Learn LMS tailor e-courses on safety, health, and compliance across various mobile devices. These also generate AI-powered reports to track individual progress, performance, training completion, and other information. Online compliance training, as for example ISO online courses, increase brand value, improve learning efficiency, and lower training costs.
- Continuous Education:
To support continuing education on a large scale, elegant and advanced technology is required. However, rather than building a complex system from the ground up, most continuing education services depend on a highly specialized platform to manage, create, and sell content. This is typically an LMS or continuing education LMS.
An LMS can assist you in providing continuing education to online learners, whether it’s a trade school, a college, or a one-time workshop. You can track individual or group performance, send automated notifications, and create personalized paths.
You can also track every facet of your online training program to identify areas of improvement that may impede your sales figures.
- Sales Training:
Because sales professionals are constantly on the move, it is important to use a modern LMS to effectively train them. Online sales training is available to globally dispersed personnel at any time, from any location, and on any mobile device. As a result, overall customer satisfaction increases, need gaps are bridged, salesforce performance is driven, and skill retention is increased.
- Employee Training:
Professional development and employee training are the most common application areas for Learning Management Systems.
Large and small businesses can develop online training resources for their globally dispersed employees. This results in improved job performance, higher retention rates, and employee satisfaction.
As a result, they get more out of their online training investment and can keep their best performers instead of investing more resources in finding and training replacements.
- Dealer Training:
Another application of LMS is coaching extended dealers on new products and policies. Because dealers demonstrate an organization’s image on multiple platforms, an LMS offers customized training content to train and certify them in different functional areas.
- Channel Training:
You can train anybody who represents your brand, including partners, retailers, supporters, and other external sales channels, thanks to an LMS. It enables you to impart product knowledge to the sales force via online learning tools for product/service awareness of the product’s features, benefits, and corporate policies. By doing this, information is given to the customers who ultimately decide what to buy, increasing your business’s profit.
Conclusion:
Investing in cutting-edge learning management system software will wear down your training budget. It, however, provides the chance to train a globally dispersed employee base, lowering the cost and time involved with classroom training.
There will be no more paperwork, infrastructure, or travel costs. Organizations can use online LMS systems to improve ROI, workforce performance, engagement, and overall business productivity.
