Wednesday 24 April 2019
Tuesday 9 April 2019
Extended Enterprise Learning Systems: Shifting Into High Gear
For more than five years, I’ve been talking and writing nonstop about the business value of extended enterprise learning. You’d think by now I would’ve run out of things to say. Actually, I’m just getting started.
In fact, today I’m doubling down on my advice about investing in extended enterprise learning solutions. Why? Because the marketplace is finally starting to see the upside of educating customers, channel partners, franchisees, contractors and others outside traditional organizational boundaries.
If you aren’t already educating external audiences, trust me, you’re lagging behind others who get it. Early movers are working hard to gain a competitive foothold. Many of them have made measurable progress, and they’re not looking back.
What Makes Extended Enterprise Learning Such a Smart Move?
It’s simple. For instance, think about customer education. Every company has customers. The more those individuals or organizations know about how to apply your product or service in their world, the more they’re likely to succeed. And their success is good for your business.
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When your customers succeed, they tend to use your product or service more often. They’re also likely to buy again in the future.
Plus, as any good marketer will tell you, retaining existing customers is much cheaper and easier than finding new ones. So educating your customers isn’t just a helpful thing to do. It’s also a practice that should boost your profits in the long-run.
Other Reasons to Embrace Extended Enterprise Learning
There are additional reasons why this strategy makes good business sense. For example, it’s relatively easy to measure training effectiveness and impact.
Let’s illustrate that point – again with customer education. If you compare metrics for trained versus untrained customers, you’ll find that trained segments tend to:
- Rely less on customer support and contact center resources
- Remain customers longer than their untrained counterparts
- Buy more throughout their relationship with your brand.
Why Is Extended Enterprise Learning Gaining Steam Now?
Why do a growing number of organizations think extended enterprise learning is mission-critical? The answer lies in a combination of factors.
For example, in the past, extended enterprise learning was prohibitively expensive for all but the world’s largest companies. Now, cloud technology, easy third-party app integrations and specialized LMS systems are purpose-built to support external audiences at remarkably reasonable, scalable prices. That means extended enterprise learning is accessible for as few as 10 participants, or up to 1 million or more.
What’s next on the horizon? A few months ago, I spoke with LEO Learning in greater detail about this topic. Below are my notes from that conversation to help you learn more about what’s behind extended enterprise learning momentum.
Key Developments in Extended Enterprise Learning
1) How did you become involved with extended enterprise learning?
I was fortunate to earn a master’s degree in instructional technology from an excellent institution, Bloomsburg University. Everyone in that program went on to work in L&D for corporate human resources departments. But I chose a different path.
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By chance, I took a job with a marketing communications company that was expanding into elearning. Their clients were all high-tech and telecom companies that wanted to train channel partners and customers more effectively.
These clients were unique, not only because they wanted to serve external audiences, but also because they operated as profit centers. That requires a much different mindset than cost-centered employee training.
2) Could you illustrate the difference?
Sure. For decades, organizations have been training external audiences to help differentiate their products and generate more sales. For example, imagine you sell software products through resellers.
If you know which of these channel partners have completed certification training, you can compare their sales performance before and after certification. You can also evaluate how quickly they close sales or the average profit they generate from each customer. This way, you can quantify the business impact of certification.
I’ve spent my whole career looking at how organizations innovate and push the envelope with extended enterprise learning. In 23 years, one thing has dramatically improved – the quality of training content and delivery.
3) How can an LMS improve extended enterprise learning?
Many learning systems are designed specifically to support channel partners. That may mean you’re training individual sales professionals or even multiple organizations across your value chain.
Here’s an example. Say you’re a senior executive at an insurance company. Independent insurance agents all around the country resell your products. But because they’re independent, they also represent other insurance providers.
You understand the need to invest in learning systems that help educate these agents and keep them informed about your products. You realize that the more an independent agent knows about your products and services, the more of your insurance they’re likely to sell. And when distributors sell more, everyone wins. That’s why so many learning initiatives are designed to empower channel sales professionals.
4) Where does customer training fit in?
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Perhaps even more vital than empowering channel partners is an organization’s ability to educate customers directly.
How can you onboard new customers more quickly and effectively? How can you help them use your products and services more fully and frequently? How can training enhance the customer experience, so people become enthusiastic champions over time and advocate for you in the marketplace?
All of these challenges can be addressed by strategies and systems designed specifically for customer education. The more customers know about your products and services, the better their overall customer experience is likely to be. That’s why many businesses are turning to customer education as a way to differentiate their brand.
5) What’s the biggest challenge your clients face?
Corporate training has traditionally been considered synonymous with mandated employee regulatory compliance. These programs focused on reducing costs and avoiding risks, and the entire process was treated like a back-office function.
No more. Now corporate learning is a critical business issue that is getting serious attention at the executive table. Organization leaders are asking, “How can learning help us create business value? How can we achieve a competitive advantage by educating employees, customers and partners? And how can we measure progress in meaningful ways?”
Businesses are interested in developing measurable learning initiatives so they can evaluate outcomes and compare their value with other priorities. When a learning initiative works, they know it makes sense to expand its footprint. When it doesn’t work, they can tweak it or move on. Relevant metrics make all the difference.
6) What does measurable learning look like?
I’m working with one global organization that has implemented seven learning management systems. Three of these systems address customer learning. Three others serve employees. And the seventh platform serves both audiences. But here’s the catch – these systems aren’t even connected.
Actually, this kind of situation isn’t unusual. It happens when decision makers aren’t aware of other initiatives, or existing systems can’t support specialized use cases associated with external learning audiences. Decisions happen independently, and that’s when redundancies and inefficiencies can take a toll.
Fortunately, now it’s possible to integrate disparate learning systems much more easily, so organizations can bring them together in a centralized ecosystem.
To understand why you should do this, add-up what you spend on all your various learning platforms. Then add the cost of duplicating content and/or recreating content from scratch for all of your programs. If multiple people are creating content in different ways, there’s also bound to be a disconnect in your messaging, user experience and learning outcomes.
Next, look at the total cost of maintenance and licenses. That should dwarf the cost of a new system designed to accommodate multiple specialized programs. By consolidating systems and assets, your organization could easily be 10x more efficient, while significantly improving overall learning effectiveness.
7) As 2019 unfolds, what LMS trends do you see ahead?
Mergers and acquisitions are changing the market in ways that are hard to predict. However, change will continue, and smart technology buyers will treat this as a business opportunity.
The learning systems industry continues to become more fractured and specialized, even as mergers and acquisitions drive consolidation. We constantly hear about LMS vendors acquiring a specialized learning technology provider to expand or strengthen their platform’s core functionality and reach.
Learning systems are now so much more than an LMS. Vendors no longer focus on training delivery, alone. Now they provide event management, customer relationship management, marketing automation and more – all wrapped into solutions that are easy to use, easy to scale and easy to integrate with other systems of all types.
Meanwhile, learning technology innovation continues to move in all directions, simultaneously. This has different implications for each market niche. But even with consolidation, I don’t see innovation slowing anytime soon.
With more than 750 unique learning systems vendors on our radar today, there’s no lack of specialized apps, tools and solutions you can combine to create a whole that is much more useful and robust than the sum of its parts. This means the future remains bright for learning innovators, as well as companies who depend on them for their learning infrastructure.
Thanks for reading!
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To Charge or Not to Charge? Strategies for Pricing Customer Training
How much should customers pay for training? How should you choose the best price? And when does it make sense to educate customers at no extra charge?
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Join experts John Leh, CEO and Lead Analyst at Talented Learning, and Barry Kelly, CEO and Co-Founder at Thought Industries, as they clarify the economics of customer education. You’ll learn:
- The true cost of content – free vs. fee
- Where the “freemium” fits in
- Why timing is a key factor
- How to test your price points
- The value of bundles and other packaging methods
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The post Extended Enterprise Learning Systems: Shifting Into High Gear appeared first on Talented Learning.
Extended Enterprise Learning Systems: Shifting Into High Gear original post at Talented Learning
Tuesday 2 April 2019
Measurement Matters: 3 Data Analytics Lessons to Remember
Although I’ve spent my entire career in marketing and communications, measurement has never been far away. I’m not a natural-born statistics nerd. But these days, it’s hard for any of us to avoid analytics, no matter what we do for a living.
Since the start of the digital age, we’ve all been swimming in business data. Yet many of us still don’t take the time to use it in meaningful ways. Some of us avoid data analytics because it involves so many moving parts:
- Valid and reliable methods
- Robust tools
- High-quality data
- Appropriate benchmarks
- And of course, relevant underlying logic.
It’s true, these elements aren’t always easy to align. But would you really rather fly blind? Imagine how much more you could achieve by investing some time and effort to put metrics on your side.
Even before data-based measurement became widespread, I saw its value at work in dozens of different business scenarios. Here are three of the most memorable examples:
Lesson 1: Find Your “North Star” Metric
Great data analytics tools are plentiful today. All those interesting apps and widgets may tempt you to spread your measurement efforts too thin. But just because you can track many metrics doesn’t mean you should.
It reminds me of the 1990s dude ranch comedy film “City Slickers,” when Billy Crystal’s middle-aged character, Mitch, shares a serious moment with a grizzled cowboy named Curly, played by Jack Palance:
CURLY: “Do you know what the secret of life is? One thing. Just one thing…
MITCH: “Great. But what is the one thing?
CURLY: “That’s what you’ve got to figure out.”
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Curly’s little nugget of wisdom is as useful in analytics as it is in life. Every organization has its own special sauce. If you know what sets you apart, you can quantify it. Isolating the one metric that matters most to your organization may not be easy. But it can make all the difference – not just for near-term performance, but for long-term success.
I learned this while working my way through college as a waitress at an upscale restaurant in Seattle. The place was so popular that people would wait an hour or more for a table. By the time most customers were seated, they were beyond hungry. That meant delivering a superior dining experience was essential. But how do you quantify quality?
The owners decided to keep customers coming back for more by uniting employees around one deceptively simple objective – hot food. In other words, success meant cooking every meal to perfection and serving it piping hot. Each of us worked toward performance metrics tied to that central objective.
As a waitress, my goal was to serve at least 90% of meals within 2 minutes of plating. Others had similar goals. With heightened awareness of the company’s mission, all employees became obsessed with hot food. Our behavior rapidly changed, and the culture soon followed.
Hot food may seem like an obvious success factor for any restaurant. But the right choice wasn’t as easy as it seems. In this case, the “north star” metric emerged only after a series of long and intense brainstorming sessions with customers, employees and business partners. It also required trial and error. But It was worth the effort.
Eventually, that metric became a beacon for every employee, and the organization became one of the Pacific Northwest’s most successful and storied fine dining establishments.
Lesson 2: Measurement is a Nonstop Endeavor
Not so long ago, the road to business intelligence was tedious and expensive. Analysts measured performance by comparing static “before and after” snapshots on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis. Data was compiled in batches that often took days to process before reports could be developed and distributed. The complexity and cost of real-time reporting put it far out-of-reach for all but the largest and wealthiest organizations.
I’ve faced this challenge several times in my career – even as recently as 10 years ago on the data analytics team at one of the world’s leading web services companies. With big-ticket advertising budgets on the line, we knew that faster insights could dramatically improve campaign results for the brands we served.
Of course, other digital economy players recognized the same opportunity. They, too, inched their way forward, compressing reporting turnaround times as quickly as their budgets and capabilities would allow. Suddenly, speed had become a driving force, as companies everywhere sought a competitive advantage by accelerating time-to-insight.
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No more. Now data is dynamic, plentiful and relatively cheap. It has become the fuel that drives remarkably sophisticated, easy-to-use online reporting tools that are also relatively cheap. (Free Google Analytics, anyone?) In fact, with nearly instant data so widely available at such a low cost, it seems that yesterday’s time-to-insight advantage has nearly evaporated.
So, where should you look to find a competitive advantage now? Ask anyone who treats analytics like breathing. Today, value comes from managing measurement as a continuous improvement process. The smartest companies proactively test, analyze, discover, improve and optimize. And that requires more than insights, alone. Which leads to my next lesson…
Lesson 3: Analysis Without Action Is Pointless
Developing relevant KPIs (key performance indicators) is one thing. Putting them into practice is another. Data-based insights are useful only if you’re willing to act on what you uncover.
With so many analytics tools available today, organizations can become so focused on gathering data, perfecting metrics and generating reports that they lose sight of why they wanted the information in the first place. Developing a dashboard is relatively easy. Letting a dashboard guide your business decisions and behavior is much harder – especially when data tells a story you don’t want to hear.
I learned this the hard way a few years ago, while generating monthly marketing performance reports for a learning solutions provider. By combining data from multiple sources, we defined a handful of meaningful metrics. For each metric, we established benchmarks based on 12-month rolling averages for the previous year.
This became the foundation for a simple KPI dashboard that was timely, relevant and easy to digest. It was exactly what executives had requested. But I didn’t stop there. Each month, I wrote a companion analysis that interpreted the latest findings, explored the implications of those findings and suggested a course of action.
How did business leaders respond? Crickets. Their silence was deafening.
The problem wasn’t data overload. It wasn’t about analysis paralysis. It wasn’t even a “set-it-and-forget-it” mindset. It was something that data alone couldn’t fix. Leaders thought they wanted to track marketing program impact. But when results were difficult to digest, they chose to ignore troubling indicators instead of finding ways to improve.
Perhaps executives expected only “feel good” results. Or maybe middle managers sanitized negative data points and trend lines, so executives wouldn’t kill the messenger. But selective truth doesn’t change reality. And in this case, it didn’t lead to better business outcomes.
So perhaps the most important lesson of all is the hardest lesson to accept. Insight is only half of the measurement battle. Unless your organization is willing to face tough facts, you will never be able to move the meter in the right direction. You may not be doomed. But if you choose to do nothing, you are likely to keep stumbling through the wilderness.
Closing Notes
Business data can tell deeply powerful stories through analytics. Sometimes data will shout right out loud. Other times, it speaks only through a quiet whisper, a fleeting pause or a subtle shift in direction. But even in those tiny signals, data can speak volumes.
So tell me, what are you doing to give your data a useful voice? How closely are you listening to its message about your organization’s performance? And how do you respond?
If you have an analytics lesson to share, feel free to tell me about it at kkruse@talentedlearning.com.
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Bridging the Learning Analytics Gap: How Guided Insights Lead to Better Results
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Even with cutting-edge measurement tools, many struggle to find enough time and expertise to generate useful learning insights. How can you bridge this critical analytics gap?
Join John Leh, CEO and Lead Analyst at Talented Learning, and Tamer Ali, Co-Founder and Director at Authentic Learning Labs. You’ll discover:
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The post Measurement Matters: 3 Data Analytics Lessons to Remember appeared first on Talented Learning.
Measurement Matters: 3 Data Analytics Lessons to Remember original post at Talented Learning
Monday 1 April 2019
[Daily Update] All the free tech tools and resources we have shared in the last 24 hours in one handy place.
Pretty awesome eLearning article. Lots of tools
[Daily Update] All the free tech tools and resources we have shared in the last 24 hours in one handy place. published first on https://www.InstructionalEngineer.com