As the corporate training industry continues to evolve with advancing best practices and the introduction of new technologies to support these practices, many companies are seeing the benefit in expanding their training efforts beyond their four walls to include external entities that are interested in and can help drive the value of your brand. The inclusion of these external entities into your corporate view is commonly referred to as the “extended enterprise”, a definition that has come to include your customers, channel partners, suppliers, and other organizations that have a stake in your company’s operations and efficiencies.
While expanding your corporate view to include these parties can impact many of your different operations, one of the most dramatic benefits is proving to be in expanding your corporate training program to include targeted modules specific to these external entities.
The Benefits of Extended Enterprise Training
By expanding your corporate training program to include your extended enterprise, you create an infrastructure in which you can provide your customers, partners, and other external entities with the training and information they need to both gain and contribute the greatest possible value from working with your organization. Customer training programs will increase the knowledgeable they need regarding the best use of your offerings, which typically results in greater and faster user adoption as well as reduced customer turnover. The proper education of your partners will enable them to more effectively sell your products and services to help drive growth. While vendors and suppliers can leverage training programs to gain a better understanding of how to more effectively service your organization.
The Benefits of an Extended Enterprise Learning Management System
In the past, the only feasible corporate training option for most organizations with in delivering in-person, classroom-based training. But in recent years, as cloud-based technologies have continued to evolve and workforces have become increasingly remote, online learning, or “eLearning” has emerged as the preferred approach to corporate training.
The core technology that is used to support corporate eLearning programs is a Learning Management System, or “LMS”. An LMS is the application that is used to build, deliver, manage, and track your corporate training program. And while LMS technology is not new to the marketplace, several advances have made better-suited for extended enterprise training programs.
Cloud-Based
The availability of cloud-based LMS platforms, offered by third-party vendors, has eliminated the need for large, up-front investments in the hardware, software, and supporting infrastructure required for the system. And with cloud-based delivery, your learners have easy access to training at any time and from any place. All that is required is an Internet connection. Cloud-based deliver is, therefore, ideally suited for the diverse audience needs associated with extended enterprise training programs.
Multi-Tenant
A multi-tenant LMS offers an architecture that allows you to “spin up” a dedicated instance of the application to support each of your unique training audiences. For extended enterprise training programs, this means that each of your audiences is offered a branded and customized eLearning experience that is dedicated to their specific training needs and separate from your other training programs.
Rapid eLearning
Another powerful feature, available in some LMS platforms, is the inclusion of a rapid course development engine to allow most anyone to build and deliver high-quality, engaging eLearning courses quickly and easily. The availability of rapid eLearning tools is particularly valuable in extended enterprise training, given the volume of courses you may need to deliver, as well as the fact that many of your Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) may not have any course development experience.
LMS Portals for Extended Enterprise Training
LMS Portals provides our clients and partners with a cloud-based, multi-tenant learning management system that allows you to launch and manage multiple branded eLearning environments (portals) on-demand. Each portal you launch includes powerful tools for rapid and simplified course development, along with supporting tools for user onboarding, learner collaboration, analytics, and more.
Visit our Partner Program pages to learn more or contact us today to get started
for free!