Educational programs at the enterprise level are a key driver of customer experience (CX) and other revenue-impacting outcomes. Per a 2024 Forrester study on Customer Education (CE), 79% of experts said CE is central to CX, 75% said it boosted product adoption, 72% said it shortened sales cycles, and 63% said it reduced costs.
Unlocking these benefits, especially for more mature businesses, means working with a capable enterprise learning management system (LMS) provider. Enterprise LMS providers offer expert guidance, accessible platforms, and dedicated support to maximize training impact.
Below, we’ll explain the benefits of enterprise LMS, how to pick the ideal partner and implement a solution, and how to get the most out of your LMS implementation.
Understanding Enterprise LMS
An enterprise LMS platform allows large companies to create, distribute, and manage training programs from a centralized hub. LMS solutions facilitate external training, customer education, and other learner engagement needs a company has.
Critically, enterprise learning management systems also accommodate the needs of external learners, such as the clientele or personnel of third-party strategic partners.
For these reasons, large organizations across many industries and use cases, like tech, manufacturing, and B2B services, should consider an enterprise LMS.
Choosing the Right Enterprise LMS
The most important considerations when choosing an LMS are your organization’s needs and its learner base. However, in any scenario, learner engagement needs to be at the forefront of your decision.
For example, for customer training, you should identify how you want to manage online courses, what metrics and milestones are most important to track, and which delivery methods will most effectively reach your current and potential audiences.
Another key element here is engagement—in what ways will stakeholders and learners be expected to engage with the programs? What needs do they have?
A quality enterprise LMS solution accounts for all these factors and more.
Key Features of an Enterprise LMS
Some of the key features to look for in a top enterprise LMS provider include:
- Scale: Enterprise LMS solutions can scale to accommodate large and growing user bases, including expanding ranges of roles and permissions.
- Ease of operation: Enterprise LMS facilitates creating, managing, and distributing training materials across multiple contexts and platforms.
- Data capabilities: Enterprise LMS allows for unparalleled data collection, analytics, and reports, enabling dynamic adjustments and optimizations.
- Compatibility: Enterprise LMS is built to integrate with, into, and across enterprise systems (e.g., HR, CRM, etc.) in its own (or their) dashboards.
- Accessibility: Enterprise LMS solutions make content accessible however learners need it—anytime, anywhere, and in any form that’s best for them.
Thought Industries has all these qualities in spades, so we’ve been a leader in the enterprise training program, platform, and support space for years.
Comparing Top Enterprise LMS Providers
According to a Forbes Advisor roundup of top LMS solutions for 2024, two other platforms named as ideal for enterprises and corporations (respectively) include:
- Absorb: Forbes’ editor appreciated the features and customer support but dinged Absorb for opaque pricing and a lack of search functions.
- Docebo: Integration is a major plus for Docebo, with over 400 connections and 40 languages, but Forbes’ editor found it lacking overall robustness.
Thought Industries compares favorably against both picks, with robust and dynamic functions across a wide range of use cases, near-infinite extensibility, integration capabilities, and unique opportunities for efficiency and monetization.
For these reasons, Thought Industries was recognized as the #1 LMS for 2023.
Implementing Your LMS Successfully
Implementing an LMS solution is as simple as picking a quality provider, migrating content onto the platform and/or developing new material, and managing learners.
Along the way, companies need to watch out for potential challenges, such as lapses in accessibility or issues integrating the LMS with other platforms. Top enterprise LMS solutions minimize these issues with careful planning and responsive support.
Another major challenge that can’t be overlooked is the new normal of customers’ expertise—or lack thereof—due to educational breakdowns. Put simply, technological literacy and wherewithal across user bases need to be considered when designing educational materials to be as accessible and effective as possible.
Maximizing the Impact of Your LMS
On one level, you want to maximize the accessibility and reach of your programs. This means making sure learners can find and navigate online courses or, if possible, providing mobile learning to help them learn in their preferred ways. In fact, the best LMS providers support dedicated platforms for distinct groups of learners, along with the ability to export or share content across channels for enhanced accessibility.
Beyond reach, you also need to engage learners continuously. This means providing a diverse experience with multiple styles and approaches to the material and dynamic content and evaluations that keep them both challenged and supported.
On another level, you’ll also want to collect data across the program. This will allow you to track learner progress and training effectiveness against business outcomes, like engagement, self-sufficiency, and overall support cost.
Case Studies: Successful LMS Deployments
Using an enterprise LMS is about much more than just hosting training courses in a convenient and accessible way. Importantly, an enterprise LMS can empower companies by engaging their learners.
Consider these success stories from Thought Industries case studies:
- Professional Software Training: The Linux Foundation leveraged enterprise LMS to increase revenue by 50% with broader reach and customization capabilities.
- Manufacturing: Yaskawa America doubled its learner adoption model over four months using segmentation and accessibility functions.
- Healthcare: IA MED increased its user base by over 200% and its direct sales by 53% using an enterprise LMS to streamline its medical training ecosystem.
Whether it’s baseline compliance, intricate technical expertise, or more holistic social learning, partnering with the right enterprise LMS can supercharge your education.
Implement an Enterprise LMS Solution Today
There’s a reason why training expenditures across the US have risen from $87.6B in 2018 to $101.8B in 2023. Companies of all sizes and maturities—but especially the largest ones—are seeing the impact that overall enterprise education has on revenue. And the best way to take advantage of it is through enterprise LMS.
Thought Industries delivers powerful collaborative learning and enterprise training and education programs to organizations in every industrial cross-section. Schedule a demo today to see what our enterprise LMS solution can do for you.
