Your Revenue-Generating Advantage: A Future-Proofed e-Learning Program

Notice how much of the recent advice for keeping your training program stable during and after COVID is focused on maintaining the status quo?  These goals aim to ensure continuity, or support remote work, or continue upskilling.

Thing is, truly future-proofing your training program is about so much more than continuity.. You want to be able to grow your business and your reach no matter what gets thrown your way.

That’s your revenue-generating advantage — delivering results no matter the context.

To gain this advantage, you’ll need to embrace your digital transformation with a learning management system (LMS) that helps you drive better outcomes from your online courses. A deep dive into the data from the COVID-19 pandemic will show you what worked in the past year and what didn’t. With this knowledge, you can continue future-proofing to optimize for growth.

Technology to the Rescue (or not?)

New technologies have created both amazing opportunities and new headaches for L&D teams during the pandemic. On the one hand, your LMS made remote training possible. On the other, it takes time to learn new software and get it to work for your business.

These two statistics sum up the tech struggle:

• 28% of L&D professionals reported ramping up technology as a top challenge. - Training Magazine’s State of the Industry 2020
• 43% of virtual instructor-trainers reported technology issues as their #1 challenge. - Cindy Huggett’s State of Virtual Training.

Your future-proof failsafe — digital transformation.

Most organizations are going to continue some remote training. But they’ll probably move some of their high-impact training back to in-person. What if you do the opposite? What if you create digital training so good that you get the same results as in-person sessions?

That's the ultimate goal of digital transformation. It means generating revenue and results for your organization no matter what.

🔎  Learn more about digitally transforming your learning strategy in our blog post, “Digital Transformation of Learning Series: Part 1 - Creating a Strategy.”

Avoid Putting Your Learning Program on Ice

A lucky 14% reported no change in their training program during the pandemic, according to Training Magazine’s State of the Industry 2020.

Imagine if that was you. Imagine that everything locked down and you just went to work normally. Everything continued to run exactly as it did before.

The reality for many was the need to freeze new program rollouts.  Training Industry's L&D Pulse Survey found 37% of companies delayed rolling out new programs. And organizations needed their L&D teams more than ever during the pandemic. They needed new training on how to adjust, but L&D could only deliver with the right technology.

Your future-proof failsafe — invest in long-term learning technology.

The learning technology market is vast and complex. You don’t want to be shopping when you should be finding new ways to generate revenue. A digital training program is your secret revenue-generating advantage. When others are frozen, you’re rolling out cutting-edge, relevant programming. You’re growing your business no matter what.

🔎  Wondering how to choose the exact LMS for your needs? Read our buying guide, “The CLO’s Handbook for Choosing Learning Technology to Grow Your Business.”

Tame Wild Budgets

You can’t measure your return-on-investment (ROI) without a consistent budget. Last year, it’s likely that your budgets shifted wildly. Training Industry’s L&D Pulse survey found 62% of organizations were spending more. By contrast, Training Magazine’s research found an 18% decrease in payroll.

A future-proofed solution may not save you from budget cuts, but it will help you spend your budget smartly.

Perhaps organizations who went over budget discovered they needed new technology in order to grow. Maybe they were unpleasantly surprised by revenue losses  and had to scale back. But one thing is for sure — they spent their budgets with more care and scrutiny than usual, which is a good thing. Understanding cost versus benefit and making measured decisions, especially when it comes to technology, is essential to drive growth.

Your future-proof failsafe — calculate the cost of your digital-first strategy now.

With digital transformation, you’ll open new, high-margin revenue streams and build more revenue predictability into your business. When the next major change comes, you’ll already know what your organization needs. You’ll have future-proofed your training strategy.

At BenchPrep, we offer a digital-first solution. Our online learning platform takes

Learn more about digital transformation from our case study on McGraw-Hill, “Taking Traditional Learning Methods into the Digital Stratosphere.”