How to Buy an LMS For Life

There’s a lot riding on selecting the right learning management system (LMS). The right platform can significantly impact training effectiveness, employee, customer, and partner engagement, and overall organizational growth. Likewise, your LMS should have features that lift administrative burden off your team’s shoulders, while also serving the remote and hybrid work styles that dominate today’s corporate environments.

The problem with many platforms though is they sacrifice the administrator’s experience for the learner’s. Similarly, there are new solutions that are light on features and established solutions that haven’t properly invested in their fundamental architecture in ages.

In order to buy an LMS for life, you need to look for one that doesn’t only serve the needs of one user or moment in time.

The Overlooked Needs of Learning Administrators

Over the last decade, LMS vendors have been focused on creating a consumer-grade experience for learners, one with all the bells and whistles to support the discovery of learning, but severely lacking in a user experience and tools that make the jobs of learning administrators easier, especially for required training, which is the foundation of most organizational learning programs.

Admins are the backbone of any LMS, responsible for a range of tasks including user management, content updates, reporting, and technical troubleshooting. While a learner’s experience is important, admins are the ones managing the complex learning programs that ensure the organization’s needs are met. If they can’t use the LMS to complete their tasks efficiently and without frustration, then it’s unlikely there will be a high return on investment on the platform.

Futureproofing the LMS

Futureproofing an LMS is a tricky business. On the one hand, it’s more important than ever to invest in tools built for a global, digital world. Features like innovative AI, mobile-first capabilities, and seamless integrations make L&D programs a much simpler and more enjoyable experience for everyone.

On the other hand, in the rush to adopt new technologies, there is often a compromise on the depth of function. Learning leaders may choose an LMS with flashy new features but insufficient depth in critical areas like compliance-related learning, AI, analytics, or content customization. To overcome this, you and your team need to know the right questions to ask LMS vendors.

Questions to Ask Your LMS Vendor

When looking to buy a new LMS for life, the first step is to sit with your team and identify the essential functions your LMS must perform. To help, we’ve narrowed down these functions to the most important, which you can read about in ​​our Top 10 Enterprise LMS Features: The No-Fluff Guide.

Once you know what features matter to your team, you can go to vendors with questions like:

  • How easy is it for admins to create dynamic learner groups for managing learning assignments, registrations, and more?
  • Can interactive elements, like quizzes and games, be easily added to existing videos and presentations?
  • Does the system give us the ability to train and serve multiple audiences simultaneously, whether it’s multiple subsidiaries under a parent company, training partners, customers, and employees, or supporting regional needs?
  • Is the platform built for AI, allowing for the seamless movement and use of the data needed for us to get the most out of future AI innovations?
  • Are AI-generated recommendations for learners based on their whole profile or mostly multiple, confusing lists that cause decision paralysis?
  • Does the mobile app include one-stop access for managers to monitor, approve, or remind users of training?
  • Can learning be embedded into messaging apps like Slack or business systems like Salesforce?
  • Do we have the ability to use multiple APIs simultaneously without blocking application access or lowering integration performance?
  • Does the system offer skills-gap analyses and skills-based training assignments?
  • Can we use natural language input to get answers to questions like “Which managers have employees registered in training next month?”

Strike the Right Balance

In looking for the right LMS for your organization, you must look to meet your needs today and tomorrow—and we do mean your needs. It can be tempting to leave yourself out of the equation so long as your learners, instructors, and partners meet their goals, but this limits your ability to be effective and adaptable.

When it comes to facing future challenges, it’s not only your LMS that you want to stand the test of time. You and your team should be in the best position to achieve your goals and the right LMS will help get you there.

Embrace the future with confidence—choose a modern learning platform that grows with you.