Why Smaller Businesses Need A Training Management System (And An LMS!)
In the world of training and development software, Training Management Systems (TMS) and Learning Management Systems (LMS) can often be confused as the same system. In fact, they are two very different systems, which offer different benefits to your business. You may think that you need to choose between which system to install in your business, but actually, it could be far more beneficial for your small business to have both a TMS and an LMS at your disposal.
What Is A TMS?
A Training Management System is software which is designed to help training providers look after all the administrative tasks associated with their training, and manage all aspects of their training from one central point.
The exact specifications of every Training Management System will be slightly different, but overall they will allow your team to manage things like selling your courses online, student and staff communications, reports, students certificates, and surveys – all while cutting down on your duplicate data entry and repetitive tasks. This means you can still complete all the tasks that you need to, but a TMS allows you to do it faster and cheaper, and therefore be far more productive.
What Is An LMS?
A Learning Management System is software that allows you to offer eLearning to your students. This means you can either us pre-created content, or create your own content, and upload it to your LMS so your students can work through it themselves.
You can also use your LMS software to track the learning your students are participating in and pull useful stats so you can report on any eLearning you are providing.
Why Your Business Needs A TMS
So why does your small business need a TMS?
Perfect For Smaller Teams
If you’re running your business with quite a small team of staff, a Training Management System can really help take the load off, while still ensuring that all your vital tasks are completed when they need to be. Think of the amount of time your staff spends doing things like sending emails, compiling reports, or sending out surveys to your students, when in reality all this could be managed automatically by your TMS, leaving your staff with lots more time to focus on those important tasks that do require the human touch.
A Training Management System will allow you to do a lot more than you can currently manage, without increasing the size of your team, which will save you money in the long run as well.
Keep Track Of Everything
Using a Training Management System as your centralised point for all your company’s training information will make your life a whole lot easier, and you’ll never have to spend time emailing around and hunting for information again, as you can just head straight to your TMS.
This also means all your information will only be getting updated in one place as well, so you don’t need to worry about different people working from different versions of the same document and causing confusion!
Get Rid Of Surplus Systems
Chances are you’re probably using a couple of different systems just now which do the same job as part of a Training Management System. For example, you may have a separate CRM or a separate reporting system. If you make the move to a Training Management System, you can stop using all these additional systems. Not only will this save you money, as you’ll only be paying for one system, but it also makes your business more organised, as all your information is stored in one place, and you’ll be able to use data from across any part of the system.
Here are just some of the other systems you won’t need to buy separately if you make the move to a Training Management System:
- CRM
- Reporting system
- Sales system
- Team management software, such as a knowledge base
- Finance system
- Survey creation tool
- Marketing system
Why Your Business Needs An LMS
So while a TMS can manage all the aspects of your training administration, an LMS is designed to allow you to offer eLearning to your students. If this is not something you do at present, it may be something worth looking into, as it’s a great way to expand your learning offering.
Offer eLearning To Your Students
Giving your students the option of eLearning could be enough to give you the advantage over your competitors, which can be extremely important to smaller businesses! You can offer complete eLearning courses, or even offer blended learning courses, so your students can still get some classroom time as well – whatever works best for the courses you offer.
This will give you students more flexibility, as they don’t have to be able to attend your scheduled classroom sessions to be able to complete their training with you, and it will give them the ability to learn in their own way, in their free time, to make sure they have the best learning experience possible.
Reach A Wider Customer Base
eLearning can be particularly good for smaller businesses because it allows you to target a much larger audience than those who could physically attend your classroom-based sessions. In fact, eLearning means anyone in the world could attend your training! This may not work for all the classes you offer, as some training or qualifications may only be valid in specific locations, but for more general courses it could be a great chance to expand your potential audience.
Reach Larger Numbers of Students at Once
If you only offer classroom-based training sessions, you will always be limited by things like the amount of classroom space you have, and the amount of teaching time your tutors have available. However, with eLearning, none of that will hold you back, as you will be able to have as many students as you want signed up to your course.
This also gives you the ability to offer a much larger amount of classes for eLearning than you do for classroom-based sessions, as again you’re not limited by any physical elements. You also don’t have to worry about things like having a minimum about of students signed up for a class to run, as students will be able to sign up to your eLearning classes at any time.
Get A System That Can Do Both
The ideal solution to all your problems here would be to get yourself a system that can solve all your problems in one go – and that’s where Administrate comes in.
Not only do we offer you all the functionality of a Training Management System, we also have a built-in LMS as well. This means you can offer eLearning to your students, as well as keeping all your information linked through your TMS. This means you can schedule and organise all your course through Administrate, whether they are classroom-based, online, or blended, track all the training a student has signed up for, and pull any information through from your LMS into the reporting system, so you can create reports which represent all your learning offerings. What’s the point in having a separate Training Management System and Learning Management System when Administrate can offer you everything you need in one package?
If you’re interested in seeing if Administrate could work for your small business, why not book a personalised demo with one of our team members? This will give you a chance to ask as many questions as you need to, and see which parts of the system will work specifically for your business!
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Originally published at www.getadministrate.com.
