Shortlist Vendors for your LMS Comparison

Now it’s time to start your LMS comparison by identifying the qualified learning solutions that meet your requirements. With so many learning system vendors in the market, it’s important not to start screening them until you know exactly what you need and want. Who wants to compare that many vendors? But, with your requirements finished you are ready for action!

So many vendors, so little time

There are so many learning technology vendors and so much information, it can be challenging and overwhelming to research them. Websites can look similar even though solutions are not. There’s often no reliable correlation between a website and an LMS vendor’s true capability. Even so, you need a way to decide which vendors to include in your LMS comparison.

While it’s best to start talking with vendors about their LMS platform after the requirements have been defined, there are many questions that will arise now about how to approach an LMS comparison:

• Which vendors should we research and contact? How many should we contact?
• Where do we start? When do we stop?
• How do we know we’re talking to LMS vendors who have the right solutions for our needs and requirements?
• What if the right LMS or learning platform is the next one we would have contacted, but didn’t?

Attempting to individually qualify each vendor and their solution will take too much time and increase the likelihood that you’ll make a poor decision. You may also default to buying a popular LMS cloud software or platform and paying way too much, when what you need is a more specialized, cost-efficient solution that tightly supports your use case and requirements.

Choosing the wrong LMS can have long-term negative consequences for both your organization – overpaying, using only a small portion of a large learning technology system – and for you – facing possible criticism and finger-pointing, and harming your reputation in the organization.

The power of shortlisting vendors for a thorough LMS comparison

The trick to finding the right LMS is to spend your time closely evaluating qualified vendors – not qualifying each vendor. You can’t do it by yourself; you have to use the resources of the industry.

The resources that can help you shortlist vendors for your LMS comparison include customer review sites, professional groups, industry experts, award lists, your LinkedIn network and, of course, the fiercely-independent resources in the Talented Learning Center!

A targeted, yet comprehensive approach to creating a vendor shortlist will help you avoid common pitfalls. You’ve spent a lot of time and effort developing the business case and defining requirements. Put that information to work now to narrow down the field of competitors.

Benefits of Membership

If you are shopping for an LMS or other learning system, join the Talented Learning Center to access deep, fiercely-independent research and education needed to succeed.  We have free and premium membership levels outlined below:

Many resources in the Talented Learning Center are available when you sign up for FREE as a Basic Member. You’ll have access to content such as:

• Learning System Client Case Studies Directory  – Search real-life case studies by use case, vendor name, functionality, location, industry & other criteria.
• The Talented Learning Show Podcast – Information and advice from many practitioners about their learning initiatives.
• Vendor Shortlister – Quickly find qualified vendor options based on hundreds of differentiating criteria.
• Living Vendor Profiles – In-depth and current research on the world’s best learning vendors.
• Executive Briefing Demonstrations – Demos highlighting the business, functional and technical differentiators of top vendor solutions.
• Hot Takes with John Leh (videos) – Tap into John Leh’s expertise in a series of short video reviews and commentary on leading learning systems.

As you’re proceeding through the Learning System Buying Process, you’re likely to face some obstacles and uncertainty about how to proceed. Once again, we’re here to help! Premium Membership in the Talented Learning Center includes many more resources to help you at every stage of the LMS or learning systems buying process. Try it FREE for 7 days when you sign up for Premium Membership, where you’ll receive all the benefits of Basic Membership, plus:

• Ask John Leh Videos – Learn about learning systems technology one question at a time with our library of short informational videos.
• Microlessons, Courses and Certifications – Get up to speed with our library of over 20 (and growing), 15-minute, microlessons on learning systems use cases, stages of the buying process and key functional capabilities.
• On-Demand Webinars – Get in-depth expert advice with our deep catalog of webinars and panel discussions on a wide variety of topics from buying, implementing and improving your learning system initiatives