Podcast 106: How Innovative Tools Improve Global Learning Results

EPISODE 106: Global Learning Innovation

Nick Eriksen, Chief Product Owner + Co-Founder, Eurekos

If you run a commercial training business, or if your company educates customers and partners, you’ll probably want to expand to other countries at some point. But managing an international footprint is notoriously difficult.

Language barriers, alone, pose significant global learning challenges. But that’s only one small piece of the puzzle, as today’s guest knows all too well.

Nick Eriksen, is Chief Product Owner and Co-Founder of Eurekos, an award-winning LMS provider based in Denmark. After years of helping companies of all sizes manage global learning programs, he is uniquely qualified to talk about how the right tools help.

What next-level strategies should you keep in mind? Find out as Nick and I dig deeper on this episode of the Talented Learning Show…

GLOBAL LEARNING INNOVATION — KEY TAKEAWAYS

• It’s one thing to sell and deliver training locally. But as soon as you cross geographic boundaries, the process becomes wildly complex — and language localization is just the tip of the iceberg.

• Imagine how tough it is to process and track subscription payments from organizations around the world, while complying with unique tax rules and other regulations wherever training participants are based. This is why providers need powerful systems to centralize and automate operational functions.

• Stellar content is also essential for success. That’s why LMS innovators are leveraging the flexibility of AI to drive hyper-personalized educational experiences. This is opening new doors for companies that want to create value by delivering global learning at scale.

GLOBAL LEARNING INNOVATION — Q&A HIGHLIGHTS

Welcome, Nick. To start, could you give us a snapshot of Eurekos?

Sure. Eurekos is an LMS focused on extended enterprise learning needs. That includes partners, resellers, and clients you serve as a training business. Either way, it’s about education driven by a commercial interest. And as the Chief Product Owner, I’m responsible for the Eurekos platform strategy and where we’re heading in the future.

What’s the biggest shift right now in how organizations sell content globally?

Well, everyone’s talking about AI. But if we put that aside, I’d say subscriptions are the biggest shift. They are really taking off, especially team subscriptions, where organizations are managing a bunch of people who need access to learning.

But there are complexities with managing these subscriptions.

For example, you won’t necessarily pay for a team subscription with a credit card. Instead, you’ll likely have what we call a managed subscription, where your organization pays for access to learning content through an invoicing process or other services we provide.

So, if you offer team subscriptions, you’ll need to manage the payment process. You also need to provide discounts, special deals, and content bundles. And you’ll want to keep adding to those promotional offers over time.

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Right.

Traditionally, a subscription would give you access to a learning path that fits your defined objectives, and the content would be packaged only in that way. But what happens three months later, when you face a new situation?

I know I said I wouldn’t discuss AI. But it plays a role in this shift by letting you leverage content to support many perspectives. AI makes it possible to query content and work with it in new ways. So, training is no longer a static product that goes stale over time.

Mmhmm…

With AI, you can get highly specific content recommendations. Or you can say, “I want to learn something else.” Or you can engage in new and more meaningful ways. It enables organizations to revamp instructional content, so it becomes much more useful over time.

This isn’t just about courses. You can include other resources, such as standard operating procedures, coaching, and other elements from your organization’s knowledge base in ways that bring new life to any learning experience.

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This team subscription model has a B2B aspect, where global learning providers sell content to large organizations, along with the flexibility to manage their learners and portals. Right?

Companies with subscriptions can make customized learning packages for various groups, based upon their needs. They can manage this the same way they manage access to software subscriptions like Microsoft Office or Adobe products.

But sometimes these groups are very large. And because people come and go, the administrative contact should be able to manage their access directly. So, with a packaged deal, they can enroll themselves in what they need.

Okay…

This means you need a fantastic storefront built into your LMS, so you can make your offerings highly visible to members of these groups.

People need to be able to easily find and choose what they want, when they want it. They need timely recommendations. They need access to marketing that promotes relevant content, so they’ll use it.

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Makes sense…

With a pure subscription, you can make sure everyone gets access, and you can monitor their progress. This is important because you’ll want to prove the value of the time and effort you’re putting into these training programs. You’ll want to demonstrate that they’re a worthwhile investment, so your organization will keep renewing them.

So, it makes sense to set up subscriptions on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis. But you’ll also want organizations to be able to add or remove specific items quickly, based on their particular needs. This kind of management flexibility is incredibly important.

This way, when you make a change, it instantly becomes available to everyone in a group. So, you can scale your offerings across huge user groups. And each group can have its own prices, discounts, and so on.

What are the biggest problems organizations face when selling training in multiple countries?

Well, if you want to mix B2C and B2B sales in different regions and countries, you’ll face complex tax issues. It’s not one-size-fits-all. In some countries, a seller must register, even before you make your first sale of only $20 to one consumer. And that’s just the start.

For instance, blended learning adds tax complexity. If you’re delivering virtual training, it matters who the seller is, who the buyer is, and where a participant is registered. Or, if you deliver in-person training, it matters where attendees travel from and to for these sessions.

So, to help with these and other global learning regulations, we built a tax management system into our platform.

Nice. Are you integrating with Avalara or another tax management system? Or did you build this yourselves?

We built it. And we also integrate. That’s because no single system can cover all the variants. But we are able to address a majority of cases.

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So, you have subscriptions, along with special ways to package, sell, and manage learning. And earlier you said you can add content to a company’s knowledge base, for a highly personalized agent-type learning experience. How does that work?

For me, personalization is about timing. It’s about catching people at different touchpoints in the learning journey, so you can enrich their learning experience and continue doing that over time.

I see…

This is basically an engine that starts personalizing when you log in. It begins with recommendations you see in the catalog, based on what it knows about your interests.

Some things are assigned because you fit a specific profile. But imagine there’s a welcome questionnaire where you choose three pains you want to resolve. Then, the system will start identifying content to address those needs at various levels.

Hmm…

As you begin to interact with content, your actions will influence those recommendations. For example, what are you bookmarking?

Then, as you move through trainings, it will consider your performance. So, this can become an adaptive learning path, which is also personalization.

Also, when you complete something, the outcome creates data. That’s another opportunity for personalization that recommends next steps, so it’s easier to move forward.

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Excellent. 

And with more actions, you’ll have more data that will help you streamline and improve each experience.

You’re also able to see gaps. Not just individual gaps, where someone doesn’t perform well on a specific topic, so they need more practice or reinforcement. But more broadly, the system identifies behavioral patterns and recognizes where other people who fit a particular vector can also benefit from the same next steps.

And this is unique because it’s not about promoting an existing course or curriculum…

Yes. You can split courses into many pieces, so people can get exactly what they want, when they need it, without having to deal with everything in a course, all at once.

Someone may have access to a full course through a subscription, but the system can also upsell access to other content that enriches the learning experience. And this happens at the moment a person needs it. This is part of that learning agent system.

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Interesting. So, say you’ve developed 100 courses. With this system, they’re exponentially more valuable. Because there are many more content pieces that can be recombined in all kinds of ways for learning at multiple touchpoints.

Yes. But personalization can be dangerous. You don’t want to put people into a funnel that limits their perspective as you iterate.

To avoid a learning experience that becomes very narrow, the system should configure some personalized options that are outside box. This exposes people to new stuff they may not have thought about.

Yes, that’s important. Now, let’s talk about the future of global learning. What do you see ahead? …

… For complete answers to this and other questions about new ways to manage global learning, listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, on Amazon, or right here on our site.

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Learn More From Eurekos Leaders

Which trends are shaping customer education in Europe? See my interview with Eurekos CEO, Anders Willumsen:

Find Out More About Eurekos

See how this innovative platform supports global learning programs. Check my Hot Take Review of Eurekos LMS on YouTube:

Need a Platform to Manage Global Learning? Let’s Talk

For independent advice you can trust, schedule a free 30-minute consult below with me, John Leh…

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