LMS Review: BlueVolt LMS

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BlueVolt has some nice amperage with extended enterprise LMS distribution.  This company gets it, and effectively marries learning with marketing.  Manufacturers, distributors, associations and service companies use the BlueVolt Learning Management System to develop and deliver highly effective online training.

BlueVolt is the first LMS I reviewed that is really staking out a specific space in the extended enterprise LMS market.  Love it.

BlueVolt targets the manufacturing industry including the relevant member-based organizations and brings together manufacturing companies and their independent sales distribution channels.  Since the sales distribution channels are always non-captured or independent, the manufacturing companies are encouraged to put eLearning modules online about their unique products and how to sell them.  The result is a community of manufacturers, distributors and retailers all on the same system.

Employees of the distribution channel could be from large box store retailers or local mom and pop electrical supply stores.  No distributor or employee of a distributor can have a masterful knowledge of every product from every manufacturer so with the BlueVolt LMS manufacturers race to obtain and expand mindshare in the distribution channel and channel employees.

All features are tailored towards these audiences and usages.  To that end, if you are in manufacturing and thinking about sales channel learning technology, you have to talk to BlueVolt.  If you are not in manufacturing, you can skip these folks as too niche.

BlueVolt Extended Enterprise Vitals

LMS Name:  BlueVolt

Website:  www.BlueVolt.com

Contact Information:  http://www.bluevolt.com/forms/contact-us

Extended Enterprise Ready:  Yes

Types of Extended Enterprise Expertise:

• Sales Channel
• Associations

Industry Focus:

• Manufacturing and service industries including their associations and member organizations.

Differentiation:

The BlueVolt team has developed close partnerships with the manufacturing and service industries, so they provide a tight, tailored solution that is very specific to those audiences.  BlueVolt is from that space, knows how to target that space and provides not only the LMS, but also complementary services such as video, webcast and course development.

Licensing and Certification:

•  When loading courses, you can create sub modules and programs of study, but I didn’t see assignment of credits, accreditation or anything like that.  It is more about training sales channel organizations that are doing it more voluntary vs. trying to get accredited.  There is the incentive concept of the $BlueBucks described below.
• I did find a link to Continuing Education classes that BlueVolt offers —http://go.bluevolt.com/default/help.aspx.  Based on the q/a the LMS is capable of managing CEUs with some sophistication for state variations but I couldn’t verify.

e-Commerce Features:

• There is the ability to set an ecommerce process around the purchase of courses.
• Integration with ecommerce engines.
• Integration with Open Sesame content portal would also trigger ecommerce processes.

Social Collaboration Features:

• Integration into existing social networks like FaceBook and Twitter.
• Most notable is BlueVolt has created its own social network out of its very similar customers and allows customers to share their content across any Blue Volt Customer.

Mobile Features:

• Branded mobile experience but does not specify if responsive design or apps for tablets and smartphones.
• Offline content tracking.

Gamification Features:  

• BlueVolt has an incentive feature called $BlueBucks.  Administrators can establish a value when setting up a course.  Users complete the course and earn and accrue the $BlueBucks that can be redeemed for gift cards to hundreds of popular retailers.  Doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of configuration to this feature and it also appears to be consistent across their entire client base.

Adaptive Learning Features: 

• Target learning based on role or custom fields.

Globalization Features: 

• 12 language localization.

Technology: 

• Pure cloud / SaaS solution.
• System integration with Single Sign On, HRIS, CRM, ecommerce, Google Analytics, Adobe Connect & Crazy Egg.
• Historical data input of users and content available.

Links to Case Studies or Position Papers on Extended Enterprise Learning: 

• IMARK Group:  Improved Member Value with electrical manufacturers and their sales distribution
• Sphere 1:  Achieving competitive and sustainable Advantages with tool manufacturers and their sales distribution
• Klein Tools University:  Online training resource for professional tradesmen in the electrical, construction, telecommunications and electronics fields
• Affiliated Distributors:  Utilizes branded “AD Knowledge@Noon” hosted webcasts to allow manufacturers to present products to their distributor members.

Links to Online Demos of LMS:

• BlueVolt Rapid Tutorials on YouTube is a 23-part series.  I was hoping to see e-commerce, mobile and social but didn’t.  However, you get a good feel for the intuitiveness and ease of use of the system.
• Here is a nice video on YouTube that describes BlueVolt and the focus on marketing and learning

In the News:  No press releases or articles found on extended enterprise in 2014.

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About Talented Learning LMS Reviews

Talented Learning LMS Reviews provide initial screening of vendors for extended enterprise suitability.  Vendors share lots of information on their websites — feature lists, video demos, case studies, position papers, press releases, free trials and more.  We review and analyze all of this information to determine a vendor’s mission, assess the platform’s strengths and weaknesses, and determine how effectively it serves extended enterprise learning needs.

As always, at Talented Learning, we’re not about making sweeping predictions or judging vendors.  Instead, we document the realities of today’s LMS landscape, and how learning technology is actually adding value.  We have only one goal — to help clients find appropriate LMS vendors based on their unique business requirements.