In the field of software, the term multi-tenancy refers to a single application shared by multiple user groups who each experience their own, individualised working environment.

Each ‘tenant’ is a group of users that shares certain common features with other tenants, but that may have certain design elements, layouts and privileges that are unique to their group.

A useful analogy is a block of flats. The building has a shared entrance, lifts and stairways, but each tenant has their own, self-contained flat. The tenant can choose their own appliances, furniture and interior design / decor.

A multi-tenancy LMS is a single learning management system instance that serves various learner groups with differing training needs. This may take a range of potential forms, depending on your organisational needs, and could include: 

• Different departments across a large organisation - for example, you may have separate learning environments for Sales and Manufacturing teams because their training needs are so different 
• Local offices across different locations - even multiple countries, allowing localisation or translation of training content 
• External partners - you can create tailored learning platforms for groups outside your own organisation, including suppliers, distributors and channel sales partners. This type of partner training is known as Extended Enterprise Learning. 
• A specialist training company, delivering any number of client-branded learning environments, or even using ecommerce to sell courses online. 

Your organisation-wide L&D team can control what content and features are rolled out to all tenants, and what is managed within each individual group. 

The benefits of multi-tenant LMS vs a standard learning platform are numerous, but the overarching themes are efficiency and flexibility. Here are some of the elements that L&D managers and business leaders are looking to achieve when they choose multi-tenancy:

When you need to segment the learning experience across departments, it has been common in the past for each one to have their own LMS. A multi-tenancy LMS offers economies of scale and allows each department to share the cost of the core platform and any common content, features, and system upgrades.

When every department operates in completely distinct silos, there is less functionality and visibility between them to facilitate resource and knowledge sharing. If something works for / is created within one department, a multi-tenant LMS makes it easy for the central administration team to share it across more or all departments.

With multi-tenancy, you can drill into course and learner analytics at the departmental and group-wide level. This can help you to identify and address training needs and weaknesses among certain types of user. It also helps you avoid overall learner data getting skewed by one or two outlier groups.

When something changes that affects several or all of your teams, it can be much faster to roll out from central management if they can influence all of those learning management systems in one hit. 

For example, new legislation like GDPR could affect all departments, so managing relevant training from a central location, while allowing it to be customised if and where needed, can greatly quicken roll out.

Whatever the training needs of a certain learner cohort, a multi-brand LMS enables each group to make their LMS feel like home. 

Whether it’s for external clients to have their own company branding or internal teams who just want to customise it to their preferred style, a branded LMS can enhance user acceptance and in turn, improve compliance, engagement and learning outcomes.

The example that comes to my mind was not so much strange but different and unique.

Recently we had a workshop with a customer from Italy and the customer was not so fluent in English, although they could understand it. I understand Italian, as it’s very similar to my native language Romanian, but I can’t speak it. So finally, we ended up with me speaking English and the customer speaking Italian – and it worked!

Reactions like we recently received in our knowledge transfer! This is an internal format where we introduce new releases to all our colleagues from imc.

In the last knowledge transfer, when we demonstrated the highlights of the new release, our colleagues from all over the world were so impressed and happy and wrote things like “Wow, this is such a great feature”, or “looks awesome, great job”. It is such a good feeling to see your work being appreciated after you put in so much effort.

We have no money. Who is meant to take care of it? And what’s the point anyway? These are some of the most common arguments and concerns brought forward when the topic of learning management systems (LMS) comes up. However, many decision-makers miss that the payback period for such an investment is incredibly short – provided the system is implemented and utilised in a consistent and meaningful way.

It’s easy to show that this is not just an empty marketing claim when basing calculations on a business case. You run through a scenario, examining strategic, economic and managerial, as well as process-based aspects. We spoke to Sales Manager Svenja Kreten who has created business cases many times over.

A business case is useful for evaluating the investment in an LMS. It helps to illustrate costs, benefits, risks and time investment better. It makes the company’s payback period for the LMS transparent and clear.

Arguments like “too expensive, not worth it” can easily be proven wrong with facts and figures: Functional benefits such as time savings, learning success, administration costs and realisation of revenue potentials can be broken down accurately.

A business case examines the feasibility of an investment. A calculation is performed on the project, providing the relevant indicators. In principle, a business case can be used for a vast range of circumstances. It’s always useful when looking at long-term or cost-intensive acquisitions. That definitely makes it a worthwhile exercise for the introduction of a learning management system.

The exact figures of the company’s spending are clearly defined - for example expenditures for the employees’ professional development. Specific expenditures are examined, like those incurred through manual administration of employee training courses. This includes both labour costs (human resources) and material costs (copies, name badges, etc.). The analysis also extends to parameters that directly or indirectly impact revenue growth.

The focus is on the cost savings the learning platform offers compared to traditional employee training measures. Costs and revenue potentials are both equally examined.

First, all expenses related to training and professional development are listed. Step two involves the evaluation of factors affecting revenues. Based on these cases, secondary calculations can also be used for specific departments of the company. Topics like new employee onboarding can be analysed separately.

The calculation on an LMS business case looks at the entire training and professional development process. Along this process, the parameters that can be influenced by the LMS are filtered out.

This includes some trivial aspects, like travel cost savings achieved by moving training courses from a face-to-face format to a virtual one. More complex parameters might include a reduction in the production error rate through more efficient training, or revenue increases through a shorter time-to-market cycle. These parameters are then quantified.

For organisations who see themselves as genuine learning businesses, and who are committed to developing and growing their teams, their time has come. They are embracing the technologies that will enable them to deliver the learning that is valued by those seeking the development, support and care.

Happy, stimulated, developing and supported employees are those more likely to stay and contribute to ongoing success - something every C-Suite and/or senior manager needs to keep in mind.

We’ve seen many examples of businesses having to adapt to this new business as ‘unusual’ environment. In a learning context, we’ve seen companies pivoting from delivering in-house training sessions, offsite sales conventions and other forms of in-person professional development to a full digital delivery format. Those who have adapted quickly may well be best positioned to capitalise on the ongoing benefits of digital learning.

It’s one thing to adapt, it’s another thing to do it efficiently and effectively. Again, in a learning context, those businesses who have been fast and adept at embracing new delivery mediums are having more success in maintaining effective connections with staff and key stakeholders.

Aligning the delivery of quick, effective and meaningful knowledge-transfer with the commercial/performance imperatives of the business has never been more critical. For many astute business people, the current climate has highlighted the critical importance of knowledge transfer and learning to drive increased engagement with staff and other stakeholders including customers. Stable, well trained and stimulated employees translate directly to the bottom line. Well-developed and informed customers/stakeholders become advocates for businesses.

A recent LinkedIn research study identified the primary driver that connected Millennials and Gen Zs to the organisations they worked for was… development. Not pay or work conditions, but development.

For organisations who see themselves as genuine learning businesses, and who are committed to developing and growing their teams, their time has come. They are embracing the technologies that will enable them to deliver the learning that is valued by those seeking the development, support and care.

Happy, stimulated, developing and supported employees are those more likely to stay and contribute to the ongoing success - something every C-Suite and/or senior manager needs to keep in mind.

Throughout the crisis of 2020 businesses have turned to and utilised connectivity tools including Zoom,  GoToMeeting and Teams to mention a few. In many respects, these tools have been a communication lifeline for business.

Yet, on their own, they are not learning, training or development tools. Genuine learning that is impactful, sustainable and measurable needs to be expertly designed to ensure it delivers the desired outcomes through the chosen delivery platform.

Virtual conferencing tools can and often do play an important part in a blended learning environment. However, they are not designed to be alternatives to expertly designed and delivered learning platforms.

Redesigning organisations’ employee experience was the focus in Nick Petch’s session. Nick, who heads the Digital Learning Experience & Design Strategy team, pointed out that employee experience is a powerful way to improve organisational learning and, ultimately, the future of performance.

But not many organisations consider employee experience as an essential aspect in the learning and development process. And employee experience isn't just about creating a great experience, it's about establishing a culture and identity of learning and development that is fundamental for an organisation's success.

Every step in the employee journey from onboarding, induction and development will influence an employee’s perspective towards the organisation. When organisations don't design each of these steps carefully, employees will feel that they are not valued, which will lower staff retention rates.

Experience or designing for experience is a systemic design challenge and not a single event. Developing an experience framework represents the very first step of an employee experience.

The panel discussion with Daniel Antman, Managing Director Australia and Ivana Lee, Managing Director Asia, was about measuring results of learning and development objectives. Both agreed that creating meaningful content, where the platform works for the learners rather than the other way around, is vital to ensure that learners can feel the benefit of a Learning Management System (LMS).

In the session, the speakers also pointed out that things are not going back to normal. Adaptability, nimbleness and alignment are the steps that need to be implemented by organisations to stay competitive. For organisations that see themselves as genuine learning businesses, and who are committed to developing and growing their teams, their time has come. They are embracing the technologies that will enable them to deliver learning that is valued by those seeking the development, support and care from businesses committed to them.

Within the discussion, the presenters also answered thoughtful questions from participants. Questions came across on topics like:

• when to start redesigning the employee experience
• how to prepare the workforce with the right skills in the current situation
• the availability of imc Express

Concerning imc Express, which will be rolled out in 2021, the speakers emphasised that this tool will not replace imc Content studio.

Besides this,  there was a question if learning analytic dashboard is a part of LMS. However, this is not the case. Learning Analytics dashboard will be a separate component; it will extract the data from LMS and the business data to produce the result.

The difference between training and development was also raised. This was explained as training is a set of programs defined by an organisation and development being much more an entrepreneurialistic, where people are motivated to learn and to improve by themselves.

Participants had the option to vote in several surveys. The result:

• 50% of the audience were excited with the upcoming challenges in 2021.
• 41% expect that organisations will be doing more learning and development in 2021.
• 58% think that their organisations learning and development objectives are aligned with the commercial or performance urgency.

How can organisations and employees survive the accelerating of the digital transformation? This is a global challenge that all industries are facing nowadays and which they can only handle by focusing on learning and training. Especially the last months has opened the eyes of CEO's, CHRO's and Heads of Learning to an even more significant opportunity for reskilling and retraining. Therefore, it’s essential to use the right platform to launch into future growth and to ensure staff retention.

These were the most important themes of imc Learning Connect industry event which was organised by imc Asia and took place virtually on 24 September 2020. We summarised the key facts of the event and which topics Learning and Development professionals, learning enthusiasts and digitalisation fans should have on their watch list for the upcoming year in two series of articles. This is the first of the series.

Christian Wachter, CEO of imc, opened the event and shared an outlook on the upcoming sessions. Among others, he talked about the importance for organisations to improve their learning strategy by utilising learning analytics dashboard. He also pointed out how to redesign employee experience to encourage lifelong learning and introduced imc’s new authoring tool called blish!. He closed his presentation with the hint, that technology is only a tool to transform organisations digitally; nevertheless, the input is much more critical to ensure effective utilisation.

In the maximise Learning Outcomes Session, imc board member Dr. Wolfram Jost discussed the importance of measuring the result of Learning and Development and how these will impact the business performance. With a learning analytics dashboard, organisations can see the link between the learning program and business key performance indicators.

Proving this connection can be a great support in convincing the management:  When learning and development leaders could show the impact of their program, management shall be more convinced to invest in reskilling and retraining.

How can digital learning support companies on their process of digital transformation? That was the topic of Lawrence Loh, Country Manager of imc Singapore. He pointed out that digital literacy, access and participation are essential to optimise organisations digital competency, as all these points influence future skills, business transformation and innovation as well as job profiles. Transferred to organisations, this means they have to prepare for the acceleration of digital led trends in order to optimise organisations digital competency.

Digital enterprise organisations will need to combine their processes, technology and people in the path towards digital transformation. To speed up this process will only be possible with digital learning and therefore a Learning Management System with a good user interface and user experience will enhance the learners' potential.

User generated learning content is the topic in imc Express, an authoring tool session by Oliver Nussbaum. Everybody can produce a learning content since people has abundance knowledge they could share within their organisations. Functional understanding of software, awareness of good design and basic didactical knowledge are the skills required to be learning content producer. imc Express will support the creation of meaningful learning content with a strong Artificial Intelligence (AI); hence everybody could publish their knowledge.

That was part one of the event highlights, you can find the second part here!

Spontaneous yawning, irritated eye-rolling and sudden appearance of urgent appointments are some of the most common side effects of announcing the latest compliance training. Yet, it is crucial that employees internalise the learned content from important training courses on topics such as data protection or fraud prevention for the long term. This can only be achieved if the learning experience is great. We reveal how that can be done.

Audi is leading by example. The automobile giant ventured to try a courageous concept: Web-based training modelled on “Sin City” is leveraged to train all employees in fraud prevention. Right from the outset, it is obvious that this training course is different. Usually, a participant would click “Start training now” to make a start on their training course. Here, they are greeted with the following text: “Welcome to Fraud City. The city “eats” its residents – skin, hair and all. We hope you’re up to it. Enter at your own risk.”

Throughout the course, the participant accompanies Detective Fraudless who investigates fraud cases. In this game setting, the participants become familiar with the criteria used to identify cases of fraud while also becoming sensitive to suspicious behavioural patterns.

Since not everyone can justify the time and expense of highly customised training courses, a large selection of off-the-shelf content (OTS) is also available. In particular, this is a suitable solution for contents or certifications requiring adaptation due to regular updates, legislative changes or new guidelines.

Such off-the-shelf training courses fit the bill for product training required in the insurance, banking, pharmaceutical or medical sectors. It is, however, important that providers hold relevant certificates and accreditations and are able to guarantee automated learning content updates.

Training alone is not enough – whether based on customised or standard content. Traceability must also be ensured. This is best done with a suitable LMS that allows admins to allocate relevant training courses to each target group, and should also include setting end points and establishing escalation management.

Say, for example, insurance expert Ms Smith belongs to a group of employees who must earn a specific number of IDD points . The administrator can create an automated alert for relevant courses in the system. If she fails to complete the training by a certain date, she will receive repeated email reminders. At a pre-defined date, her direct supervisor can also be informed.