5 Steps you Need to Take When Choosing a Training Management System

Choosing the right system for your training management tasks is crucial to the success of your training business. With hundreds of solutions available, it can often feel overwhelming to choose one. Worst case scenario – you end up choosing a solution with functions you do not need, yet pay large amounts of money for.

How do you go about ensuring the solution that works best for your business?

Here is a 5-step guide to choosing the most advantageous management solution for your course and training business.

Step 1: Analyze the needs of the business

Start the process of discussing the topic with colleagues and policy makers in the business. Define what your business needs are when it comes to a training management solution. What kind of functions do you really need?

When you do this you should keep several things in mind. Think about the business goals, what tasks are involved with the new system, what is important for the employees in the business, what is important for the company’s customers and not to be forgotten; security. You don’t want to end up with a non-GDPR compliant solution.

Whether it’s the first time you go into purchasing a training management system or if you are looking to replace an old system, there are two things you should also consider:

Training administration solution or LMS?

What you really need to consider is: Is it a training management system you need, or are you really in need of an LMS? If you need help with this decision, we have written a blog post on Training Management Systems vs. LMS here.

«All-in-one» or «Best-of-breed»?

In addition, you should consider whether you are looking for an all-in-one supplier or whether a “best-of-breed” solution is best for you. Do you need a solution that only helps you with training administrative work and specializes in this field, or do you need a solution that also covers other parts of the business?

Step 2: Make a list of requirements

Based on the analysis in the previous step, you should now set up a list of requirements for the solution in a priority order. This way it becomes easier to understand what is crucial, what is important and what is nice to have in the solution you are looking for.

Step 3: Search for alternatives that match your needs

Now that you have your complete list of requirements and know better what is important and what is “nice to have”, it is time to find some relevant system vendors and exclude non-relevant system vendors. Make active use of your list of requirements when researching the various alternatives you find.

Step 4: Conduct product evaluations

After finding some potential providers of training management software, you’ve probably found two or three favorites that seem to have what you’re looking for. These are your finalists. Now is the time to go deeper into these.

You can do this by requesting more information than what is available on the website, booking a demo or testing out a trial period of the solutions.

When it comes to such complex systems as training management systems, we at FrontCore believe that you will get the most out of booking a demonstration of the solution.

Through a demo, the sales person you talk to will gain insight into what your needs are and thus, show you how the solution can meet exactly those needs. You don’t have to mess around with an unfamiliar solution without understanding how different functions can be of help to your business, and you don’t have to browse long PDF documents full of product information.

Through a demo you have the opportunity to ask questions, so you can make sure that the solution actually contains the functions that you have on your list of requirementst. In addition, you will receive a contact person, of whom you can contact if you have any questions after the demo.

Step 5: Make a choice

The next step is to decide which solution to go for. Request suggestions from each of your finalists and look at pricing information, possible implementation times and how they can help you and adapt to your needs.

Here it is easy to fall into a trap: Many people choose the cheapest solution, despite the fact that it does not perform best on the points stated on the list of requirements. In the long run, this can become much more expensive and more time-consuming than choosing the right solution on the first try. Make sure the solution you choose actually meets your requirements!

If you have followed the above guidelines, you should now feel confident that you are choosing the right training management software.

Have you considered using FrontCore for your training management? Read more about our management solutions here or try it for free.

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