It seems that everywhere you turn your head to these days, people talk about “the cloud”; whether it be storage for your photos, your music, or maybe just a new buzzword that has embedded itself deep into our culture, it’s difficult to escape the cloud and its benefits in our fast-paced, global environments.
And so it goes for the learning world, and for Learning Management Systems all over the world as well; companies today try to sell their LMS as cloud platforms more aggressively than ever, and yet can’t seem to take a breath when you ask them what the benefits of a cloud-based system is versus a system that is locally installed.
In this post, we’ve tried, once and for all, to set the record straight and gather some real benefits we noticed while implementing our cloud-based LMS and what we hear from our customers.
4 Big Benefits of a Cloud-Based LMS
Though these are by no means all the benefits of cloud-based learning management systems, they are certainly some of the major ones.
1. Lower Costs (& Faster to Deploy)
Unlike many LMSs that are installed locally (and can entail additional costs for updates and repairs that also have to be installed on your systems), a SaaS (Software as a Service) or cloud-based LMS has a fixed-fee basis – either monthly or yearly – based on the number of users that will be using the system. Think of it as “renting” the system, at exactly the time and place you need.
In addition to the lower installation costs a cloud learning management system provides, it is also much faster to deploy and configure your system than any on-site installed platform – making the overall initial time and cost lower than you might expect.
2. The Right Amount of Customization Options
We know what you may have heard: cloud-based LMSs simply have no customization features, can’t be made to “feel” like home with your company’s logo or colors, and are often off-the-shelf systems that will leave your users with a very impersonal impression.
Yes, it’s true that reduced customization capability is a consideration when deciding to purchase a cloud-based LMS, but for most organizations that’s actually a benefit!.
At LearningZone, we’ve experienced customers who wanted to personalize every single detail of their learning management system, only to later find themselves unsatisfied, frustrated with their choices, and stuck in an endless loop of customizations organizations can often fall victim to when beginning their LMS journey.
Of course, personalization is possible when dealing with a cloud-based LMS, but just at the right amount. This means you can spend more time focusing on the things that really matter – the learning! – and less about the gradient of the color of the border of the box at the upper left side of the… You get what we’re trying to say here!
3. Scaling Made Easy
Getting a cloud-based LMS is looking towards the future. As your company grows, and you start acquiring more and more users with more complex tasks to perform, the locally based LMS you may have thought was a good idea many months ago is now heavy on your bandwidth, not allowing you to expand and cater to your growing needs.
But with a cloud-based platform, many updates and add-on services can be added to your LMS as the months go by. So if you discover that you need – we don’t know, maybe additional support services or additional learning opportunities – you may add these on without ever getting up from your chair (though we do suggest to stretch your legs every once in a while!).
4. Seamless Global Collaboration
Planning to go global? Good! Take your LMS and learning initiatives right along with you for the journey, as a cloud-based LMS can be opened from any browser, anywhere in the world, and can be installed with many language add-ons that will make learning for your employees as natural as speaking their own native language.
This point again connects to the scalability advantages such a cloud-based system contains, and the future scalability you buy into when you allow yourself to dream big and seek a more profitable future for your organization.
Find Out What A Cloud-Based LMS Can Do For You
These are some of the main benefits we’ve seen when organizations make the transition to our cloud-based LMS, Ekko AI.
To learn more about how our award-winning LMS can help your business grow through carefully constructed, effective cloud-based learning, and have your questions answered by an expert, book a demo today.