Just like large enterprises—many of whom are your competitors—you also face the challenges of aligning, developing, engaging and retaining your employees. However, your status as a Small- to Medium-Sized Business (SMB) presents unique obstacles along the way. Although you have a less complex IT infrastructure, you likely wrestle with a tighter capital budget. You might have a smaller training staff—yet you must achieve faster time-to-value so you can outrun larger competitors.  

How can SMBs meet their companies’ specific needs and still keep pace with enterprises? The answer lies in selecting the right learning management system (LMS) from the right vendor. Not only do you need a comprehensive and functional solution, but you also need scalable deployment options that accommodate your unique requirements. 

What you will learn in this white paper:

• Specific Learning & Development challenges for SMB
• Obstacles in the LMS selection process
• Checklist for selecting the best LMS solution
• How you can drive learning initiatives that will positively impact your revenue, customer satisfaction, productivity and compliance.

SCORM (the Shareable Content Object Reference Model) is a set of standards that helps ensure your learning content will “play” on any compliant LMS. Download this white paper for a high-level explanation of SCORM and the ways in which SCORM-compliant technology can help your organization optimize its investment in talent development solutions.

The Enterprise Learning Value Chain helps you understand business imperatives, identify high-impact learning initiatives, and outline the measurable ROI these initiatives can deliver — despite hard economic times. Download this white paper to learn how to keep the value of your talent development programs front and center, and ensure your organization’s economic strategy leverages learning to its fullest.

Users have wielded their unique power to significantly impact today's top five learning technology trends. This new white paper explores those trends, looking at factors such as Web 2.0, mobile learning, and changes in the mix of blended learning. In addition, we discuss next steps to help your organization strategically select new technology in order to unlock its full potential.

Developing content for small mobile devices makes a lot of sense — the adoption of these devices around the world is just tremendous. Mobile learning is growing at a rapid clip as well. Business professionals are embracing mobile learning on all sorts of devices.

As mobile connectivity continues its broad global reach, corporations are actively investigating how to deploy learning to mobile professionals. At SumTotal, we have released an update to our content authoring product ToolBook that enables the production of mobile learning for the Apple iPhone; with support for additional mobile devices to follow. While SumTotal obviously hopes the majority of corporations use ToolBook to create mobile learning, our intention is to provide helpful information to our industry, as a whole, on how to create effective learning for mobile devices.

Web 2.0 technologies are making it easier than ever for businesses to unlock tacit knowledge and make it globally available among their employee populations. Social networking, wikis, blogs, mobile technology, and online communities present knowledge-sharing and just-in-time learning opportunities that, in many businesses, still remain untapped. While this is frustrating for early-adopter employees in late-adopting companies, Web 2.0 learning has proven to be a gold mine for companies who leverage it well.

What you will learn:

• How Web 2.0 has shifted gears toward social learning
• How informal learning drives business benefits
• Real-world examples of informal learning solutions

Here are 10 pieces of LMS functionality that will help your organization manage learning better, and help you avoid those unexpected “gotchas” that inevitably add to additional cost and frustration down the line.

One of the biggest challenges that organizations face today is reducing costs from fines and lawsuits. This whitepaper explains how a Learning Management Compliance Solution can help manage an organization’s compliance requirements.

How can organizations develop their stakeholders to the same level of competency and product knowledge as their internal employees? And how can organizations instill common messaging, brand identity, and quality practices across this extended enterprise?

In this whitepaper you will see:
1. The best way to assess how an LMS can positively affect your business by focusing on improving one process.
2. How to calculate an LMS’s real cost of ownership.

This can be assessed in either a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution or a traditional software purchase model.

As portable communication devices proliferate and on-the-go workers hit the road in record numbers, mobile learning capabilities are ripe for growth. Not surprisingly, the learning management industry is taking heed. That’s because mobile learning—also known as “m-Learning”—is about more than the ability to move around. It’s about truly leveraging technology advances to build a more competent workforce and a greater talent development strategy.

Adobe announced it will not continue development of future Macromedia® Authorware® from Adobe releases, so the current Authorware users have been exploring alternative authoring options. This white paper considers some of the reasons current Authorware users as well as eLearning developers in general should consider combining SumTotal Systems’ ToolBook with Adobe® Captivate® software and Adobe Flash® Professional software for a complete content authoring solution

Read the white paper to know how ToolBook handles various Authorware functionalities using features like book wizard, catalog, actions editor and more.

Organizations often uncover redundant processes that manage separate compliance needs. These could be leveraged with better planning. So how can your organization reduce the costs and compliance risks of mandatory training?

Following these 10 steps will help you address immediate problems, build alliances throughout the organization, and make a Learning Management System business case. These best-practices come directly from SumTotal customers who have faced similar challenges.

SumTotal Systems recently sent a survey to 10,000 directors of training to find out how companies are extending a learning management system (LMS) outside of their corporate walls – to the “extended enterprise” of partners and customers. Know more...

SaaS is defined as model of delivery where the software company provides hosting, maintenance, daily technical operation, and support for the software provided to their client. This whitepaper outlines the specific benefits of software-as-a-service and things to look out for before fully adopting the approach.