With personalized e-Learning materials, you may generate new income streams and lower your expenses
Competition in the software industry is tough, and profit margins may be razor-thin at best. Despite the proliferation of new, smaller software firms each month, the industry’s top players continue to make significant strides ahead by using their huge liquidity reserves. Due to (a) lack of cash flow and (b) the need to constantly move forward, mid-sized software firms struggle to compete in today’s software market. As a result, a mid-sized software firm may have a tough time making the transition from an unknown to a popular brand.
It is critical for businesses stuck in this cycle to figure out how to generate new sources of income while also reducing existing expenses. Think fast, think imaginatively, and think forward at the same time. These are all skills that are required of them during this situation. As any software executive will tell you, this may be a difficult endeavor.
While the mid-sized software industry has many difficulties, there are a number of approaches that may be taken to both generate new sources of income and reduce present expenses. These new income streams may be generated thanks to technological breakthroughs and their use in training and development.
Preparing for the Event
When an organization buys a software package from a respectable vendor, it is practically assumed that some level of end-user customer training will be included in the purchase price or made accessible to them for an extra fee. If the end-user customer does not have access to training, the new program’s learning curve will be rather high, depending on the complexity of the product.
In most mid-sized software organizations, training costs are broken down into the following:
Offline trainers’ hourly wages
Offline trainers must pay for their own transportation costs.
The price of printing instruction manuals on paper
Training customers on-site and offline might take a long time.
All of these costs should be closely monitored and continually examined as areas where savings may be made to enhance the company’s attractiveness in competitive bid circumstances while also increasing the profit margins of the company’s supplementary education offerings.
Meanwhile, mid-sized software organizations should be searching for methods to establish new income streams that they are not presently capitalizing on in order to work in conjunction with their cost-reduction strategy.
Using custom e-learning content to reduce training costs is the first step.
For any successful cost-cutting strategy to work, the business must first reduce its present expenses in order to have a clearer picture of the profit potential that may be realized via cost reductions alone. Previously, we described the many cost categories that we want to achieve… Custom e-Learning materials will now be used to reduce the expenses associated with those categories.
Suppose, for example, three trainers employed by a mid-sized intranet portal system development business now go to customers for end-user training three days every engagement, averaging 50 engagements a year for a total of 450 days on the road.
End-user client onsite training for these trainers may look like the following:
On the first day, we learned about the fundamentals of the software.
Afternoon 2: Putting It To Use And Taking Administrative Measures
Day 3: Functions and Labs in the Real World
Using tailored e-Learning material, the organization utilized in the above example may efficiently minimize the onsite time necessary for each trainer, hence lowering all expenses involved with the training program.
One day per engagement might be saved by using a professionally designed, self-paced, custom e-Learning module for the Software Introduction and Primary Functions training and then delivering that learning module online to their end-user customers at the time of purchase via an LMS. Each trainer would save 50 days of travel time each year, for a total savings of 150 days per year. Customers will also be acquainted with the software package before trainers ever walk through the door.
If this were to work, it would:
Get a better deal on flights with 150 days of savings.
As a result, training engagements might be expanded or the number of in-house trainers employed can be reduced as a result.
Costs connected with putting parts of hard-copy training guides into print for the software introduction and primary functions training session on Day 1 of the training engagement may be reduced.
Moving on to the next logical step: Although a one-day reduction in the travel time of each trainer would be beneficial, it’s not good enough. This cost-cutting strategy should be taken a step further by software businesses utilizing it in order to improve the end-user customer’s experience. In order to avoid wasting time on the same subjects when the trainer visits the client site in person, they must guarantee that their end-user customers understand what they need to know.
The software industry must consider how it intends to provide on-demand training to its end-user clients.End-user customers should be able to monitor and control the online training element of their sessions, whether it be self-paced custom e-Learning material or real-time online trainer/student interaction. For the most part, this delivery platform should include the following features: Assessments of Student Understanding Real-Time Monitoring of Student Success and Progress Self-Delivered Training
Because of this, the mid-sized software firm is able to reduce their own expenses while also enhancing their client/vendor relationship by offering more than what is generally anticipated or experienced in today’s software market via the use of the right delivery platform. What’s the nitty-gritty of this? The client was satisfied with the performance of their users and the value they gained from the software provider.
Using Custom e-Learning Content to Generate Revenue
Our new learning system may now be used to produce new income streams for the firm, allowing us to cut our expenses.
Suppose, for example, a mid-sized intranet portal software business has developed their own proprietary e-Learning package to cover one day’s worth of what was formerly onsite training for end-users. The company’s total on-the-ground training expenses have been slashed. With this technology, they are now searching for methods of generating new income streams so that they can (a) recoup some of the money they spent on it and (b) produce more profit for the company.
Generating income: There are a number of ways for a mid-sized software firm, like our example, to generate additional money, including the creation of bespoke e-Learning training modules. Because they’re so reasonably priced, companies might make these courses accessible to their end users online without having to spend extra money on in-person training.
The company must make it easy for end-user customers to purchase more advanced training content and make it easy for end-user customers to track their own learners as they attend training courses in order to easily see its effectiveness in order to do this efficiently and without incurring additional offline training costs. This mid-sized software firm may make money from its training modules in 12 to 24 months if they start promoting and selling them to their current customer base now that they have invested the money to create the more complex, specialized e-Learning material. Such gains would rely on the length of time it takes to create and advertise their new training service, as well as the distribution method they choose.
Moving on to the next logical step: It takes some creative thinking to persuade customers to acquire more sophisticated e-Learning materials. It is incredibly easy for people to buy anything at Target if it is right near the check-out counter. As a result, this mid-sized software company’s clients are more likely to acquire further e-Learning material if it is easily accessible and can be purchased without difficulty.
As a first step, you may post the new and more complex modules to the company’s LMS site and then make the modules accessible for purchase by credit card via e-Commerce or a single phone call. Basically, this is like the product displays we see at Target next to the checkout counter. It makes sense to place extra things for sale in the checkout line since everyone has to go through it. That is to say, in order to increase its exposure and appeal to clients, this more sophisticated e-Learning material should be accessible for purchase alongside the basic training modules that the midsized software firm is already providing online.
The Finished Product
Mid-sized software firms are under pressure to succeed in a highly competitive market, so cutting training expenses while also generating new income streams is a win-win scenario for both the company and its customers. As a result of this partnership, clients have access to an easy-to-use training package as well as additional value from their software provider.