Learning Management Systems: Industry Insights 2015

Learning Management Systems:

Industry Insights 2015

The current reports on Learning Management Systems indicate to us a bright future for LMSs. With an estimated total revenue of over $2 billion, the market is expected to grow to $7 billion in the next 3 years. That’s why it’s important to understand the market now, to know where to invest your systems in the future to guarantee you end up with the best services and support. The best way to make plans for the future is to understand the present, so we examined the market to see what the future might hold.

The growth rate here shows how each country has adopted e-learning and is a significant indicator as it can reveal revenue opportunities.

Learning Management Systems:

Industry Insights 2015

Top 10 Growth Rates By Country

2

3

8

1

9

5

6

4

10

7

The LMS is a worldwide phenomenon, with 225 countries with over 68 million users registered. Countries around the world are all engaging with e-learning, with fast-growing economies like India, China & Malaysia all expanding their usage by over 40%. But what kinds of companies are taking LMSs on board?

Unsurprisingly, it’s the education sector that takes the lead here, making up 21% of the market, with its closest rival being the technology sector at 12%. Where the stats become more interesting is looking at the next three industries on the list, with Manufacturing taking up 9% and Healthcare and Consulting taking up 7% each. These industries rely on specific knowledge that is required from a safety and best practice perspective, meaning that the movement to LMSs makes this companies more efficient at onboarding staff.

Learning Management Systems:

Industry Insights 2015

The size of your business often affects whether or not you’re working with an LMS already, and the results may surprise you. It seems that the industry is balanced between supplying larger companies with a turnover greater than $750m and smaller companies turning over less than $5m. This seems

to show that there’s a stranded middle band who are too established to have the energy and enthusiasm of a smaller start up, adopting the latest models as they build their company, but are also

not quite established enough to start reviewing their processes and maximize their systems. It’s this “middle market” that could benefit from more support from LMS providers, accommodating their cost concerns and integrating as smoothly as possible.

Moodle is far and away the system most companies have adopted for their LMS, a situation easily explained by its open source nature leading to lower costs and endless customisability. It has nearly double the uptake of its nearest rival, although by no means maintaining a monopoly, with most companies appearing to opt for a large variety of LMS systems. This shows us the LMS market is still

highly competitive, meaning companies have to fight harder to earn contracts and maintain customer bases.

The disparate market could lead to support issues down the line - smaller companies going under might leave businesses without an expert on hand to help - but with operators like Moodle, where the support comes from selected partners, the result is that no single provider can take down the overall system; the open source platform will always maintain support elsewhere.

Learning Management Systems:

Industry Insights 2015

What LMS are people using?

Moodle 14% SumTotal Systems 8% Blackboard 7% Cornerstone 7% SuccessFactors (SAP) 4% Edmodo 1% Schoology 1% All others 58%

The size of your business often affects whether or not you’re working with an LMS already, and the results may surprise you. It seems that the industry is balanced between supplying larger companies with a turnover greater than $750m and smaller companies turning over less than $5m. This seems

to show that there’s a stranded middle band who are too established to have the energy and enthusiasm of a smaller start up, adopting the latest models as they build their company, but are also

not quite established enough to start reviewing their processes and maximize their systems. It’s this “middle market” that could benefit from more support from LMS providers, accommodating their cost concerns and integrating as smoothly as possible.

Moodle is far and away the system most companies have adopted for their LMS, a situation easily explained by its open source nature leading to lower costs and endless customisability. It has nearly double the uptake of its nearest rival, although by no means maintaining a monopoly, with most companies appearing to opt for a large variety of LMS systems. This shows us the LMS market is still

highly competitive, meaning companies have to fight harder to earn contracts and maintain customer bases.

The disparate market could lead to support issues down the line - smaller companies going under might leave businesses without an expert on hand to help - but with operators like Moodle, where the support comes from selected partners, the result is that no single provider can take down the overall system; the open source platform will always maintain support elsewhere.

An interesting new approach for businesses is the addition of Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that allow users to sign up and follow along with a “planned course”, regardless of location. The open nature means businesses can often sign up their employees for free, and the courses often use live deadlines to keep people regularly engaging with their learning. 8% of businesses already use MOOCs, with a further 7% saying they’ll be exploring them in the future, showing a growing adoption of this method of learning.

Learning Management Systems:

Industry Insights 2015

MOOCs in Corporate Training

Curently 8% of companies use MOOCs, while another

7% consider to experiment with MOOCs. It is predicted that in the following two years this

percentage will rise to 28%

General Internal Training Skills/ Certyfication Training

Compliance Onboarding Client/ Customer Training Seling Courses/ Training Other 100% 75% 50% 25% 0%

Conclusion

Most LMSs are used for general internal training, which given how they are marketed is to be expected, but there’s more to an LMS than just the basic internal training features. You can add areas for compliance, selling your courses onto other companies and customers and develop skills and certifications. Staff training needn’t stop once basic compliance is complete, the continual personal development of your staff will make them more efficient, confident and ultimately happier in their role. There’s plenty of areas that even existing LMS users can benefit from that LMS providers need to educate their customers on.

It’s not just what users are doing that matters however, where they’re doing it is important too. Nearly half of users accessed their LMS from a mobile device in 2013, and with current trends we can only assume that percentage will continue to grow. It’s an important factor to remember that one of the easiest ways to engage learners is to make the processes for learning easily accessible with the least amount of frustration possible. Responsive, mobile-optimised design should be a standard for all LMSs.

There’s plenty to learn from current trends in LMSs that help paint a picture of the future of the

systems. It’s clear that it’s a global phenomenon, and that modern businesses of all sizes and professions are embracing e-learning as a necessary part of their staff’s training. There’s a strong

market leader to be found in Moodle, and as long as the market remains competitive there’ll be plenty of motivation for LMS providers to stretch further for their customers. The feature set of most LMSs can improve and expand, and making sure your LMS works on mobile is crucial.

The state of the LMS is strong, but its future looks even stronger.

Sources:

http://elearningindustry.com/elearning-statistics-and-facts-for-2015

http://www.capterra.com/learning-management-system-software/user-research https://moodle.net/stats/

http://www.softwareadvice.com/hr/learning-management-systems-comparison/

Learning Management Systems:

Industry Insights 2015

47% of users were using mobile devices to access their LMS in 2013, up from 36% in 2010.