A good LMS allows you to update courses whenever your sales strategy changes or you bring on a new client and need to tell them what to expect. And when your next batch of new hires arrives, an LMS lets you easily assign those all-important introductory courses and then grade them to ensure your new employees understand the lay of the land.
To put it simply, an LMS lets you do the following:
- Build e-learning lessons
- Organize those lessons into courses
- Assign and deliver courses to your employees, clients, or even a broader online audience
- Track who needs to take which courses and when
- Grade completed courses
- Analyze course data through comprehensive reports
You’ve got lots of options when it comes to choosing an LMS for your company. Generally, the biggest difference will come down to how you want your LMS to be deployed.
Locally deployed (self-hosted)
A locally-deployed LMS is a purchased product that is installed and maintained on your company server. If you choose a self-hosted LMS, you’ll get the most control over how your LMS merges with your current IT infrastructure.
Note that a locally-deployed LMS requires someone to be in charge of installation and scaling installation as your company grows, security, data backups, software updates, and license renewal.
Hosted (private cloud)
If you can’t dedicate someone to managing software updates and installation, a hosted LMS might be a better solution for you.
You’ll still be able to customize your resources and code, making the private cloud LMS option a good compromise between a locally-deployed system and a fully cloud-based system.
Cloud based (SaaS)
A cloud-based LMS, sometimes called software as a service (SaaS), gives your company the freedom to focus on e-learning creation—or other priorities. This type of LMS is completely maintained by the third-party company you purchased it from.
Choosing a cloud-based option means you’ll give up some flexibility and customization in order to avoid the responsibility of maintaining your LMS.