Custom eLearning vs. Off-The-Shelf eLearning - Choosing the Right Fit for Your Organization

It has been a while since traditional classroom approaches have taken a step back to give innovative eLearning a path to guide employees. This rising demand for digital learning solutions has given way to different types of content. Today, eLearning for corporates is available in various shapes, sizes, and formats to suit the needs of any organization. We can widely segregate them into two, custom content curated specifically for a company or off-the-shelf course materials. While every organization’s focus is to implement eLearning content that can successfully fulfill their learning objectives, choosing what works best for them can be a daunting task. In this blog, explore the benefits, key differences, and considerations of custom eLearning vs. off-the-shelf courses to help make the right choice for your organization.

When is Custom eLearning Solutions Right for You?

Your Training Needs are Unique

No two organizations have the exact training needs, and it can vary based on various factors. When learning needs are unique, availing content that can suit the exact requirements of an organization can be quite challenging. For instance, training needs like employee onboarding, product education, and ERP end-user instruction cannot be met through generic off-the-shelf content. Let’s look into this a little more in detail:

Employee Onboarding

Newly hired employees need to be made aware of company-specific policies, practices, and regulations that reflect the organization's vision, mission, hierarchy, and operational practices.

Product Training

While companies in the same industry may offer similar products and services, no two companies will offer identical products and services. Each organization integrates unique features to differentiate its offerings. Training employees under these circumstances requires custom e-learning since it enables the creation of product training that reflects the company’s distinct offerings.

ERP (End-User-Training)

End-user-training systems are tailored to the organization’s workflows and processes, making training for them highly specific. Content for this must address role-specific applications and internal business processes. Since these are company-specific pre-built off-the-shelf courses will not be apt.

Your Training Content is Always Up-to-Date

Business growth often becomes stagnant, but an organization’s true success lies in adapting to the changing trends and consistently refining strategies. In the long run, it is the organizations that are ready for change that evolve and grow. To achieve this, it is essential for companies to be on the constant lookout for new upgrades, rules, and regulations, training methods, and employee engagement strategies, that drive growth. In such cases, custom eLearning is the ideal solution since it can offer complete control over course development to meet specific organizational needs.

You Want the Content to Reflect the Brand Voice

Some organizations are particular about incorporating their brand elements into eLearning courses and include product knowledge or safety procedures using scenarios that fit that organization. One of the significant benefits of custom eLearning courses is the ability to incorporate a company’s preferred GUI, colors, and logo to reinforce brand identity. Flagship courses are also significant material that is tailor-made to highlight the organization’s mission, vision, and values, providing a focused view of the workplace. In these instances, custom eLearning solutions are more effective as they can be uniquely tailored to the company’s goals.

When is Off-the-Shelf eLearning Right for You?

Generic Content is Sufficient

Some courses are uniform across organizations. In case an organization wants to provide courses related to team-building, compliance training, change management, offering customer handling training, courses on Microsoft Office, etc., generic courses will suffice. Since these kinds of courses are widely available and are usually created by Subject Matter Experts, there is no need to develop them from scratch, and they are also cost-effective compared to custom eLearning solutions.

There is an Immediate Requirement

Imagine an organization that must finish a compliance training program within a set timeline. Unlike custom eLearning courses, which take time to develop, off-the-shelf courses can easily be uploaded to a Learning Management System (LMS) and rolled out to learners in less than 24 hours. Thus, an organization looking to provide generic training can choose off-the-shelf courses, saving a lot of time.

When There is a Set Budget

Businesses that are just starting with eLearning can take small steps by choosing off-the-shelf courses that are affordable. One of the primary benefits of off-the-shelf courses is their affordability. The cost of implementing OTS courses is relatively low when compared to custom eLearning courses which are on the higher end due to the time and effort it takes to tailor-make courses. OTS courses are apt for small and medium-sized companies that don’t allocate a big budget for Learning and Development initiatives. Such companies can start here and then move to custom eLearning based on the need of the course.

Custom eLearning vs. Off-The-Shelf eLearning: Key Differences

Criteria	Custom eLearning Courses	Off-The-Shelf Courses
Customization	Tailored to meet organizational needs	Pre-designed with generic content for broad usage
Relevance	Aligned with the company’s processes, culture and branding	May not address unique or niche requirements
Time to Deploy	Longer development time for customization	Quick deployment and ready-made content
Branding Opportunities	Incorporates company branding, themes, and proprietary content.	No customization options for branding or themes.
Scalability	Can be scaled and upgraded according to relevant requirements	Limited scalability; may require additional purchases.
Ownership	Complete ownership of the content and intellectual property	Licensed content with usage restrictions
Cost	Higher cost due to design and development efforts	Lower cost since they are pre-build but may lack long-term relevance

Before approaching an eLearning content development company, organizations can run a training needs analysis. This helps determine which particular knowledge, skills, and abilities are necessary to improve workforce performance.

Ways to Conduct a Training Needs Analysis

Surveys

Conducting surveys and polls is one of the easiest ways to understand training needs. It helps analyze performance deficiencies in specific areas and is more effective since it can reach a larger set of audience quickly. The survey can focus on the specific skills that employees need to work on to achieve organizational goals.

Observations

Training managers can observe employees during work to identify performance gaps. Observing also helps collect valuable data on employee priorities, perceptions, and performance. While it does help generate real-life data, remember that this is only effective in a formal work setting.

Interviews

Interviews, formal or informal can help collect data on performance gaps while engaging with employees as individuals or in groups. It is easy to identify the performance of a team and explore possible solutions.

Customer Feedback

Another important way to gain insights, particularly for customer-facing teams like sales representatives or customer care staff, is through customer feedback. By formulating each question to address a specific service or performance metric, you can get valuable insights about the learners.

What’s the Verdict?

eLearning is never a one-size-fits-all solution, and there is no “right answer.” Each organization has unique learning requirements and training objectives, making it essential to select the approach that best aligns with its needs. Therefore, after a thorough analysis and review of various factors, one can make a decision.

With so many options available in the market, finding the right fit can feel overwhelming, but Novac Technology Solutions is just the right elearning solutions provider. Whether you are looking for custom eLearning solutions or off-the-shelf courses, Novac offers the flexibility to meet all your eLearning requirements. Book a demo and explore how we can help your organization achieve its learning objectives today!

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