by Bill Cushard (@BillCush)
Most businesses, including enterprise software training businesses, get to the point when they ask themselves, "How can we put in place the infrastructure we need so we can scale?" After all, if early stage enterprise software companies are going to be successful, they must cross the chasm and reach large enterprises. The larger the enterprise, the larger the need for training will be, and if you do not have certain processes in place, you will not be able to handle the rapidly growing demand for your training services. If you are in (or near) this position, there are a few things you can do to be ready for this growth. In fact, there are three specific actions you can take in order to set up your training business to scale as your company gains traction in larger enterprises. These actions include:
- Setting up a training business management system
- Offering eLearning
- Building a training partner network
In this post, I describe each of these three actions.
Install a Training Business Management System
You may not have heard the term "training business management system," but it's time you learn it. Here's why. We met with a prospect who heads the educational services function at a well known enterprise cloud software company. She is looking for a learning management system (LMS) on which to run her training business. She told us that learning management systems are designed to deliver and track training, not to run a training business. She said she is looking for a "Training Business Management System" not a learning management system. We believe this prospect is on to something, and if you want to set up your enterprise software training business to scale, you will need to do the same thing.
A training business management system is designed specifically to help you run your training business by not only automating the registration and payment of courses, but also providing you the information you need to make business decisions. For example, your training business management system should provide you with the flexibility to test course pricing through early bird pricing and coupon codes so you can discover how to price your courses. Another function of your training business management system should be to connect to your sales and marketing automation systems and to your finance systems so you can provide the information that other critical stakeholders need to run their departments.
The point here is that in order to set up a scalable training business, you need to have a technology platform that is connected to the rest of your company.
Self-paced eLearning
Another action to take in order to set up your training business to scale is to offer eLearning. I use the term eLearning in its broadest sense to include short video tutorials, self-paced eLearning courses, and virtual instructor-led training courses. In very early stages of maturity, many enterprise software training departments start by offering live training. Live training is simple, in the sense that we know what it looks like: a trainer, a room, computers, and some kind of handout. But as the organization grows, and depending on how fast it grows, live training cannot keep up. After all, you can only fit so many people into a classroom, and if you want to start offering training to large enterprises, and do it all over the world, live training might not be able to handling the load. This is where eLearning comes in.
The best thing about eLearning is in the delivery. Depending on which eLearning format you use, eLearning is infinitely scalable, which means you can deliver eLearning to an unlimited number of users with very little additional cost. It's enough to make a CFO faint. The scalability of eLearning delivery is hugely attractive, but there is a trade off. Developing eLearning is time consuming and requires some expertise. These obstacles are small compared to the scalability potential of eLearning. If you want to scale, eLearning will need to be part of your training offerings.
Training Partner Network
Another way to scale your enterprise software training business is to build a training partner network. This is especially important if you operate in the open source software space or if there is a large and vibrant ecosystem of apps that are built on your platform. If one of your goals is to build a large training business, it will be very difficult to do it entirely on your own, and if there is a marketplace of expertise surrounding your software, it makes sense to leverage that and work with training partners to deliver at least some of your training. A training partner network will help you reach markets in countries outside of your own quickly.
Although a training partner network can help you expand your training offerings quickly, the trade off is quality control. You will need to select partners wisely and manage the quality of the training delivery through train-the-trainer programs and standard content, to say nothing of collecting and monitoring student feedback and ensuring your partners are up-to-date on new releases of your product. Finally, make sure the training business management platform you are selecting will help you manage your partner network. That will save you many headaches. Trust me.
Conclusion
If you truly want to build a scalable enterprise software training business, you need to build an infrastructure and processes that allow you to handle a rapidly increasing demand without adding resources at a proportional rate. The only way to scale is to add resources at a slower rate than your business is increasing.
