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LMS and eLearning Vendors, May 2016
Introduction
By Don McIntosh www.trimeritus.com
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o
Tony Bates has an interesting blog on quality standards for e
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learning at
http://www.tonybates.ca/2010/08/15/e
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learning
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quality
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assurance
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standards
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organizations
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and
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research/.
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A European based website that addresses the issue of quality in eLearning
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http://efquel.org/.
Talent Management Systems: Corporate learning management systems are
sometimes part of human resource information systems (HRIS). Many major LMSs have
moved into talent management. Talent management includes recruitment, performance
management, compensation and benefits, succession, retention, career planning,
learning and development. As a rule, they are oriented to planning and do not provide
the day
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to
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day processing capabilities such as payroll. The terms human capital
management and workforce productivity are also used.
Talent management/LMS vendors listed below include Cornerstone OnDemand,
Halogen Software, HRsmart, IBM Talent Management (aka Kenexa), Oracle Taleo, SAP
SuccessFactors, Saba, Silkroad, SumTotal Systems (a Skillsoft company) and TEDS.
Other talent management systems include Centranum http://www.centranum.com/,
Ceridian http://www.ceridian.ca/, Cezanne Software http://www.cezannesw.com/,
EmployWise http://www.employwise.com/, Epic Software http://www.epic
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soft.com/,
Exelsys http://www.exelsys.co.uk/, Meta4 http://www.meta4.com/. NuView Systems
http://www.nuviewinc.com/, PeopleFluent http://www.peoplefluent.com/, Ramco Systems
http://www.ramco.com/, Sage http://na.sage.com/ (Their talent management solution is
Cornerstone on Demand), Ultimate Software http://www.ultimatesoftware.com/, Vana
Workforce http://www.vanaworkforce.com/, and Workday http://www.workday.com/.
Consolidation is accelerating in this area. ERP vendors have been purchasing talent
and learning management companies. ADP acquired Workscape in 2010. Taleo
purchased Learn.com in 2010 and then Oracle purchased Taleo/Learn.com in 2012.
Infor acquired Lawson in 2011. Ceridian bought Dayforce in 2012. SuccessFactors
purchased Plateau in May, 2011 and then SAP purchased SuccessFactors/Plateau in
2012. In 2012 IBM bought Kenexa which had bought Outstart earlier in 2012. Skillsoft
purchased SumTotal in 2014. In October, 2015, Workday announced that it would be
building its own LMS rather than buying one because “LMSs are broken”. This
consolidation is happening at the high end of the market. At the same time, many new
lower cost LMS’s are appearing.
Selection of an LMS
There are hundreds of possibilities. With all these choices, how can you find a single
LMS? The choice of an LMS is like that for any enterprise system. It can change the
culture of your organization. Due diligence is required.
There is no single best LMS. The best one for you is the one that best matches your
needs. Ideally, the process involves several steps – identifying needs, narrowing your
choices to perhaps five, conducting demos and trials if possible, issuing RFP’s (Request
for Proposals), and final selection. In addition to the features mentioned above consider
cost and service. The LMS providers have become very creative about their business
models. It seems that no two of them charge for the same things in the same way. For
example, some charge for everyone registered in the system whether they use it or not,
others charge only for active users; some charge for hosting content, others do not.
There seem to be almost as many different pricing models as there are different LMS’s.
It is important to choose a system and pricing model that is consistent with your overall