Extended enterprise: managing training with LMS

How can you generate profit, increase your partners’ productivity and your customers’ loyalty? By setting up extended enterprise training with your LMS.

What is extended enterprise?

In an interconnected world, businesses can no longer function in isolation, focusing only on their own place of work and training their employees.

Extended enterprise involves customers, distribution partners, suppliers, sales representatives, franchisees or technical services as a true extension of your business. Each link in the chain depends on the others and they all contribute to mutual success.

LMS, a training tool for extended enterprise

For years businesses have been investing in Learning Management Systems in order to train their employees. Today it is well worth extending this LMS to include their customers, partners and suppliers.

There are two key advantages:

• Increasing revenue – sales of products/services increase because they are used to better effect and customers are well informed.
• Reduced training costs – partners are more aware and customers have access to online communities where their questions are answered.

The 4 main pillars of training

To achieve the key advantages, extended enterprise training focuses on:

• Product knowledge: increasing the awareness of your products and services on the market and helping your customers to get the best out of them.
• Partner incentives: motivating your distribution partners and sales representatives to sell your products.
• Loyalty to the brand: taking care of your customers and partners. The more loyal they are to your products/services the more likely they are to become ambassadors for your brand.
• Compliance and risk management: ensuring that your franchisees are complying with your rules and procedures.

Did you know that collaborative social networking tools (wikis blogs and forums) and online certification programmes promote continued learning and stimulate learner engagement? Find more advice on creating elearning modules for extended enterprise here.

<CTA> You can use your Dokeos LMS to engage with and educate your customers, partners and suppliers and to provide them with certification. Find out more with our free trial.