When SaaS Gets Sassy (Part Two): The Rise of "Mass Customization" in the LMS World. or Would You Like Fries With That? – Enterprise Software Goes Down Market
The introduction of Software as a Service (SaaS) was a benefit to all types of organizations, but especially to small and medium businesses (SMB) who could now afford enterprise type software such as Learning Management Systems. SaaS is still the most popular way for companies to acquire software. It is affordable, typically requires little-to-no support from an I.T. department and can usually be implemented in a short period of time.
What's not to like?
Well, in our experience, there are still many organizations that do not want to compromise their "brand experience". Especially where interacting with external users (retail employees, agents, distributors, field reps or customers) are concerned. Some of these companies have invested millions in building a brand and they are very serious about having their brand's qualities reflected in everything that they do. For them, the ability to upload a logo and select a colour scheme for their LMS user interface will simply not do. They still want all the savings and time-to-market benefits of a SaaS LMS, but only if it can be purchased with the deep brand immersion elements of a custom portal or website.
The following illustration shows how far we've come and where, I believe, we are headed.
SMARTLAB to the Rescue!
Blatant Media has responded to this need by creating a highly customizable interface which leverages the power and cross-platform capabilities of HMTL5 and the benefits of using web parts which can be customized (size, placement, colour, text, etc.) that pull data from our award-winning off the shelf Absorb LMS platform. We call this product SMARTLAB and it is currently being deployed by several of our clients and is generating tremendous interest in the market. In addition to reflecting and extending your company's "personality", SMARTLAB is also in a category of its own. SMARTLAB provides a complete set of "learner engagement" features which allow you to easily create and target informal learning content such as News, FAQs, Polls and Contests right alongside your formal training offerings (videos, quizzes, SCORM courses). The best part? It looks nothing like an LMS! :- )
The use of our Absorb LMS on the back-end and web parts on the front-end means that a company can have all the benefits of a highly customized system, at a fraction of the cost and in a fraction of the time.
Sound interesting? Why not attend our upcoming webinar to learn more or contact us for a personal demo.
