It would be wonderful if everyone’s college degree immediately provided all the skills needed for work at a large company. Too bad it rarely happens; workplaces change by year, and we learn on the go. Today, about 98% of large enterprises use some form of learning management system to streamline professional skill development, and this investment does not surprise anyone.
The key word here is “some form”, though. The ways people learn are inherently variable, as are the needs of organizations. This makes the LMS landscape diverse, too, with dozens of popular out-of-the-box solutions, and countless custom and unique ones implemented just for a particular company. In this article, we’ll look at what enterprise LMS stands for these days, and discuss how to choose one for your organization.
What is an enterprise LMS?
An enterprise learning management system is more than just an eLearning platform: in addition to delivering employee training courses themselves, it also manages and tracks the outcomes. A corporate LMS, then, is a comprehensive platform that offers tools to create and distribute content, assign courses, and monitor progress.
This is a result of an evolution that happened over several decades. Early LMS from the 1990s were mostly about managing schedules and delivering training through simple content types and exercises. As the internet became more interactive in the 2000s, web-based LMS widened the choice of learning formats, and the advent of cloud technologies and mobile-first approach finally made corporate learning convenient and effective enough for LMS to become indispensable.
By the end of 2025, the global LMS market is predicted to reach $28.1 billion, fueled by the shifting skillset requirements of modern businesses. Since the typical corporate environment now requires hard skills you could not learn anyway even two years ago on top of company know-hows, understanding of niche insights, as well as soft skills and compliance, there’s a lot LMS are expected to cover. The attitude is optimistic, though: 72% of organizations believe LMS provides them with competitive advantages.
Meanwhile, with mobile tech, employees are more receptive to corporate learning, and generally don’t seem to mind spending 1% of their work week on training and development – when it’s convenient, it’s not viewed as a disruption.
Key features of enterprise learning management solutions
So what makes up an LMS? There is a list of features that are, by now, considered almost obligatory, and some features that come as a welcome bonus (but are needed in certain situations). Let’s first look at the default capacities of an enterprise LMS:
- Course creation and management: the tools needed to create the learning content itself: text, video, interactive exercises, etc., with SCORM compliance and versioning.
- User management: the ability to add, remove, and manage users, including role-based access control and (for large companies) bulk user imports.
- Progress tracking and reporting: features to monitor learner progress and generate reports on completion rates and other metrics (e.g. time spent). This is especially important for assessing whether the course has been worth doing, and what gaps there may be left.
- Assessment: the possibility to create and administer tests or quizzes (multiple choice, true-false, etc.) With AI, free form answers can also be accepted.
- Mobile learning support: since employees frequently prefer to log from different devices, e.g. mobile phones, this allows to make sure the courses are completed faster and with minimum disruption.
- Compliance training management: tools to assign, track, and report on mandatory training for regulatory compliance, such as HIPAA or GDPR. This includes features like automatic reminders, completion certificates, and audit trails to ensure organizations meet legal requirements.
- API and Single Sign-On (SSO) features to connect with other enterprise systems like HRM or CRM.
Advanced functionalities
The more advanced features are either niche-oriented or are being developed based on the recent technological breakthroughs:
- AI-driven personalized learning: using AI for suggesting relevant resources, adapting difficulty levels, or proposing optimal study schedules tailored to each user.
- Adaptive learning paths: the ability to adjust the flow of courses and include different additional materials or alter the order in which the information is presented.
- VR and AR: simulating hands-on experience with minimal risk (e.g. in surgery or driving)
- Microlearning: Bite-sized, focused learning content for quick consumption and just-in-time learning, typically lasting 3-5 minutes, used efficiently to fit the learning experience into the busy schedule.
- Social learning tools: Collaborative features that enable peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, discussion forums, and community-based learning. This might include the ability to create study groups, share user-generated content, or participate in mentorship programs within the LMS platform.
Benefits of enterprise LMS
There are several important advantages of LMS implementation that have been confirmed by real-world data.
One of these is, of course, consistency and standardization. Large companies have always experienced some difficulty in sharing knowledge across the organization, leading to the situation when some employees were viewed as the source of information on a particular topic (and others had to personally communicate with them to obtain it). With LMS in place, knowledge is distributed consistently and equally.
Another benefit is that LMS are fast to achieve ROI. As many as 41% of enterprises actually save on training expenditures (like paid instructor hours) with the help of LMS. Cloud technology further increases cost-efficiency.
When implemented properly (with gamification, personalization, and social learning), LMS can also increase employee engagement (studies have found a 48% improvement).
Finally, LMS is easy to track, and reporting can be automated. This is something HR departments have been using for a while, with 91% finding LMS tools effective for monitoring employee development and performance tracking.
Specifics for large companies
Large companies have their own specifics that LMS implementers need to take into account.
A common example is how in large enterprises, there may be discrepancies between the overall corporate training or onboarding, on the one hand, and affiliate or department level training, on the other. What the HQ see may not always reflect the state of things in a particular team, so large-enterprise LMS need to balance standardization and monitoring capacities with whatever is needed for user adoption.
Another consideration is that in larger companies, there is a looser link between the investment and the output: it’s more difficult to see how a particular course has impacted productivity or compliance when there are more users, meaning a perfect LMS should collect metrics in real time and preferably have integrations with other systems to track the output.
Finally, there’s the need for scalability: the system should be able to handle large amounts of users, typically with different user roles and profiles.
How to choose an enterprise LMS: out-of-the box or custom?
While out-of-the-box Learning Management Systems (LMS) offer convenience and quick implementation, there are scenarios where custom LMS development becomes the preferred choice. Companies should consider custom development when their learning needs are highly specific or unique to their industry. For instance, if your organization requires specialized features, integrations with proprietary systems, or adherence to strict regulatory standards, a custom LMS can be tailored to meet these exact requirements.
Custom development is also beneficial for large enterprises with complex organizational structures or those seeking to create a distinctive learning experience aligned with their brand identity. If scalability and flexibility are paramount, a custom solution allows for easier modifications and expansions as your company grows.
What makes a LMS successful
There are several important considerations about what ensures user adoption for corporate LMS. Situations where the HQ-mandated systems or courses are viewed as “the headquarters’ whims” are not as rare, so it’s better to make sure the LMS is actually used by the employees and provides the expected output.
One of the important strategies is allowing for microlearning. According to a study by Dresden University, microlearning can increase engagement by up to 50% and improve knowledge retention by 20%. For example, Duolingo’s language learning app uses bite-sized lessons, resulting in 300 million active users worldwide. An employee who’s asked to spend an entire hour learning versus one who can go through micro modules while commuting or drinking coffee makes a big difference.
This is where mobile friendliness and cross-platform consistency becomes important. A report by Towards Maturity found that 67% of learners use mobile devices for learning. However, the experience needs to be aligned and consistent between the laptop and the smartphone – something that once elevated Coursera among the competition.
Finally, good UX is paramount for LMS adoption. A study by the eLearning Industry revealed that 94% of users’ first impressions of an LMS are design-related. LinkedIn Learning’s intuitive interface and personalized recommendations have helped it achieve a 78% year-over-year increase in hours spent learning, all without being mandatory for anyone.
Conclusions
Choosing an LMS is very deeply connected to the company culture, the processes, and the needs. There may be general patterns, like larger companies relying more on analytics and reporting, but the overall choice is determined by numerous factors:
- How many courses do you need to create on a quarterly basis?
- Do you expect senior employees across departments to contribute?
- How will you monitor the impact of courses?
- Who will need that information the most?
- Are you willing to assign a person to work on administering the LMS, setting it up, and so on?
- How important is the choice of formats for the materials you need to teach?
- Is there so much material that it might require creating personalized learning paths?
- Is there an already established mentorship culture within specific departments?
The list could go on. While out-of-the-box solutions offer convenience, custom LMS development may be necessary for organizations with unique requirements or complex structures.
You can take the first step towards transforming your corporate learning strategy by contacting our experts for a consultation – and defining whether your organization needs a custom-built LMS and how to implement it.
