Some people see e-learning as e-learning, but the truth is that different markets demand different features and capabilities. For example, anyone who approaches customer education the same way as compliance training or learning and development is going to have confused customers and lost revenue opportunities.
Customer education is unique enough as a niche that you want a system purpose-built for external learning, and Thought Industries has focused on this segment of the market for years. Thought Industries (or TI for short) Enterprise Learning Cloud is an LMS with all of the features companies expect from a customer education platform, including adaptive learning paths with machine learning, robust reporting through an intuitive interface, advanced e-commerce models for new market expansion, and a sleek UI (user interface). However, TI looks to go beyond the pain points customers bring to them and encourage them to “think big”, often exceeding their wildest dreams.
TI has two breakout features to facilitate this. First, Panorama helps organizations of any size easily license, customize, rebrand, and distribute content across multiple instances. Second, TI Helium is a headless offering providing deep customization with no limitations. Both features wowed industry analyst Craig Weiss, leading to TI being named both 2023’s top customer education system and top learning platform overall in his annual rankings. This article will explore both of these features in further detail. If you’d like to learn more about TI’s capabilities and compare them to other leading LMS vendors, you can create a free account on FindAnLMS.com to take advantage of exclusive insight from Weiss himself.
Panorama is a fresh take on multi-tenancy
Multi-tenancy is the term used to describe a single instance of software and its supporting infrastructure serving multiple customers. While the application is shared, each tenant’s data is isolated and remains invisible to other tenants. The result is that every customer receives a custom-branded, personalized approach.
Multiple platforms offer multi-tenancy, but Thought Industries’ Panorama stands apart by streamlining the process. You can split your content into “parent” and “child” courses to save time. Editing a parent course automatically updates all of the child courses using that information, making it easy for global training programs to ensure that everyone is working with up-to-date materials. Alternatively, a child course can be edited without affecting similar child courses or the parent course, allowing you to provide a customized experience to every audience.
Similarly, Panorama makes it easy to license content to other companies, allowing them to sell it to their customers. White labeling ensures that users see the logos, font, colors, and brand messaging they expect from the first time they log in to the last time they sign out, no matter how many different audiences are involved. Most importantly, Panorama lets businesses sell courses through a subscription model, a la carte, or anything in between for maximal flexibility.
Helium introduces headless technology to the world
Thought Industries’ Helium is a front-end development framework for building custom learning experiences. It includes the structure, components, and tooling developers need to quickly deliver the experiences your customers deserve. Creative restrictions are removed, allowing developers to unleash their creativity and empowering organizations to express their brand and design vision like never before.
With Helium, you can develop multi-channel experiences across any platform including web, mobile, in-app, VR, and AR. Helium also integrates with Cloud Connect to automate back-office tasks and seamlessly integrates with the rest of your technology stack for developers of all levels of coding experience, including none. Other vendors are already attempting to copy TI Helium, but they aren’t close to replicating what it can do.
Mike Deacher of TI notes that many customers use Helium to “build on the technology they already have to help them scale.” Features such as authoring, e-commerce, course checkout, assessment functions, and enterprise-level security bring average courses to a new level.
Thought Industries has a unique approach
While TI is a viable solution for any organization looking for external learning on a cloud-based system, it’s designed specifically for companies with complex products in fields such as AR/VR and global companies offering training as a business. Deacher says that “trained, engaged, and renewing are the most important things in a customer,” adding that “If you don’t understand your customer’s vision, things will go sideways in many different ways.”
TI doesn’t view its customer base as customers but rather as partners, meaning they aren’t satisfied by making the sale. Instead, TI encourages customers to think bigger and provides expert insight into how to use their LMS for more ambitious use cases, ensuring every customer receives a superlative training experience.
Learn more about Thought Industries with FindAnLMS.com
Craig Weiss personally reviewed over 1,000 learning systems based all around the world to compile his 2023 rankings, and TI earned the top spot. Every organization has unique needs though, so there may be an even better system for your particular use case. Fortunately, you can create a free account on FindAnLMS.com for expert insight from Weiss himself, head-to-head comparisons based on the criteria you choose, and more. There is no better way to search for an LMS.
