eLearning Blog: September 2021

Thursday 30 September 2021

Get an edge over your Learning Strategy with a Learning Experience Platform

If you are privy to the learning domain then you already know that the Learning Experience Platform (LXP) market is growing fast owing to the need of employee centric, personalized trainings. Market opinion is that the LXP is looking to replace the $4 Billion+ LMS Market.

Analysts say that the Learning Management System is a top-down model whereas LXP makes effective use of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to bring a bottom-up approach to learning. With its learner-centric model, the platform seamlessly integrates with existing tools, making the shift from an LMS quite easy. It is a flexible and scalable system that makes learning experience personalized and unique. The learner can now control the trajectory that aligns with their goals.

According to Facts and Factors Market Research, the global learning experience platform (LXP) market was about USD 508.5 Million in 2020, with sales value projected to hit around USD 2186.4 Million by the end of 2026 and expected to register an excellent 25.3% CAGR during 2021 to 2026.

How did the need of a Learning Experience Platform emerge?

LMS was never designed to be learner controlled. It was developed as “management” system for learning, focused on business rules, compliance, and catalog management for courses.

The LMS fundamentally used processes like Course administration, Program Management, Business Rules, Assessment, Compliance rules, Management Approvals, Reporting and Analytics etc.

On the contrary LXP uses processes like Content Recommendations, Content Paths, Skills Mapping, Self-Published Content and Usage Analytics.

The LXP is an intelligent content delivery system which brings all learning material in one place, making it easy for individuals to choose the right courses – via search, personalization, and social sharing. Together, user experience, ownership, and discoverability, increase learner engagement, and business agility.

New Generation LXP v/s Traditional LMS

Learning Experience Platform

Having discussed the differences between the LMS and LXP, it is important to point out that whether you should choose an LXP or an LMS is dependent on how you want to control the learning environment. To put it simply, in an academic setting, LMS is your curriculum manager while LXP is the library.

G-Cube LXP is a new-age platform, designed to deliver intuitive learning experience for all. The experience-driven platform delivers trainings with adaptive learning paths that tailor content experience for individual users & encourages collaborative learning and mentoring.

Share on facebook Share on linkedin Share on twitter Customer Service – Solutions to Stay Upbeat

Customer expectations are reaching new heights, and poor customer service can cost a fortune.

The way in which a customer is treated, communicated with, and valued can make a significant difference. It is a crucial element that can distinguish one brand from another.

What does the future of customer service look like?

Traditionally, people did business or bought products based on brand, image, and price, but now it is very much about the experience. Any transaction, whether it is with people, products or in business, is judged on the value associated with the experience.

Customer Experience

Understanding the customer is a major factor. A recent survey by PWC suggests that, in the last six months, consumer behavior has evolved significantly.

The feel-good factor is important, and strategies should include all modes of communication, such as chat-bot, messages, email, and notifications. Customers happily pay more for a product if they feel they have had a pleasant experience.

Customer support should not be an afterthought. A highly impactful customer base can be developed by providing great products accompanied by great customer service.

Technology as an Enabler

Companies collect the most relevant data when they can utilize and decode customer information to improve their goods or services.

Technology alone cannot necessarily solve the problem, but it can provide these essential elements: Speed. Convenience. Consistency. Friendliness.

Emotionally Connected and Safe Experiences

Seventy-one percent of Americans would rather interact with a human than a chatbot or some other automated process – PwC.

This new standard of expectation has also seen a shift in values. Customers want a safe experience in their transactions and interactions, and this can be seen as an opportunity to develop stronger and more meaningful relationships.

How can you make this work?

Simply by enabling your staff.

But how do we get it right?

Despite recent global upheavals, some things remain constant in customer service and experience—’building trust’ and ‘human connection’.

The first step would be to treat our internal stakeholders as our prime customer. Thus, business strategies and priorities focusing on customer service representatives, especially the frontline staff, will contribute significantly.

With an ability to communicate kindly and clearly, they can have a considerable impact on the business with cross-selling and up-selling.

Solutions to stay upbeat

Knowledge

Customers would not be happy with a service if they felt that the representative lacked knowledge. A knowledgeable employee should sound confident, be able to resolve issues and combat difficult customer interactions.

To empower your prominent stakeholders:

Provide them with handy guides, such as a quick-fix negotiation guide or a conversation guide in the appropriate format, as well as learning nuggets, including just-in-time modules, reference guides, etc.
Provide them a centralized knowledge base with learning resources acting as a kiosk constantly available from any device.
Teach them with an engaging learning strategy to make training enjoyable and engaging, including tools such as animations and interactions, explainer videos, demonstration videos, and other interactive videos.
Have knowledge-sharing sessions with top performers to improve competence.

Skills

Organizations need to nurture their employees’ digital, cognitive, social and emotional, and adaptability and resilience skill sets. Many customers have struggled during the pandemic, and a little empathy can help them feel good.

The ever-evolving skill-based training and the current challenges require companies to proactively create strategies that enable development in four areas:

Basic digital skills to understand the organization’s ecosystem, critical technology, and processes.
Life skills such as adaptability and resilience to drive this experiential shift.
Situational empathy skills to combat disruptions caused by the pandemic.
Cognitive skills to further enhance and prepare for a self-reliant environment.

Awareness

To be prepared for the dynamic role of customer service, we must equip team members with information and technology, so they are able to assist the customer in their best capacity.

Prepare the team for positive customer experiences with virtual reality learning solutions that mirror real-life situations.
Provide guided training modules with challenges that allow learners to realize, decide, and get feedback on responses.
Prepare for high-quality solution-oriented customer service that acts as an agent for behavioral change.
Provide reinforcement sessions to boost positive customer service habits and behaviors.

Make sure your employees are aware and understand that they are empowered. Reach out to G-Cube to discover excellent solutions for customer service.

Training Medical Representatives to adapt to the New Normal with a Learning Experience Platform

How do you sell your product to customers without meeting them? This question has been plaguing multiple industries, but for pharmaceutical companies, convincing doctors to prescribe their products has gotten even more difficult. 2020 changed the business of medicine forever, and while medical representatives (MRs) are still trying to get used to the new normal, it is not all bad. In fact, the only action required at the moment is to adapt to the situation and do it fast. In this article, we will discuss the role of a learning experience platform in bringing the desired revolution.

In research conducted by Accenture in 2020, it was found that 61% of physicians are interacting more with their reps during COVID-19 than they did before the pandemic, despite the restrictions. However, the main factor that drives the market is the capability of MRs to pivot from face-to-face to remote methods. This is the difference between a ‘great’ MR and a ‘good’ MR. While 64% of meetings were previously in-person, now 65% of them are virtual. 28% doctors in the survey said that the restrictions on physical meetings they have implemented may be permanent, while another 44% said they would keep the restrictions “for the foreseeable future.” In this situation, creating the same level of trust and accountability between a physician and a medical rep in the virtual environment requires certain efforts on behalf of the pharma company.

Not only the environment, but also the kind of knowledge expected from a MR has changed. According to reports, moving forward, physicians expect reps “to be skilled in addressing clinical and scientific questions beyond the product detail, as well as represent multiple products.” The Accenture survey says that 82% of physicians said they have seen pharma companies change how they communicate during the pandemic, specifically broadening their communication beyond product information to “support that meets their most pressing needs.” Therefore, it can be inferred that with the expectations of physicians rising, pharma companies are making strategic changes in their approach to MR training.

Training in the pharma industry has always been critical, from both a product and a compliance point of view. However, the current shift in the business model calls for a revision of tactics to enable the MRs of the future. The role is evolving to become less of an individual relationship manager to a knowledge curator and change enabler. While physical meetings meant that the MR had to take multiple appointments to answer all physician questions, virtual meetings have created the scope for conference calls with Subject Matter Experts.

To enable MRs to become more than their current version of a sales rep trying by hook or by crook to get the doctor to listen, training plays an important role. Here are a few things that a Learning Experience Platform (LXP) has to offer that can help pharma companies in delivering the right training to medical reps:

Personalized Learning Paths

Allow MRs to learn through personalized learning paths as per their specific job roles and projects. Training for the individual responsible for selling a product and boosting customer retention will be different from the one with the role of creating demand for a newly launched product. As they become custodians of knowledge, it is important to create a learning path that compliments their existing knowledge base.

Search Engine

A query resolved is a customer satisfied. With the robust search engine of an LXP, featuring automated content tagging and segregation, MRs are better equipped to find the answer to any question that might come their way. This allows MRs to stay updated and access product information when they need it. It also helps employees to develop the curious mind necessary to keep up with the information age in business.

Recommendation System

Much like OTT platforms, AI-enabled LXPs have the capability to recommend content based on the learner’s previous choices. To develop comprehensive knowledge about a particular product necessary to serve the physicians in the current scenario, learning recommendations are of great help to MRs.

The LXP provides critical and cutting-edge support above and beyond the regular functions of a learning management system. Leveraging the offerings of the latest technology is a way that pharma companies can bring agility to their frontliners driving business and ushering in a new era. The G-Cube Learning Experience Platform, compliant with 21 CFR part 11 according to FDA guidelines, has the right features to enable the MRs of the future.

Wednesday 8 September 2021

‘Channelize’ your eLearning Strategy

According to Statista, Youtube has 2.1 billion users in 2021 and according to the company, their users spend an average of 1 hour on the platform daily. Netflix on the other hand has 203 million+ paid subscribers and the company has seen 21.9% growth over last 12 months. eMarketer estimates that Netflix accounts for 25.7% of daily digital video time among US adults. This means that the average US adult spends 30 minutes a day watching Netflix.

These overwhelming numbers, do make us question the strategy behind such extraordinary user engagement? Is it just good content that keeps their audience glued or makes them come back for more or is it something else? Experts are of the opinion, that it is the suggestion engine that is driving the numbers, along with the presentation of that suggestion.

Youtube and Netflix are not just video streaming platforms anymore. They have now become content suggestion engines with the radical advancement in machine learning and artificial intelligence. These platforms are analyzing the user’s interaction with the content on the platform to suggest relevant content as per the user’s preference. The suggested content is further segregated into various categories based on the user’s past views on the platforms, their choice of language, geographical positioning, peer’s choice and so on. The user’s visit is incentivized by this service the platform is providing and their engagement with the platform increases with the sense of hyper-personalization. Netflix rakes in USD 1 billion each year by ensuring strong customer retention with the use of recommender engines, or the channel approach.

Now imagine, having the same strategy implemented for your learning delivery. Given the user’s behavior on these OTT platforms, one can safely bet on the effectiveness of a similar channel-based user interface on a learning platform. In 2018, Josh Bersin said that research has found out that employees have on an average 24 minutes to dedicate to learning. Learning providers have to strategically make most of this time and also create an affinity towards learning. The Netflix-like channel-based UI on a learning platform revolutionizes the way a learner receives content and consumes it. They not only receive the most relevant content in one glance, but the admin can push the most important courses, assessments, videos etc according to priority.

Sayan Guha, Product Head – Learning Technologies, G-Cube is a big advocate of this channel-based approach and says ‘When we talk of the Learn Tech industry, the scope is unimaginable for using the channel approach for learning personalization. Based on the learners’ interest, training history, and content consumption choices, the recommender algorithm can throw in incredibly useful training suggestions which will most definitely increase engagement and effectiveness of training. Our channel-based approach is driving high learning adoption for all kinds of learners, from leadership to sales teams to customers.’

How does channel-based approach facilitate learning?

It helps categorize the learning content automatically based on keywords which also helps in keyword-based content search. For example – When a learner types/search a keyword- for example, ‘mobile hardware items’ they will find, anything related to it available on the LMS, even from the ‘recently uploaded’ or ‘about to expire’ items on their channels. Having this feature helps learners save time and effort.
The channels are rule-based which means that once a new learning content is uploaded on the platform, the content will get automatically segregated in the relevant channel.
Learning courses, assessments, certifications which must be completed within a certain date or have to be renewed can be highlighted in separate channel with alerts to the user.
As the channels are programmable, admin can edit the channel placement through simple drag and drop to put the channels on the top whose content needs attention from the learner.
Learner can see the recommended content based on their job roles, KPIs, past learning records and peer activity, all segregated into separate channels. Just like Netflix, G-Cube’s LMS home page looks different for different profiles as the learner can see content relevant to their profiles and recommendations.

AI advancements has taken over all aspects of digital experience of human beings – starting from how we listen to music to how we navigate our way to work. That is the level of efficiency and comfort your learners deserve in their learning journey as well. To know more about the programmable channel-based G-Cube LMS, write to us.

How the Learning Management System Lives on!

“LMS is dead”—this statement came out more than a decade ago, in 2009–10. However, not only did the LMS survive; it also thrived by leaps and bounds. In 2017, Josh Bersin had written an article for Forbes stating: “Companies are starting to move away from their Learning Management Systems (LMS), buy all sorts of new tools for digital learning, and rebuild a whole new infrastructure to help employees learn.”

Four years after this prediction, FortuneBusinessInsight.com reported:

The Global Learning Management System market size was USD 10.84 billion in 2020. The global impact of Covid-19 has been unprecedented and staggering, with LMS witnessing a positive demand shock across all regions amid the pandemic. Based on our analysis the global market exhibited a significant growth of 23.8% in 2020 as compared to the year-on-year growth during 2017–2019. The market is projected to grow from 13.38 billion USD to 44.48 billion USD in 2028 at a CAGR of 18.7% in the 2021–28 period. The change in CAGR is attributable to this market’s demand & growth, returning to pre-pandemic levels once the pandemic is over.

The statistics confirm that even after the death verdict, the LMS demonstrated resilience against the market opinion and transformed itself in terms of features, functionalities, and technologies. Rapidly, it developed and embraced new technologies like artificial intelligence, big data, and consumer-level user-friendliness to maintain its supremacy. The modern LMS has adapted itself to create personalized learning paths for employees, AI-based suggestions to increase learning uptake, and most importantly, it created a collaborative environment for learning, even in a virtual space.

With the growing technology, management processes, and performance expectations, the need for new knowledge, skills, and even human behavior has evolved. Organizations cannot compete in this business by using old styles of work; it dawned this realization upon not only large corporations but also medium and small-sized companies. Most organizations have a growing need to empower their employees, customers, partners, and freelancers with knowledge, and in this age of information boom, they need a better system every second year to keep up.

In an article that came out in 2011, Ellen Behrens predicted that instead of the LMS dying out, it will significantly change in the years to come—most likely to continue including successful ways of providing access to learning across the world, smart ways to measure it, and last, implementations of social features that allow both association members and non-members (learners) to interact and connect.

There was a time when L&D specialists, analysts, and learners complained about the LMS gradually turning into a tedious and irrelevant application. However, the LMS providers did not fail to take notice of these complaints. According to Mr. Ankush Jagga, Business Head of Products & Growth at G-Cube: “We have served millions of learners in last 20 years and we have been constantly conducting surveys among the learners and the training providers to figure out what is needed and what needs to be eliminated from the LMS. So, at the end of the day, learners get a fantastic experience. Every quarter, we release new version of our LMS on the basis of the surveys and the opinion leader’s thought.”

Ten years down the line, Ellen Behrens’ prediction has come true. With digitization, jobs are changing rapidly, and skills required to adapt to this change are less mechanical and more human. Corporate training has thus become less about sporadic skill development or compliance training. The modern organization demands a culture of continuous learning and upskilling for the employees. To address this need, the 21st Century LMS has thus not become a manager for training and content but, rather, a coach to motivate the learners.

Just like humankind, software and applications also evolves. They take new shapes to adapt to the environment. Darwin’s theory of the “Survival of the Fittest” applies not only to humans but also to technology. So, the LMS, just like other software—CRM, ERP, HRMS, etc., have actively listened, made changes, and remained relevant and meaningful to the organizations.

Compliance Training Struggles of the Pharmaceutical Industry – Decoded

The quantity of certifications necessary within the pharmaceutical (pharma) industry is mindbogglingly numerous. Indeed, Pharmaceutical formulation, pharmaceutical transfer processes, GLP, GMP, Clinical Compliance, Process Validation, Global Regulatory Affairs, Document Management, GMP (Good manufacturing practice) QSR, and CMC hazardous drugs are all certifications required in this line of work; however, one should remain vigilant surrounding the warnings of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – the 483s. The FDA provides sterile and non-sterile pharmaceutical guidelines for industries; these are updated intermittently, especially concerning raw materials and other finished products. All FDA approved plants throughout the world need to be compliant toward these guidelines; therefore, to sustain the supply and demand chain for this life-saving industry, there is an ever-constant requirement for pharma companies to ensure ongoing compliance.

Background:

In the pharma industry, each and every individual working in all aspects, from the research to the sales teams, needs certification to perform their particular job; indeed, every task, job, instrument, and process has a related standard operating procedure (SOP). There is also a requirement to maintain complicit adherence to the mandatory information security guidelines related to the specific country or region of operations.

The training function has unsurprisingly become an integral part of this entire process as each certification has a related training scheme. The compliance related training process in the pharma industry is not only time-consuming and exhaustive but also simultaneously expensive. It is suggested to read this article and familiarize oneself with the process to reduce costs by automating training for SOP changes.

The business of a pharma company can be broadly divided into two parts, thus: Manufacturing and Sales. Both functions have a heavy compliance requirement; however, if we examine in isolation what is necessary to meet legal requirement, then there are three important factors to consider.

Course Completion: Whether employees are completing requisite certification training.

Timelines/Deadline: Compliance training usually must be enacted periodically to maintain pace with regulatory alterations.

Record/Reporting: Data management needs to be effectively gauged as well as “drilled down” compliance status prevalent within the organization or specific department.

One must note that training and certification is a document and information biased process and that 21 CFR part 11 of the FDA guidelines mandates data integrity. According to pharmaguideline.com, “The aim of part 11 of 21 CFR rules is to promote integrity of the usage of electronic records and signatures, such that the data is not distorted, deleted or manipulated in any way which would compromise the delivery of services. The pharmaceutical practitioners are, therefore, required to maintain a high degree of compliance with these rules to enhance reliability and trustworthiness of electronic records, as well as signatures.”

It is thus imperative for the Pharma-specific Learning Management System (LMS) to be compliant to these guidelines. It does not, however, end there; to follow is a list of critical tasks, all manageable on the Pharma LMS, which can ensure a reliable degree of ease and efficacy in compliance training.

Categorize and assign compliance conditions in the form of certificates regarding specific job roles.
Ensure continuous monitoring of compliance conditional status. Accurately record details of all related activities as way of evidential compliance during audit.
Define all requisite conditions to be met in terms of certification, in conjunction with their targeted time frames, thus enabling traceable compliance efforts, which can be corrected if needed in a timely manner.
Provide a definition of the requisite extra information when applying for a particular compliance.
Utilize wisely the information collated during inspections and audits. Recommend corrective actions to ensure efficacy in the event of certain project elements not meeting compliance standards.
Demonstrate to all stakeholders, such as vendors, lenders, government regulatory agencies, and others, that obligations are being met within the targeted time frames.

Technological advancement has brought with it the ease of conducting business to various industries; indeed, the training industry is now bustling with innovative practice. G-Cube LMS, with its in-built compliance management system, is the one-stop answer for all your compliance queries. For more details, please write to us.