Increasing need to educate dispersed workforces, the growing popularity of home working as well as time and cost saving initiatives are all key justifications for switching from classroom to virtual training delivery. The social distancing challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic have forced many organisations into making the change sooner than intended, as can be seen by the recent boost in demand for video conferencing solutions, for example. In an article from McKinsey, “Accelerating Adoption of Digital Solutions” was cited as one of the key strategic areas that businesses must focus on, in order to recover quickly from the affects of the pandemic.

We have been supporting organisations with the implementation of training initiatives for more than 30 years. During this time we’ve adopted various applications to support us in the delivery of online meetings, virtual training sessions and social collaboration. We have first hand experience of how the drive for digital transformation continues to accelerate change in our industry. A recent Forbes article also predicted that eLearning will become a bigger part of ongoing learning, saying “In-person learning programs won’t go away, but they’ll be reserved for certain functions and certain populations within the company. Face-to-face learning will likely be just a small element of a learning curriculum.”

Because our clients’ requirements are evolving, as well as our own business needs, we have recently undertaken an evaluation of virtual training delivery platforms and are sharing our findings here. We’ve considered some of the key features that we require for digital classroom delivery, and investigated if this functionality exists. As an agnostic services consultancy, we’re not reselling any of these products but anticipate this article will encourage further discussion to help the community learn more about what is available and more importantly, what works.

Please note, this article is centred around our experience and not part of a wider consultation. We don’t profess to be experts on any of these platforms and therefore where Pros and Cons have been provided, these are based on our own use of these tools.

Main Technology Providers

For the purposes of our review, we have chosen some of the main contenders in the virtual training delivery space. There are many other providers and we would be interested in hearing from you if there are other applications that are working well for you. These are the six applications we have reviewed:

• Zoom
• Microsoft Teams
• Cisco Webex
• GotoTraining
• Google Meet
• Adobe Connect

We used TrustRadius to provide an independent comparison score for each of the applications under review.

LMS Integration

Integration of virtual training delivery applications with Learning Management Systems appears to be a fast area of growth, driven by the increase in home working and demand for virtual training alternatives. Many Learning Management System vendors are now offering some form of integration with their choice of online delivery platform. This could be a simple link through to an online session, or the LMS could provide functionality to track and report, for example. It’s not necessarily a game changer for organisations looking for virtual training delivery, more of an added feature benefit. At a basic level all of the online delivery applications that we have reviewed offer some form of LMS integration.

Social Learning

For many organisations social collaboration is becoming a key part of their learning strategy. Because Social Learning offers learning at the point of need, it enables learners to avoid the dreaded 70-20-10 scenario. Although the majority of the virtual training delivery applications we reviewed offered some collaborative features including interactive polling, breakout sessions as well as screen and file sharing, this was (as far as we are aware) only available during a scheduled virtual session. Microsoft Teams stands-out in that it offers a more interactive, chat-based interface providing the opportunity for groups to collaborate informally, outside of scheduled sessions.

Conclusion

All of the applications we’ve reviewed offer very similar and comparable functionality for virtual training delivery. There isn’t really a clear winner that stands out from the crowd or covers all situations, unless you can advise us otherwise. If you adopt any of these applications, then we’re sure that you will have an adequate virtual training delivery solution for your business.

The key is to find the solution that is simplest to implement in terms of technology and doesn’t require a steep learning curve for your users. For organisations that do not have any web conferencing applications, Zoom or Webex would be solid choices. However if an organisation already uses MS365 or G Suite then MS Teams or Google Meet may be a better fit, because they’re already familiar with these products. Likewise, organisations that use the Adobe Creative suite may decide to go with Adobe Connect as it is easier to implement technology that is already familiar to the users.

We’re really keen to find out what your organisation has tried and / or adopted. What have you found most successful, and why? Did you find any drawbacks with particular solutions? We look forward to continuing this investigation with you online… Please offer us your thoughts in the comments section below.