If there was ever a market ripe for disruption it would be the learning management market. While I don’t have any stats- anecdotally speaking, so many organizations and universities are fed up with the major players the field is wide open for new entrants. Many of the prospects we speak to who are currently shopping are simply not impressed with the current crop of LMSs out there, or find the costs too big a burden to bear.

Never fear training managers. A new year is among us, and with it come new players and bigger and more efficient technologies. One player who I will be tracking and whose product is still in “beta” is Pearson’s OpenClass™.

Pearson has a well-articulated vision of learning, and is enticing institutions of higher learning with their favorite price. It’ll be interesting to see this platform compete with some of the more established players in the market, as well as how it will overcome the resistance of many IT shops.

Do you have a Learning Management resolution for 2013? If so, do share. I’d love to hear it.

Finding success as a franchisor depends on the ability to foster success with every franchisee. Providing a proper learning platform that meets these needs is the path to success. Success often depends on the ability to:

Transfer lessons learned to business practices.

Training often falls short, regardless of the method, because in a formal training environment it is impossible to achieve 100% transfer back to “the field”. No matter how you present it, someone won’t "get it" or will fail to implement properly.

Leverage feedback systems.

When an initiative is rolled out to the franchisee, do they know when they succeed and when they don’t? When one franchisee is successful, how do you leverage that success with the other franchisees? Fostering communication between franchisees allows them to understand when they veer off the path.

Providing a sandbox for franchisees to share and learn from each other.

Often a franchisee can feel like a fortified island in competition with all other franchisees. They guard their success as secrets. However, when they are placed in a position to coach and teach others, those protective walls drop, information flows and everyone finds success.

Provide them a forum for them to ask questions and clarify when they don't understand.

Franchisees need to be able to find the answers when they need them, ask questions when they can’t find the answers and clarify the answers they find so that they can be successful. Providing them the forum to comfortably ask these questions and find the success they want is vital to your system’s success.

Getting each licensee to succeed is a challenge every franchisor must face. Profitable execution depends on delivering your brand’s promise consistently, profitably, and as cost effectively as you can. Training is expensive to develop, deliver, and not always the best solution. What you really want to foster is learning, information sharing, and mentoring or coaching across your system.