Outsourcing is a known way to reduce the costs associated with a business function. However, handing over control of an aspect of your business must have other advantages than just being cheap, right?
In the case of eLearning content development, these “other” benefits of outsourcing are truly significant.
In other words, when a business outsources the development of its training content to the right outsourcing partner, it can potentially enjoy some great advantages that allow them access to high-quality training material that would otherwise be very pricey to develop in-house.
If you are still apprehensive about outsourcing the development of your training content to eLearning vendors, this list of benefits of outsourcing may help you make the right decision:
Contents
Access To Expertise
Many business owners would argue that their in-house team possesses the best knowledge of the subjects/modules that will be taught to their employees during their training tenure.
While that might be true (after all, who knows your product/service better than you), being a subject matter expert does not make anyone an expert in the most efficient techniques of teaching a subject.
Elearning development vendors employ instructional designers that have expert knowledge of how humans learn. By applying this knowledge to the content development process, they are able to design training courses that improve engagement and retention.
Most outsourcing vendors will also facilitate collaborations between your subject matter experts and their instructional design experts to ensure your employees/trainees enjoy the best of both worlds.
Quicker Turnaround Time
The development of e-learning training content is a time-consuming process. A study conducted by ATD revealed it can take roughly 118 working hours to develop 1 hour of text-only, limited interactivity module of e-learning material, even when one is working with templates. This time can stretch even further if you are designing training material without any prior experience.
Professional training development companies have a lot of experience developing various training modules, which gives them an edge over your in-house teams. Moreover, these vendors are equipped with state-of-the-art tools that allow them to further speed up the development process. As a result, they are able to deliver the training material in significantly smaller time windows.
Scalability
Speaking of quicker delivery times, with an outsourcing partner, it is even possible to cut short the development time by asking them to allocate more resources to your project. While such a quick delivery will surely cost you extra, it can be extremely advantageous when you are trying to meet deadlines.
Similarly, when your organization grows, and you have more departments/branches to train, you can easily scale up your training material development without having to face the struggles associated with bringing more development talent on board. Instead of struggling with finding new developers, instructional designers, and subject matter experts, all you need to do is tell your outsourcing partner about your growing needs and have a discussion about how they will be accommodated.
On the other hand, if, due to any unforeseen circumstances, you have to cut down on your training efforts and need to scale down, doing the same will involve minimal hassle when you are working with an outsourcing partner.
Freedom To Focus On Core Business
Finally, one of the most significant benefits of outsourcing training material development is that your in-house resources will not be engaged in the development process, and will be able to focus on their core responsibilities.
Moreover, since you will not be overlooking the development process, you can also focus on growing your business.
Conclusion
Besides the above-mentioned benefits, the monetary benefits of outsourcing eLearning development are also noteworthy. Not to forget, there is also reduced risk as you can be sure of never running into any unforeseen expenses related to the development process. All the expenses will be covered in the initial cost estimate that your potential outsourcing partner will share with you.
