Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) in the skilling space play a pivotal role in shaping the future of education. They use modern tools and technologies to create engaging content and learning experiences. For instance, Learning Management System (LMS) is used to manage courses and track progress, cloud computing helps with content storage and delivery, and AI and learning analytics enable personalized recommendations.
However, to address the ever-evolving education needs, ISVs operating in the skilling space need to leverage advanced EdTech solutions. This can help skilling platforms develop future-ready EdTech products, advance their skilling offerings, and elevate their success quotient.
This blog post will help ISVs unlock unparalleled growth opportunities and create a niche in the global skilling landscape. Get ready to learn how transformative EdTech solutions can empower skilling platforms to overcome critical challenges and maximize business productivity.
Resolving 5 Complex Challenges for ISVs in the Skilling Industry
As an ISV wanting to create a lasting business impact in the skilling industry, you must be facing various challenges while providing effective solutions for learning and development. Leveraging the right EdTech solutions can help you overcome these complex challenges and fulfill required business objectives. Let’s understand how.
1. Analyzing the Skills Gap
“According to ‘The State of the Workforce Skills Gap’ report by Springboard, 75% of C-level executives observed a skills gap within their organization. The report also highlights that 70% of directors and 64% of VPs say their companies are operating with a skills deficiency.”
One of the biggest challenges faced by ISVs is analyzing the skills gap. ISVs are unable to understand the current and future needs of the job market and industries. They don’t have the right combination of EdTech to gather accurate data, identify the specific skills gap, and develop relevant products.
Many skilling platforms conduct skills gap analysis manually. However, the dynamic nature of the demand for skills and the evolving job market make this manual process time-consuming, resource-intensive, and prone to inaccuracies.
Solution: AI-Based Automated Skills Gap Analysis
Automating skills gap analysis with AI can help ISVs overcome the above challenges and transform their skilling offerings like never before. This approach can reduce manual intervention and streamline the identification of the skills gap with utmost precision.
A global skilling platform wanted to identify the skill gaps in all types of corporate leaders. They sought to improve the accuracy across different types of coaching and complement their manual efforts. Harbinger helped them automate skills gap analysis using AI models, ML transformers, NLP, and language models. Explore the solution.
2. Building Custom Online Learning Platform
Another crucial challenge that ISVs in the skilling domain face is creating a custom online learning portal. ISVs often encounter difficulties supporting multitenancy, payment gateway, content storage, and device-agnostic accessibility.
On the flip side, some ISVs grapple with understanding the significance of adopting a subscription-based skilling model. This transition requires a well-defined shift from one-time sales to continuous delivery of value to the learners.
Solution: Integration of LMS with Third-Party Applications
ISVs in the skilling space need to collaborate with a trusted EdTech partner with expertise in building a custom skilling platform. This collaboration will help them advance their skilling offerings and effectively integrate the best LMS with desired third-party applications.
Integrating LMS with third-party applications can create seamless learning experiences for learners. It can enable ISVs to develop a custom online learning platform that can deliver tailored learning through a subscription-based model.
Recently, Harbinger helped a premium coaching academy build a custom online learning platform by tailoring and integrating Moodle LMS with third-party applications. This partnership enabled our client to successfully resell their online learning platform to other coaching institutes via a subscription-based model.
Our solution offered multitenant support and successfully integrated the platform with online payment portal, social login, content storage service, location service, and mobile-responsive UI. Explore the solution.
3. Expanding and Scaling Skilling Offerings
Expanding and scaling skilling offerings to reach broader Higher Ed student and adult learner audiences while maintaining quality and relevance is not an easy job. The situation becomes more challenging when an ISV in the skilling space deals with legacy architecture, multiple integrations, and agile product development.
Skilling platforms experience complications while scaling up content production to meet increasing demand for diverse skill sets. They are unable to adapt their offerings to cater to different industries, roles, and levels of expertise. Some other barriers may include inefficient resource management, hard coding, and lack of EdTech expertise.
Solution: Development of Custom Middleware Application
A plausible solution to overcome aforementioned challenges is creating a custom middleware application. This application will help ISVs support multiple integrations and accelerate their agile product development strategy.
Skilling platforms can develop custom middleware to modernize their legacy architecture and meet the evolving skilling requirements. This approach will not only optimize their content delivery but also simplify administrative processes.
An eminent leadership skilling platform turned to Harbinger with similar business needs. They wanted to integrate their internal system with SAP SuccessFactors, Absorb LMS, and Workday. We developed a custom middleware application to sync their LMS, third-party LMS, and application tracking system.
Our solution improved the effectiveness of their platform, reduced information discrepancies, and added agility and flexibility to their architecture. Explore the solution.
4. Personalizing Skilling Recommendations
Personalization is critical to enhancing learner engagement and learning effectiveness in skilling programs. ISVs operating in the skilling industry encounter various hiccups while delivering personalized skilling recommendations. They have to create the right balance between automation and human intervention to achieve desired outcomes.
Skilling platforms struggle with implementing algorithms and data analytics to analyze learner behavior and preferences. They are unable to regularly refine and update recommendation systems to account for changes in skill requirements and EdTech trends.
Solution: AI-Powered Recommendation Engine
Having an AI-powered recommendation engine in place can help ISVs easily provide personalized skilling recommendations. ISVs in the skilling industry will be able to integrate AI algorithms to deliver education content that aligns with the interests of the learners.
A renowned leadership coaching platform teamed up with Harbinger to build such a solution. Harbinger helped them develop an AI-enabled recommendation engine that can identify the most relevant resources based on user profiles and create a tailored library of resources.
Our solution personalized resource recommendations, improved scalability and availability of resources, and enhanced the coaching experience for learners. Explore the solution.
5. Facilitating Accessible Microlearning
Education content delivered in bite-sized chunks is gaining popularity due to its effectiveness in catering to learners’ busy schedules and short attention spans. However, making microlearning content available to diverse audiences, considering individuals with disabilities or restricted technology accessibility, can be tricky.
Skilling platforms have to deal with various setbacks while creating products and solutions that promote accessibility, inclusivity, and equal access to learning opportunities.
Solution: Creation of A Standardized Style Guide
ISVs in the skilling industry can overcome such challenges by establishing a standardized style guide. This can help ISVs expedite microlearning content creation, enhance learner experience, and ensure consistency across education materials.
A top-tier online learning platform joined forces with Harbinger to convert their complex and lengthy tutorials into a simplified set of microlessons. Our team planned, designed, and developed a standardized style guide to ensure uniformity across necessary tutorials.
Our solution simplified complex courses, accelerated learning workflow, and enhanced user engagement and satisfaction. Explore the solution.
Parting Thoughts
Developing and deploying the right EdTech solutions can propel ISVs in the skilling industry toward a new era of innovation, growth, and limitless possibilities. The combination of technology expertise and education know-how can help skilling platforms enhance their offerings at scale and adapt to the changing needs of adult learners in the dynamic skilling landscape.
If you want to enhance your skilling offerings, need support to modernize your skilling platform, or seek dedicated assistance to build a scalable EdTech product from scratch, reach out to us at contact@harbingergroup.com. Our EdTech experts would be more than happy to help you achieve your desired business goals.
