The document discusses 5 key trends in learning technology for 2013: 1. Integration of learning systems and data is essential for analytics and workforce insights. 2. Mobile learning is growing rapidly and content needs to be designed for multiple platforms. 3. Rapid content creation and social/mobile-first design are important for quick deployment. 4. Learning programs can be extended to external partners and customers to generate revenue. 5. Targeted development programs are needed to retain top talent and critical roles.

1. Whitepaper
5 TRENDSWHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
THIS YEAR
2013 LEARNING TRENDS:

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www.sumtotalsystems.com2013 LEARNING TRENDS: What You Need To Know This Year
Introduction
With the beginning of 2013, the landscape for enterprise learning
solutions is incredibly fluid and fastpaced. The trends that are driving
technology everywhere — data, mobile, cloud, social — also apply
to learning. How are these trends changing the learning community?
What are the opportunities that you should focus on first? We’ll
highlight five ideas that your learning strategy must address.
Learning has never been more vital to the success of the modern enterprise. Whether
you’re talking about a large global organization or an emerging local business, these
entities will need to embrace learning and development as the best way to confront
talent challenges. The skills and leadership gaps that exist in most organizations can’t
be addressed through recruiting. The answers will come from you and your peers in
learning functions.
“In 2013, learning leaders will solidify their role as a conduit to business success — not
through better program design but through better learning infrastructure, information
access, and adaptable learning opportunities for wider audiences,” said Stacey Harris,
vice president of research and advisory services at Brandon Hall Group. “Over 20
percent of organizations stated that learners needed to connect with learning resources
on a daily basis to effectively perform their job, and we think this number will continue
to rise rapidly in the coming years.”
Learning can’t exist within its own silo. It’s vital to connect development to performance,
succession and other talent, HR and workforce functions. You also need to work with
your executive leadership, HR and line managers to put development at the center of
every people function.
To help you in your people development planning, SumTotal wants to highlight these
five key trends in learning technology so you can future-proof your strategy.

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Understand that integration is
essential to analytics.TREND #1
Two market trends that you need to understand
clearly are the rapid integration in the market
and the almost exponential growth of workforce
data. Data consolidation has been activated
as companies have come together to create
an integrated talent management approach
with learning connected to performance,
compensation, succession and recruiting. Many
companies are attracted by the ROI potential —
organizations with effective integration of learning
and talent systems are three times as likely to have
strong employee results and 100 percent more
likely to have strong business results.1
Another benefit of integration is better data that
improves workforce analytics. Integration of talent
and learning technologies with other business software can yield insights about your
workforce that can lower people costs and benefit the bottom line. Over 40 percent
of organizations looking to replace their LMS were searching for improved reporting
features — the No. 1 replacement concern.2
If your boss isn’t asking you about analytics,
expect that to change this year.
embrace mobile learning.TREND #2
Mobile learning is here, but you shouldn’t be afraid of it. It has never been easier to
engage your people on the job and on the go. Many businesses have done a great job
of offering truncated and just-in-time mobile courses and job aids for their employees
to use on the go. It’s part of an enterprise-wide movement. In a recent survey by IDG, 69
percent of CIOs said mobile technology adoption is their most critical priority.3
As great as the current mobile programs have been for employees out in the field and
those without online access, courses have had a rather flat delivery — until now. For
example, text messages (or SMS) within mobile learning can engage users for more
What you need to know:
Not all integration is the same. You
may see a product demo that shows
a similar user interface, but is there
real integration? In most cases, no.
While an integrated user experience
is important, appearance may be
deceiving. At the code layer, many
integration challenges still remain
— challenges that you won’t see
until you are faced with a difficult
implementation and expensive data-
mapping challenges. Partner with
IT to ask hard questions about how
“integrated” a suite of software really
is. Also, ask about implementation
and professional support.
1. Bersin by Deloitte. Pillars for Performance: Integrating Learning and Talent Management. To purchase the report, visit http://www.bersin.com/practice/Detail.
aspx?id=14842&s=Talent-Mgmt.-Systems
2. Brandon Hall Group. LMS Trends 2013.
3. http://www.enterprisecioforum.com/en/whitepaper/mobile-higher-priority-cloud-or-big-data
4. http://clomedia.com/articles/view/mobile-learning-the-next-evolution

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Ways You Can Leverage Mobile Learning in Your
Organization:
•• Provide job aids and quality operating procedure
updates to employees who don’t have access to
a workstation.
•• Offer technical/clinical/service employees who
work in the field access to information on the job
and at the moment of need.
•• Enable workers who travel consistently, with
learning and training resources.
•• Keep your sales team up-to-date with the
most current marketing slicks and technical
specifications for all your products.
What you need to know:
You don’t need to sacrifice
functionality and data access to
benefit from mobile. As adoption of
Software as a Service (SaaS)-based
learning increases, the best systems
include a familiar user interface
regardless of platform and are
drawing on easy-to-use features
from the consumer world. Another
important feature is ease of ability
for users to upload content they
create and for managers to push
coursework to employees in the
field.
develop content for
rapid deployment.TREND #3
Rapid content creation continues to be on the forefront
of trends in content development. Solutions that are
quick, inexpensive, simple to create and easy to deploy
or modify are must-haves for those generating e-learning
content. One emerging trend is integrating social media
and social learning into e-learning courses. For example,
embedding a link to a social learning source, such as a
wiki or blog, is included within the course. Other trends
include adding more scenario-based learning and
creating shorter courses, spanning five to 15 minutes,
instead of the 30- to 60-minute courses of old.
One idea that is new to content development draws from the world of Web development:
designing for mobile first. In a world where people are rapidly replacing desktops and
laptops with tablets and smartphones, you must design user content to account for
screen size, ratios and resolution.
What you need to
know:
Think mobile and social
first — this is how users will
consume, interact with and
generate their own content.
Also, because of the move
to mobile, you will need to
account for HTML5. Is your
learning content ready for iOS
mobile devices that don’t play
Flash-based content?
effective training. Leveraging one of the most basic elements of mobile technology to
respond to polls, surveys and questionnaires is a great way to increase participation,
making an investment in mobile learning even more worthwhile.4
4. http://clomedia.com/articles/view/mobile-learning-the-next-evolution

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turn learning into a revenue
driver for your organization.TREND #4
We may have entered the aftermath of the Great Recession, but every department is still
expected to contribute to cutting costs, increasing efficiency and driving revenue. One
way to contribute to all three is to adopt extended-enterprise technologies to serve
content to external audiences. In a recent survey, over 53 percent of learning functions
were already gearing some of their learning toward external audiences.5
These training
audiences include customers, distributors and other partner organizations — frequently
in sales and compliance-related training that is industry-specific.
SaaS-based learning systems make it easy to develop and deliver training on demand.
You can develop and deliver education and information to audiences outside your
organization and:
•• Increase sales by delivering up-to-the-
minute information and supporting sales
enablement
•• Accelerate the adoption rate of new
products and services
•• Improve productivity and information-
sharing with external partners
•• Deliver certification programs and share
knowledge
•• Eliminate excess training costs while
accelerating time to market
•• Improve customer satisfaction
•• Reduce effort, time and training costs
What you need to know:
Extended-enterprise technologies are
a great way to turn learning content
you already have into revenue. When
evaluating options, focus on easy
administration. You should be able
to manage secure coupons, price
content flexibility, change navigation
and pages easily, and set up portals for
different audiences (such as potentially
competitive channel sales partners).
Also, make sure that your technology
choice supports easy purchase by credit
card and purchase order and invoice.
5. Brandon Hall Group. 2013: New Year and New Directions.
Use development to drive
TALENT RETENTION.TREND #5
No matter where you are in the world, there is one unavoidable truth — the people who
are most essential to your success are in short supply but great demand. The critical roles
in your organization may be a skill specific to your industry, or it could be as ubiquitous as
a mid-level manager. No matter where the skills shortage is pinching your organization,
recruiting isn’t the solution. The answer is retention. Hang on to your best people.

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How do you do it? First, you must understand
which roles are critical to your success and
find skills gaps. Succession tools can help
you assess your bench strength. After you
understand your areas of risk, you can target
development for high-potential employees in
these areas. You can even use development
to show valuable employees that they have a
future and a career path with you. It gives them
an incentive to stick around.
Don’t Take Top Talent for Granted
Various surveys show that 45 to 50 percent of
top performers are always looking for a new
job. Don’t assume your company is any different.
What you need to know:
Succession isn’t just for the C-suite.
All of your leaders and critical roles
should be in your succession plan. Also,
remember that without a development
plan behind it, a succession plan is only
a list of names. Make employees active
participantsintheircareerdevelopment,
and give them the training that helps
them gain the knowledge and skills to
be the top performers and leaders of
tomorrow.

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Conclusion
This is an exciting time for learning technology. Critical workforce needs and advances in
technology mean that learning professionals are at the forefront of the most important
talent challenges. With the right technology, you can know that you are up to the task
and ready to deliver.
As the market leader in enterprise learning, SumTotal can help you address your
learning challenges and make the most of the latest industry innovations.
Why choose us?
1. We offer an industry-leading learning solution, next-generation mobile
technologies, and cutting-edge delivery of content and extended-enterprise
solutions.
2. We’ve taken a different approach to product and technology integration. While
everyone else is still talking about product integration, it’s a reality with us today.
And no one in the industry can match our ability to integrate data with other HR
systems; other enterprise systems, like CRM and POS; and even popular third-
party sites like, salesforce.com and LinkedIn.
3. Our learning solutions are completely integrated with a suite of talent and
workforce solutions.
4. Our professional services teams are committed to your success — before, during
and after implementation.
5. We put your people first. We’re all about learning and development. We’ll help
your people be their best.
TAKING LEARNING TO THE
NEXT LEVEL

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contact us today
We’re ready to partner with you for new learning solutions. For additional information,
send an email to: connect@sumtotalsystems.com
About SumTotal
SumTotal Systems, LLC, the largest independent provider of integrated human resources
(HR) solutions, is increasing the performance of some of the world’s most successful
organizations, including AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN[ADR]; London: AZN), Amway (KUL:
AMWAY), and Seagate (NYSE: STX). The only HR solution provider to deliver Talent
Expansion™, a whole new approach to discovering, developing and unleashing hidden
potential within our customers’ workforce, SumTotal delivers employee enablement
solutions that help organizations become great places to work. SumTotal’s people-
focused applications, available on premise and in the Cloud, enable contextual, just-in-
time development designed to advance employees’ skills and knowledge. Today, more
than 3,500 organizations, including several of Fortune’s “Best Places to Work,” rely on
SumTotal’s on premise and cloud-based Talent Expansion applications to enable and
empower their employees. Visit us at www.sumtotalsystems.com.
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