Implementing Digital and Mobile Training Materials

Many Companies Want to Make the Shift

Over the years, through customer interactions and survey results, we have learned a lot about what motivates training and consulting firms to transition to digital and mobile training materials, and what barriers they perceive to accomplishing that goal:

• Most believed they would experience substantial cost savings and revenue benefits from offering digital and mobile formats of their training materials and wanted to do so.
• Many were not sure where to begin or how to answer important questions about such a transition and remained stalled in their efforts to change.

Based on the feedback of these professionals, SharedBook has developed a program to break this impasse and help training and consulting companies migrate to digital and mobile materials without risk. This use case describes common concerns companies have when considering the transition, and how SharedBook partners with customers to alleviate those risks and concerns.

Common Concerns About Transitioning to Digital

Securing Intellectual Property

Proprietary content is a foundational asset for many training companies. Naturally, these companies often worry that once clients and trainees have a digital copy of their materials, they may share it without permission and thereby undermine future revenue opportunities for the company.

It’s important to begin by noting that keeping materials in print is an imperfect defense against such unauthorized sharing. As easily as someone can make printed copies of the materials on an office copy machine, they can also create digital versions using the rapid auto-feed scanners found on most modern copiers. So, given that even printed materials can be easily converted to digital files and shared, is there a better way to safeguard intellectual property?

Yes. From the moment you share your materials from your secure SharedBook account, they are protected in the following ways:

• No Local Copies - Your SharedBook materials are viewed using native iOS or Android apps or SharedBook’s web reader. In all cases, the user is prevented from saving local copies of your materials.
• User Tracking - When SharedBook materials are distributed or sold, the reader must register and create an account to access and view the materials. You as the admin have reporting visibility into how and when your content is being used by each reader
• User Management - If you are concerned about the usage of a particular reader, you can retract their access at any time. Materials you have distributed to them will disappear from their accounts, and they will no longer be able to access them.

Uncertainty About Whether to Buy or Build a Solution

Some companies we spoke with initially thought the best way to assure the safety of their content was to build a digital content distribution system themselves. In each case, they found the time and cost of developing a homegrown solution significantly exceeded their expectations. For these reasons, the endeavor to build their own platform was often abandon after much time and energy were invested.

Other companies do not want to undertake such an internal IT project but feel they lack the domain knowledge and expertise to identify, evaluate, and select a good partner.

For most training and consulting companies, partnering with a company like SharedBook provides three critical benefits:

1. Lower implementation cost and financial risk
2. Faster time to market
3. An “evergreen” technology solution

SharedBook provides a per-active-user model designed to minimize risk for our customers. If a company trains 1,000 people per year (for example), they need not purchase 1,000 user seats up front. They can begin with as few as 200, and then add users when needed throughout the year to align the timing of costs with training revenues. Additionally, SharedBook's per-user annual price is a fraction of what many LMS and CMS charge for a single month!

Faster time to market is another area SharedBook customers enjoy. By bypassing lengthy internal IT projects or implementations of complex software solutions, our clients can focus on their core competency of training, rather than software development. With SharedBook, trainers simply upload current training materials like PowerPoints, Word docs, PDFs, and videos into a secure, private cloud-based account, select items to include in a “pack” and then distribute to clients. If a company has a large content collection, SharedBook will even assist in the content migration as part of the Customer Success Program hours which are included with every subscription.

Finally, given the rapid changes in mobile and digital technologies, it is important to leverage evergreen solutions. SharedBook’s customers enjoy ongoing enhancements to the platform which keep it current and provide greater value for them and their trainees.

End User Support

Some companies worry about potential time and costs to service their trainees if they were to implement digital and mobile training materials. SharedBook alleviates this concern by providing end-user customer support via phone, live chat, and other mediums. Members of our Customer Success Team will even help you plan training events to assure that your trainees have an outstanding experience with your new materials.

SharedBook Helps You Proceed with Confidence

There are many financial benefits associated with digital and mobile training materials, including:

• Reduced printing and shipping costs
• Incremental online sales and virtual training revenue streams
• Improved client satisfaction and higher renewal rates