Companies in every industry are faced with the challenge of maintaining and developing the skills of their employees at every organizational level. However, nowhere is this a greater challenge than in the technology industry.

The fast-paced technology industry is defined by changing trends. As a result, success is a question of creating, understanding, adopting and marketing new technologies before the competition. The industry recognizes that learning is an essential part of this. In 2016, 83 percent of executives in the technology, media and telecommunications (TMT) industry stated that learning is of integral importance to the success of their companies. Innovative technology-based solutions hold the answer to the challenge of learning.

Why Is Learning So Important for Tech?

Pace of Change

The technology industry makes reference to “unicorns” — startup companies that grow to be billion-dollar businesses within a year or two of their formation. The very fact that this is possible indicates the pace of change in the technology industry. Because of this pace, learning is essential to staying aware and remaining competitive. How will your developers learn the latest coding languages? How will marketers stay current on the latest omni-channel communication methods? How will sales be able to sell the latest version of the solution with its new bells and whistles? Technology professionals must constantly learn and relearn to ensure that knowledge, skills, and techniques are never out-of-date.

Complicated New Technologies

Tech professionals must constantly assimilate information about progress in technology. This information can be complicated and difficult to digest. For instance, analysts in roles from CRM Admin to Marketing currently need to understand and work with Big Data — a trend in technology regarding the collection and processing of vast amounts of data — and its implications for their business. Similarly, people in various roles need to be trained on subjects like AI and IoT to make sure they’re keeping up with broader industry trends. Courses need to be developed (or purchased) that teach the ins and outs of new trends, rapidly and effectively. Tech is certainly an industry where content will expire and become obsolete quickly, so be sure to keep your course library fresh and flowing with new topics.

Decentralized Approach to Working

Technology has revolutionized the way we work, and the technology industry is at the forefront of this revolution. Many tech firms employ engineers and technicians from across many countries and time zones, which makes on-demand, mobile, and multi-language learning of great importance. Similarly, to hire and retain top talent, most tech companies don’t care where a person is physically located, as long as she can deliver in the job. As such, providing awesome, anytime-anywhere training is a great way to ensure that disparate sets of employees are equipped with the right set of skills, know the corporate policies and culture, and to ensure the type of team coherence that accelerates growth.

Use Technology to Learn About Technology

Fortunately, the problem that the technology industry faces can be solved with technology. A learning management system (LMS) facilitates digital learning. Digital learning, delivered via a virtual platform on desktop or mobile, offers greater flexibility, more effective learning outcomes and cost-effectiveness compared to traditional classroom-learning methods. Plus, it’s a singular, but versatile solution that works equally well for employee training, customer training, compliance training, partner training, and whatever else you can think of.

Specifically, LMS’s solve the three problems faced by the technology industry identified above — digital learning can be rapidly updated and evolved, expanded for different degrees of complexity, and is accessible regardless of geographical location. The value of a LMS for technology companies cannot be underestimated.

A final difficulty to overcome is how to choose the best LMS for your needs. Your LMS needs to suit your business size, learning objectives and so on. Fortunately, Litmos offers one of the most comprehensive and flexible learning management systems available. With over 30 million users, Litmos serves large enterprise companies, SMB’s and not-for-profits — many of which specialize in technology. Plus, you can purchase pre-built content geared specifically for high tech.