There has been a paradigm shift in the way businesses train their employees. They are moving from the regular training classroom methods to the modern way of elearning to provide a more conducive learning environment with custom elearning content development methodologies.

However, many L&D managers are often faced with a dilemma due to the presence of online courses. They keep questioning the need for a custom elearning content development against the easier way out of buying one of the off shelf courses. Both types of content fulfill certain particular business needs and come with their own sets of pros and cons which makes this discussion regarding which is better one that has yet to be resolved completely.

Most of the best elearning content development companies have both types of content in their repositories and are capable enough to create a customised course as well. A discussion with any of these best elearning content development companies will gain you little to help make up your mind. It is important thus to determine which solution works best for your particular training needs and will integrate best with your business.

Custom elearning content development is best suited for specific content whereas off the shelf course is good for any type of generic content. A customised course is also better when you have a need to quickly keep changing content or need specific customisations for a large group. They also are much more costly to create and take a long time to be finished even if you approach any of the best elearning content development companies.

The off-the-shelf course on the other hand is ready to use material and so is usually more affordable but it lacks flexibility and may or may not suit your business needs completely. They could also be difficult to integrate with other technologies like your customised LMS system. But they are best to train when the content is universal like negotiation, team building, compliance or a refresher course of a certification. Their content is universal in nature and best to be used when you have a very short time frame for these trainings.

In a nutshell, custom elearning content development is the best choice when you want your employees to learn a software that is custom built for your business and an off-the-shelf course will work best if this software is being used pro-bono without any changes done. The custom elearning content development is also better at promoting your brand and expressing your story with specific illustrations and colours.

The chart below has the pros and cons listed for both styles of content development. This chart can be used as a quick reference the next time you are confused regarding which one to choose for your particular learning needs.

Courses picked off-the-shelf:

Pros                                                                     

• Lower upfront costs
• Rich in features (may or may not be used)
• Meet the business needs
• Support available but may be restricted or may be in the form of self help through forums                   Quick to deploy
• Vendor managed completely

Cons

• Courses are not tailor made
• May contain potentially irrelevant topics
• Will have many unnecessary features
• Poor learner retention
• May not conform to particular business guidelines

Courses with custom eLearning Content Development:

Pros

• Everything can be changed including content, design, style, functionalities, features, deployment.
• You choose the Bloom’s taxonomy for your course.
• Flexible to update, upgrade or delete features and functionalities
• Choice of templates
• A workflow that you can monitor and change if required

Cons

• Expensive
• May need additional manpower or resources
• Takes time to create and deploy