What Gartner’s IT Spending Forecast Means for Learning

Technology-driven collaboration is on the rise and innovation wins over task completion.

Anyone could be forgiven for glossing over the facts and figures in the many IT spending forecasts that come out each year from the various global research and advisory firms. When global information technology spending grows from one trillion dollar number to another due to accelerated digital transformation, no one bats an eye.

However, Gartner’s Research Vice President John-David Lovelock painted a different picture with the company’s latest IT spending forecast: beyond the fact that global information technology is set to grow 8.4% to $4.1, the research and advisory firm says that in 2021, the focus on IT spending will be on revenue growth because of increased economic certainty. It was also noted that organisations are focusing on areas such as social software and collaboration platforms.

Lovelock had a thought-provoking comment we just couldn’t help but share: “Last year, IT spending took the form of a ‘knee jerk’ reaction to enable a remote workforce in a matter of weeks. As hybrid work takes hold, CIOs will focus on spending that enables innovation, not just task completion.”

It’s as though Gartner is speaking directly to L&D managers!

Technology for revenue growth, increased collaboration, and innovation are the exact ingredients driving engaged learning and demonstrable business results, all of which align with what our customers are experiencing with Fuse.

If you need a little inspiration, we’re happy to share a little bit of the innovation we’ve been working on, as well as how we’re seeing our customers innovate and collaborate to drive that all-important revenue growth. Read on to be inspired.

The Evolution of the Fuse Knowledge Intelligence Engine

While other platforms continue to focus on courses, namely SCORM courses, we moved away from courses many years ago and have been steadily building our Fuse Knowledge Intelligence Engine, which has seen a lot of evolution over the past year. The difference between Fuse and many platforms is that while they think about content being the be-all and end-all, we think the prize is knowledge.

Knowledge is that central piece, and our job has been to introduce any improvements we can in order to lower the barriers to accessing it, and speeding up the process as much as possible.

Think of it a bit like a company’s ‘corporate brain.’ Using the Knowledge Intelligence Engine, companies can tag every piece of knowledge, building all the metadata as they go so that it’s easy to find knowledge within documents or videos. Using the engine, we’re also helping companies to build up knowledge bases over time, with self-generated and third-party content easily added.

Find out more about our Knowledge Intelligence Engine and how it benefits organisations.

Search Ramps Up in Fuse: 30 Minutes to 30 Seconds

Explaining the power of the Fuse Knowledge Engine is the perfect segue to search, and over the past year or so, Fuse has ramped up search capabilities to demonstrably boost company performance. Wait a second, you might be thinking…..how can a good search functionality actually boost company performance? Surely that’s nonsense!

Luckily for our customers, it’s not. Over the years, we’ve seen that many people spend a large part of their day searching for learning content, wasting precious time when they could be learning in the flow of work.

So, we’ve done a number of things to help make search as powerful, and as intelligent as possible in Fuse. We’re not just asking our users to search randomly for what they need. Using AI and Machine Learning, we’re identifying and placing the best and most relevant content as close to learners as possible. It’s like predictive learning: it’s there before they even know they need it, and the impact to people and company performance is already proving to be nothing short of phenomenal.

It’s providing hyper-personalized micro and macro recommendations, and, most importantly, it’s providing them in context, and in-flow.

It means that previous time spent searching can now be spent actually working, because users have access to the information that helps them to do their job. It works brilliantly with our power of knowledge at the point of need focus, which is helping users to perform in the moment.

In short, it’s performance support at its best.

Data is not our best kept secret

Unlike many learning platforms, Fuse has its learning management, learning experience and data analytics all built into one platform. Our Universal Analytics means that data and analytics are completely accessible, and not buried within the constraints of courses.

There is no arduous ‘extracting’ of data with Universal Analytics. Fuse tracks interactions within the platform and content - be that content views, engagement, social, or assessment data - and all of this is easily accessible via the Universal Analytics dashboard.

You don’t need to be a data scientist or make a date with a data scientist to look at what’s happening across any of the 330 data points within Fuse. Universal Analytics provides complete and transparent access for any user to explore data and use it to generate insight to be viewed in our dashboards.

We Know What High Impact Learning Companies are Doing Better

Our own learning didn’t stop during lockdown, and as per Gartner’s innovation focus, we dived headfirst into what turned out to be a truly compelling research study with Brandon Hall.

The key findings are gathered in our report brief: Learner Engagement and Performance: From Correlation and Causation, and possibly one of the most interesting findings was on what high impact learning companies are doing better compared to their low impact peers. It turns out that context, personalisation, opportunities to practice and opportunities to provide feedback, amongst other best practices, are helping companies win hand over fist in enterprise learning, every time.

Download the report today to learn more.

Don’t Worry! All This Innovation Hasn’t Gone Unnoticed

For the second year running, we’ve been recognised by Europe’s #1 HR industry analyst as a core leader in the 2021 Fosway 9-Grid™ for Learning Systems.

Our position as a Core Leader on this year’s grid - researched and produced by Fosway Group - is a testament to our strong suite of learning tech capabilities, and demonstrable track record in enterprise wins, customer delivery, and customer advocacy. Read more here.

If all this talk of innovation has got you thinking that it’s time to take a leaf out of John-David Lovelock’s book and leave behind a year of knee-jerking task completion, get in touch today - we’d love to chat about the new possibilities on the horizon.