Off the shelf VS Custom Courses, Which fits your company better?

If you’re an active member of the eLearning world a common wonder is whether to use off the shelf content or build your own custom content from scratch. In this blog, we want to make an off the shelf vs custom courses, with the differences between them, the benefits of each of them, that will help you understand which one is better for your company. 

Having quality content for your eLearning courses is one of the most important tasks to get done. The success of your eLearning process would depend, the most part, on it. You should have enough material, properly distributed, with assertiveness in the way you put it inside the LMS, whether text, presentations, interactive videos or through gamification tools, to really engage and motivate your learners to finish their courses. 

Many other aspects must be checked to finally decide which way to go. Some of them come from the company’s side, their requirements, special necessities or business type. Also, the platform features, tools, and integrations play a big part when opting for off the shelf vs custom courses.

Let’s go deeper in what needs to be checked before choosing between off the shelf vs custom courses

The Cost

An off the shelf course could be cost-effective, with multiple buyers involved in the final cost of the product. Because they are already made, you just pay once for a final course. Different from the custom courses made, that can be more expensive as the content is specially developed to fit your needs.

The Implementation

This comes as an obvious choice in terms of cost, well… Definitely, an off the shelf course is cheaper because is already made without much time and effort to start taking it. You buy it, you implement it, your users start taking it. Meanwhile, a custom course development takes hours of work, involving development, customization, and start-up, making it more expensive yes, but also built to suit your needs and users’ expectations.

Upgrade and Support

Having an off the shelf course comes with the advantage that is previously built by a course development company that will be in charge of any upgrade necessary for the content, meaning this edition or changes in the course in general. Also, the course seller company must guarantee support for any doubt, inquire or malfunction of the course. On the other hand, a custom course is all yours and the information, construction, start-up, and upgrade would depend on your requirements. Support could not be included in the service.

Type of business

You must know your necessities and your business goals to choose the type of course that fits better your needs. If your business has the need to train the employees in first aid, or etiquette for example, in Paradiso Solutions we can provide a course library with multiple off the shelf courses ready for your users/employees to start taking them. Many companies have common training programs that are easy to find and buy from a course library because most of them have the same requirements. 

But many times, companies need to train their employees, partners or customers in a personalized and closer way. If this is your case and you need a very specific content with your own material and instruction you must choose a custom course development and this will be constructed around those instructions or necessities you show.

You have to keep in mind that custom courses can be closer and can have better engagement because users can get identified with the topics and activities.

Scalability

Scalability is one of the most important factors to consider while choosing technology for your business. Your courses should be scalable enough to accommodate the present requirements of your business and also make room for future additions. As your business grows, you might have to add features and maybe even departments to the software you use. Hence, it is always better to get your software built in a scalable way. Off-the-shelf solutions do not have this facility, as well as the custom courses, that can be tailored and fit your company as it grows.

To get more information about Paradiso course library and off the shelf courses go to this link:

To get more information about Paradiso Custom Course Development go to this link:

All of this information and much more can be provided by one of our sales agents reaching them at sales@paradisosolutions.com