Buying an LMS is a five-to-seven-year decision. Most teams pick on demo wow-factor, then discover the gap once 5,000 learners are on it. Our audit replaces hunch with evidence — every step is documented, weighted, and signed off by the people who actually have to use the platform.
Skip one and the next costs more. Do all six and the vendor demo becomes a confirmation, not a discovery.
Forget the wish-list. We interview 8–12 stakeholders across L&D, IT, security, compliance and three frontline cohorts to surface the real use cases: who's learning what, when, on what device, and under what compliance regime.
Nine times out of ten the existing LMS does 70% of what's needed — it just isn't configured. We benchmark current usage, completion rates, content debt and admin overhead against the new needs map.
Vendor demos are designed to wow. A signed-off scorecard means decisions get made on weighted criteria, not the last screen anyone saw. We build the matrix with you: 18–24 criteria, weighted 1–5 by your team, before any vendor enters the room.
We run RFI against the scorecard, screen responses anonymously where possible, and surface a defensible shortlist. The output is a one-page board memo — not a 60-page spreadsheet — explaining why these three made it through.
The single most-skipped step in LMS buying — and the highest-ROI. We design a 2-week beta with 30–60 real learners per platform, hosting the same three courses on each. We measure completion, time-on-task, satisfaction, and admin friction with identical instruments.
The decision becomes the easy part. We then negotiate the contract using the leverage from the beta, design the migration sequence (typically 90 days for SCORM-tracked history), and stand up the admin team on the new platform before go-live.
A worked example of the weighted matrix we build in Step 3. Weights are tailored to your needs analysis — but this is the spine.
| Criterion | Why it matters | Weight | What we test |
|---|---|---|---|
| SCORM 1.2 / 2004 + xAPI fidelity | If tracking breaks, audit breaks. | 5 | Suspend data, score, success status, per-question xAPI |
| Single sign-on (SAML / OIDC) | Adoption falls 30% without it. | 5 | Live SSO test with your IdP, edge-case account states |
| Mobile / offline experience | Frontline + field teams. | 4 | Beta cohort on phones & tablets, offline-then-sync |
| Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA) | Legal & ethical baseline. | 4 | Keyboard nav, screen reader, contrast, captions |
| Reporting & BI export | L&D needs to prove ROI. | 5 | Native dashboards + raw export to Looker / Power BI |
| HRIS / SCIM integration | Auto-provisioning is non-negotiable. | 5 | Workday / SuccessFactors / BambooHR live test |
| Content authoring depth | Storyline / Rise / Captivate / native. | 3 | Round-trip publish from each major tool |
| Admin UX & time-to-task | Admin time is the hidden cost. | 4 | Five admin tasks, timed on each platform |
| Data residency & security | GDPR, SOC 2, ISO 27001. | 5 | Hosting region, sub-processor list, certs |
| Total cost over 5 years | List price is rarely the real price. | 4 | Per-seat + storage + integration + admin time |
Each shortlisted platform hosts the same three courses. The same 30–60 learners take them in randomised order. We instrument every interaction with identical xAPI statements so the comparison is apples-to-apples, not marketing-deck-to-marketing-deck.
Two weeks. Three platforms. One verdict the whole steering committee can defend in a board meeting.
A typical engagement timeline. Compressed if you're already mid-RFP. Slower only if you want pilots in additional regions.
One fixed-fee engagement. You walk away with the report whether or not you change platform. We've never had a client who didn't find €50k+ of savings inside the gap report alone.
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