Posted by Data reveals how your training and learning content is being received, highlighting its effectiveness or areas for improvement.
Data can also show, if you look across a greater landscape, what is happening in a specific industry or market, heck, even a vertical, depending on the parameters.
When you forecast, you use data.
You look for trends over time, and the data supporting them or the lack thereof.
Many people believe data is only a set of numbers.
However, data can be interpreted in a way that, upon exploration, points to pluses (most folks see it that way) or potential pitfalls.
Over the past year, I have observed a series of data over time, focusing on trends rather than individual numbers.
Does this data, aside from forecasting, indicate you need to watch this area more closely?
Does the data’s context reveal where the trend is heading after one month in 2026?
What I have been seeing, and saw in 2025, is continuing already into 2026.
Far too many vendors are missing it—and the fallout with their audience is immediate.
The same goes for buyers—yes, you.
If I am a vendor, I urge you to read these trends and pivot immediately—if you are not already.
These trends do not relate to AI (I want to stress that).
If I am a buyer or already have a system in place, I highly recommend considering your processes, your impact, and your objectives/goals.
I’m going to be blunt here. No sugarcoating. I know that may irk some folks, and I get that.
But sugarcoating doesn’t benefit anyone.
Trend One
Vendor Pricing
Vendors have been increasing the numbers.
Vendors try to pass on the cost to offset what it costs them (on an annual basis), ignoring the “cost of doing business.”
First point – again, this isn’t every vendor, and where one vendor might go high for X client, they may go low for Y client – using the same user base (yep, it happens).
I’m saying, on average across the board, depending on the number of users in the system before add-ons, let’s consider the street price.
As a whole, they ignore the financial red flags – the reorganisations taking place, not just at small businesses or mid-market, but at the F500, Global 2000 – the ones a lot of vendors crave.
When a re-org occurs, the departments most affected are HR, Training, L&D, Marketing, and Sales.
For us, let’s focus on Training, L&D.
What I see is blatant ignorance on the part of the vendors about the impact of reorganisations on pricing, and thus on budgets, resources (people), and what the vendor is “charging” for the system.
I always pay attention to economic data (in this case) on a global scale, then break it down by country, based on a specific level of interest and potential impact.
What I see is a clear ignorance of the financial and economic areas in relevance to buying – and thus the pricing of a system or content, etc. – as it relates to the vendor.
Two Key Factors
- Reorganisations – Resources – people – are losing their jobs. I know of companies – F500 – who have gutted their L&D department to the point that it no longer exists, or that it went from X to, say, 1 person. The same for Training. If I have gutted the department – whether it is the number of people OR no longer in existence – what impact will that have on buying a system, tool, etc?
- Budget restructuring – You think a department that has been gutted is going to pay X for a system, depending on expectations? There is a reason a lot of vendors have frozen pipes – i.e. pipelines – prospects in a hold pattern.
2025 as a whole was the worst year in the industry since COVID, based on my research.
Sure, there were vendors who beat their forecasts (financial), but a lot who did not.
And yet, if you cross-referenced those vendors who openly admitted to not hitting their initial financial targets with clients per se, I saw plenty with high price points.
Sure, they are always additional factors involved here – it is never a cause and effect; however, ignorance shouldn’t be a driver.
2026 still shows, at least in the early going, that the financial impact is far from over and that constraints are in place.
Yet, as a whole, the market is still going up in pricing, with many who, at least today, perceive that there will be a dramatic change.
Trend Two
When reorganizations happen, unfamiliar departments, typically HRIS, often end up running training and learning systems.
Based on my analysis, the common area is HRIS – yep, those folks who lack experience in training or L&D, taking over a system that, even with a level of training, is not a priority compared to what else – that thing called their HRIS system – is a focus.
I continue to observe this happening in the L&D domain.
On the customer/partner side? Hello – marketing! Yep, those fine folks who also lack the training background.
Granted, there are plenty of systems, but from an external audience standpoint, it doesn’t come from training; the buyer is marketing.
But when you scale back, you have two areas that have usually ZERO background in L&D – and especially OD (Organisational development) and Training.
This would be like your kid who is being taught by an experienced teacher, now being taught by the person whose background and knowledge is mowing the field.
Yes – well-qualified for that role, but not having the skills, especially knowledge and experience, for the one you would want your kid to have.
Ask yourself—would you really risk letting that happen?
On the corporate side, let’s take a quick look at the content output from a system.
Creating the content, where a lot of people just upload a video and call it good.
The whole reason built-in content creators were designed in the first place was the premise that anyone without any ID experience could create a course quickly.
Quality, and let’s say the idea of ADDIE was not needed.
Now? My G-D, it’s overall horrible.
Nothing against those folks having to create it – but if you lack any knowledge around effective adult learning principles or even the use of old days ADDIE, yet the expectation of pushing out content quickly is a requirement of your day-to-day job, what would the learner expect?
For the department now overseeing it, completion rates are the focus. Quality? Who cares.
Trend Three
If HRIS, Marketing or any other department, where the person lacks any level of training or L&D, and doesn’t have the time or desire to learn about it in-depth, what does the vendor do about it?
They ignore it – by making it non-user-friendly, challenging, with bad output of data not relevant to the actual learning story, or streamlined to the point that the relevant information isn’t being understood.
This is a big problem in the industry, not just L&D, but customer training/partner enablement – anything around selling content to an external audience.
Rather than recognising what is taking place, vendors just go with steady-as-you-go.
Ok, one AI piece here – this can rapidly change that – but you still need to have a basic 101 understanding of AI, how it works to benefit the admin; however, it does not replace the lack of training or L&D knowledge, or what those numbers say or should say.
You can teach that, but then, if you are a vendor beyond your initial training, why should you invest your time in doing so?
An issue that many vendors see as a way to sell more training: just send someone to watch some videos, read a FAQ, or, even worse, use a chatbot that irks people even more.
VENDORS, you need to wake up to the reality of what is happening in the audience, and let’s dive into those folks who are running L&D or Training and their level of knowledge with this thing called e-learning (online learning)
Trend Four
Level of knowledge and background experience regarding the benefits and reasons for utilizing e-learning compared to other forms of learning.
Continues to be a huge problem, impacting both sides and spilling over into the information the system provides, the UI/UX, and general challenges.
- Vendor – whoever founded the company had no clue about e-learning, didn’t spend enough time learning about it, didn’t hire the people who do have that in-depth knowledge necessary – If acquired by a PE – same issue – it’s money here – learning about online learning – and what it can do, the data of relevance and so forth – ignorance. Smart people just lack the desire to get an in-depth understanding. If your CPO lacks an in-depth understanding of adult learning in e-learning, what you see as the output in terms of UI/UX for the admin, and those metrics are clear.
- The vendor has to train the person in L&D or Training on training and learning, as well as the relevant data for their use case.
- This is getting worse – I’m not talking about the folks who, due to restructuring or budget cuts, are being passed over in the system, nor about the people who are not in L&D or Training. I’m referring to those people who are expected/supposed to be the experts in L&D or Training.
If your CLO doesn’t understand the nuances of e-learning, then please explain how they should understand the importance of what the system can and cannot do.
If the head of L&D, with an OD background or knowledge, has no idea what data is really relevant and lacks in-depth insight into e-learning, what should one expect?
If the person who oversees training – or an association’s education area – who are folks that should have a background in training, many come from academia, which is fine – lack e-learning history and pluses of it, and lack the understanding of how to generate revenue at a scale they want – what should they expect?
Should they rely solely on the vendor, or should they be willing to say, “Okay, I do not know this, but I am going to spend the time to do so, because it will benefit me now and down the road, and those individuals I am training and/or providing learning to.”
What this trend shows, though, is that more folks are relying on the vendor – and thus the system itself – to do their job for them.
It is getting worse – on the vendor side – ignoring what is happening – or recognizing it and trying to figure out a way to solve it – which isn’t as easy as one thinks – and on the buyer side – failing to recognize that a system is just a tool – in a bucket of tools they need to use for effective skill-building, re-skilling, knowledge acquisition and so on.
Takeaways as a result:
a. Buyer lacks the knowledge around Training and/or L&D (again, focusing solely on those people who were hired to run L&D/Training)
b. The vendor who is expected to know adult learning, online learning, and what is taking place with new aspects in the industry and where it is heading, or willing to actually send their people to learn it – I find most salespeople lack this – the training background or L&D and even whatever is tied around the system.
c. The cycle – where a vendor relies on the client to tell them what they want or need; and the vendor then becomes the student, and not the teacher.
I want to be clear – this is happening and getting worse.
There are ways to resolve this, but what I see on the vendor side is almost indifference, where they, supposedly the experts, assume that people using the system, or starting to use it, know more than they do.
On the buyer side – again, with L&D and Training backgrounds – have the knowledge necessary and expect the vendor to have the expertise and knowledge to deliver what you need.
Nobody is going to have all the answers, but if a vendor has to tell the person overseeing L&D/Training which data in the learning system is relevant to them, that is not a good sign.
If they have to explain why mentoring is more valuable than coaching, then you would expect the vendor to know that.
Especially if the vendor is using AI to do so, there is data out there, which explains why mentoring is going to be highly relevant, more so than coaching, in the workforce with those folks using AI in day-to-day roles.
Bottom Line
Trends can go up or down.
And those down don’t mean they have to stay there forever.
They can change.
In our industry, as in many others, technology is constantly evolving, and how we learn through content consumption is evolving too, but a few things remain the same.
One cannot go forward without having the knowledge or understanding of the past.
And if one has to rely on the vendor in this case, to be such the purveyor of information and guidance, then that teacher should do so.
It isn’t an expectation.
It’s a requirement.
To HELP – I will be publishing this week as a downloadable document with questions to ask your vendor to assess their knowledge of adult learning principles, effectiveness, and understanding of online learning. To provide you with some insight, I will ask you to reach out to me, because if I include it directly in the document, some vendors will just regurgitate it to potential buyers.
I will let folks know on LinkedIn when the document is available and will update this post as well.
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