Virtual IT Labs Glossary

A digital adoption platform (DAP) is a software solution designed to facilitate more effective customer education, streamlining product adoption while also improving the overall user experience. Generally layered atop another application, website or platform, a digital adoption solution provides users with a guided walkthrough of the product’s key features and functionality.   In addition to helping…

Created in 2000 by the United States Department of Defense’s Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative, SCORM — shareable content object reference model — is a framework that standardizes the development, management, and design of virtual training and e-learning. Today, SCORM standards are widely regarded as the best way to ensure e-learning interoperability. Let’s discuss how they…

What Is a Software Training Platform? A software training platform, also known as a software training program or virtual training platform, is software designed to facilitate a company’s virtual training efforts. The platform can be used for either employee education or customer education, with many companies leveraging the same tool for both. As the name…

What is Product Education?  Product education — also known as customer education or product training — refers to everything you do to ensure your customers understand your software. That means more than simply knowing about the software’s features or how it works. A successful product education strategy also teaches customers about a product’s uses and…

What Are Live Sales Demos? A few decades ago, sales demos were face-to-face and typically relied on the sales rep visiting the lead’s home or office. Now, as digital products like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms have become exceedingly popular, we can move sales demos into the digital world, too. A live sales demo involves a sales…

What is Sentiment Analysis? Sentiment analysis is an evolving field of study focusing on applying artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing (NLP), data mining, and machine learning (ML) to gain a deeper understanding of the sentiment behind text. The most common use case is helping companies understand how customers or clients feel about products or…

What is Software Due Diligence? Software due diligence is a critical process of evaluating a technology company’s software during mergers and acquisitions, significant investments, or IPOs. This process focuses on software sold by the company, not all the software they use internally.  Much like other types of due diligence, this process involves a thorough review…

What is Employee Everboarding? Everboarding is an ongoing process that changes from a one-time onboarding workflow to one of continuous education. The goal of everboarding is to develop an experience where new hires can more easily integrate into a company’s operations, values, and culture over a more extended period.  You can think of it as…

What is Inclusive Learning? Inclusivity is a general practice of taking specific actions to make marginalized groups feel welcome in the workplace. One LinkedIn study found that inclusive teams are over 35% more productive than ones that do not prioritize inclusivity. While inclusion goes hand in hand with diversity, they aren’t synonymous. Diversity refers to…

What is Digital Fluency? Digital fluency describes the ability to use digital technologies effectively and efficiently in various aspects of life. In the workplace context, it refers to using available tools to enhance daily workflows and responsibilities. Digital literacy is often confused with fluency, but they aren’t exactly the same. Digital fluency encompasses a much…

Your sales team is ultimately only as good as the tools they’re given. Without access to the right sales technology and tools, they’ll be outpaced by your competitors. Building a modern sales stack for your SaaS company is crucial — here’s what that involves.   What is a B2B Sales Stack?  A sales stack encompasses every…

For B2B SaaS companies, basic customer outreach is no longer enough. The modern digital sales process is both complex and involved, with the average buyer engaging in roughly 27 information-gathering sessions prior to reaching out. Your sales team also has less direct influence over the buying process, which has become more nonlinear than ever.  Finally,…

What Is a Learning Experience Platform?  A learning experience platform (LXP) is a software-based solution designed to help an organization improve its learning and development efforts through deeper personalization and learner engagement. It consolidates a wide selection of learning content from a multitude of sources then makes that content accessible via intuitive, personalized user portals….

People learn in many different ways.  Some do best with verbal explanations and instructions. Others prefer reading or writing. Even in the case of hands-on experience, there are people who may lag behind.  The mistake training and education professionals often make is that they separate people into boxes based on learning style. They assume a…

Are your customers using your software to its full potential? Does your sales team understand how to effectively communicate the nuances of each product? How well-versed is your customer success team regarding the technical challenges a customer might experience?  These are all questions you need to be able to answer as a SaaS company —…

If your sales team isn’t closing as many deals as they should, the problem might not be with your software — it might be your demos. Today’s IT buyers live in an incredibly fast-paced, hectic world. For many of them, setting aside time during the workday to sit through a sales demo is a tall…

What is Technical Due Diligence?  Typically performed prior to investment, a merger or acquisition, or an initial public offering, technical due diligence is a thorough assessment of a company from a technical perspective. While usually performed on the behalf of an interested third party, technical due diligence can also be applied internally to prepare your…

What is a Minimum Viable Product?  Within the context of software development, a minimum viable product (MVP) is any application, platform or website with just enough features to attract the developer’s target audience. There are no bells and whistles in a minimum viable product. Instead, it contains only the most essential features, making it basically…

What is Sales Enablement Experience?  An organization’s sales enablement experience encompasses every facet of its efforts to support sales enablement activities — in other words, everything the organization does to help its sales team shorten the sales cycle and improve their success rate, including:  Creating and curating sales and marketing content such as customer success…

What is a Training Environment?  A training environment is a setting or platform designed to help individuals develop new skills, competencies, or knowledge. Training environments can take many different forms depending on industry, learner, and context. Some of the more common terms associated with training environments include:  Physical training environments typically take the form of…