Working in a sales department, I speak with folks who work at many levels of training departments.  Often the person that I am working with is actually the software user, but has to have approval from management for the purchase.  So how do you convince management that you need more technology? Cost savings in any organization can certainly be a strong justification for any purchase.  Over the years, customers have told me that while their student enrollment numbers have increased, their department costs have not.  How is that possible? Companies have saved money through automation of some of their daily tasks, and prevented them from having to hire additional staff.  Is an LMS cost effective?  Let’s run the numbers. Let’s say you are looking at an LMS asp solution; what is the annual cost? Students register themselves, instructors access schedules on-line and correspondence is sent automatically.  Could you hire someone for the same rate and the annual LMS cost (salary, taxes, benefits included) to perform all registrations, provide instructors with class information and manually send out correspondence each time a registration is complete or a class venue changes?  When you seriously consider the average support staff salary in your office coupled with hardware requirements and maintenance, your LMS may pay for itself and increase profitability for the entire organization.  The timeframe for the ROI varies by organization, but you can probably see a return in a matter of months.  Your LMS may be your next best investment.