How to Move the LMS Off Your Budget—and Into IT’s

The learning management system (LMS) is the heart of your education program. It’s how you deliver training, measure impact, and scale learning across customers, partners, and internal teams. But for most customer and partner education leaders, it’s also a major pain point—because there’s rarely a dedicated budget to support it.

Instead, LMS costs often come out of a general education budget (if one exists at all), making it harder to secure funding and harder still to expand your program.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

According to 2024 Forrester research, the number one priority for education leaders is investing in a dedicated education platform. And for good reason. A centralized LMS unlocks efficiencies, eliminates redundant work, and enables measurable outcomes across departments.

Lynn Viduya has seen this firsthand. As a seasoned education executive, she’s led multiple organizations through the process of implementing and consolidating their LMSs, expanding its use across teams, and transitioning ownership to IT or shared enterprise budgets—while still retaining control of strategy and administration. This blog shares the exact playbook she’s used to make it happen.

The Hidden Costs of a Fragmented LMS Approach

Let’s be honest: it’s not uncommon for customer education, partner enablement, sales, and HR teams to each run their own LMS. Sometimes even multiple LMSs within a single team. At first glance, it might seem manageable. But under the surface, the inefficiencies pile up fast:

• Duplicative content creation: The same modules rebuilt for different systems.
• Wasted time on administration: Multiple platforms mean multiple admin panels, logins, and workflows and precious headcount to manage each system.
• Inconsistent learning experiences: Each system looks and feels different—confusing learners and diluting your brand.
• Siloed data: You can’t measure what you can’t see, and you definitely can’t optimize it.

Instead of amplifying your impact, this fragmented approach stalls it.

4 Strategies to Move the LMS Out of Your Budget—and Into IT’s

Here’s the good news: your LMS doesn’t have to stay in your department’s budget. With the right strategy, you can frame it as an enterprise asset—and share the cost accordingly.

1. Map the Opportunity: Who Else Can Use the LMS?

Start by identifying where the LMS could deliver value across the business. Some common areas include:

• HR for onboarding, compliance, and talent development
• Sales enablement for role-specific ramp-up training
• Partner programs for certifications and product readiness
• Support or Customer Success for scalable product education

When more teams use the LMS, it becomes more than a point solution—it becomes an enterprise solution.

2. Make the Business Case: Demonstrate Cross-Functional Value

Numbers talk. Lynn shared how she tracked support ticket volume before and after partner certification—and used that data to show the direct business impact of education. You can do the same by documenting:

• Cost savings from reduced tool overlap
• Time saved through centralized content creation and publishing
• Increased adoption or engagement metrics tied to training access and consumption

When you translate education into business terms and business results, it gets executive attention.

3. Identify Internal Champions and Pitch an Enterprise Model

Your best partners in this effort? IT and Finance. Specifically, your FP&A team.

Lynn started by meeting with her finance partner to point out the obvious: multiple departments were using the LMS, but she was footing the entire bill. That kicked off a broader conversation with IT, eventually leading to two different outcomes depending on the company:

• Shared cost across all stakeholder teams
• Full IT ownership of the LMS budget

In both cases, education still played a leading role in guiding platform use.

4. Retain Influence: Keep Strategic Control Where It Matters

Even when IT pays the bill, you don’t want to lose control of the system. That’s why Lynn always negotiates to retain ownership of the full-time employee who manages LMS administration.

This allows her team to:

• Configure the system for the right audiences
• Maintain training standards
• Move quickly on content launches and experiments
• Ensure the right data is captured for training and business KPIs

Enterprise funding doesn’t have to mean enterprise bureaucracy.

Pro Tips for a Smooth Transition

Want to give this approach a try? Here are some additional tips Lynn shared:

• Show, don’t just tell: Give other teams visibility into how the LMS can support their work.
• Think like a GM: Run your education team and function like a business unit. Look for cost reduction, efficiencies, and revenue levers.
• Frame it as a win for all: IT gets a centralized system. Finance gets cost transparency and efficiency. You get more scale—and less budget pressure.
• Lead the initiative: Don’t wait for alignment. Start with a clear vision and bring others along with data and proof.

Choose the Right Tech Partner (Not Just the Biggest Vendor)

Not all LMS platforms are built the same. Lynn warns against choosing an “all-in-one” solution that tries to be everything for everyone, but ends up being clunky, underutilized, and overengineered.

One of the biggest mistakes she sees? Getting locked into a multi-year contract with a heavyweight platform that can’t adapt quickly, or worse, doesn’t provide meaningful post-sale support.

Instead, look for:

• Platforms with plug-and-play flexibility to take advantage of the latest technological advances.
• Systems that don’t require constant IT intervention. Autonomy is important.
• A vendor partner who actively supports your business needs and provides solutions because they understand your industry—not just your tech checklist

Agility and support will serve your team far more than a bloated feature list.

You Don’t Have to Fund This Alone

Your LMS is mission-critical. It supports education, scale, and business impact—but that doesn’t mean it has to live inside your department’s budget forever.

By reframing your LMS as a shared enterprise solution, showing value to internal stakeholders, and negotiating the right ownership structure, you can build a smarter, more scalable education program—and free up budget to reinvest in what matters most.