Case study
Industry
Professional services / technology
Company HQ
Zurich, Switzerland
Number of Employees
1,500 (msg group: > 10,000)
Office Locations
24 countries
At msg global solutions, Udemy turns AI education into enterprise-wide adoption
Udemy driving business outcomes
Case study details
msg global solutions is a system integrator, product innovator, and strategic partner specializing in enterprise software and services across 25 countries. As an SAP development partner for more than 25 years, the company combines deep industry expertise with technology and creativity to help organizations improve operational efficiency, decision-making, and business performance.
When generative AI began reshaping consulting and software development, msg global solutions recognized that access to new tools alone would not create sustainable value. Employees needed the knowledge, practical skills, and governance awareness to apply AI responsibly in day-to-day work.
Building on its long-standing relationship with Udemy Business, msg global developed a structured learning approach that combines foundational AI education, role-based development, and practical application—turning learning into a key enabler of enterprise-wide AI adoption. That people-centered approach reflects msg global solutions “Passion. People. Performance.” philosophy.
From uneven AI experimentation to governed adoption
When msg global solutions first partnered with Udemy Business more than five years ago, the challenge centered on consistency. Outdated processes and cost-inefficient in-person training made it difficult to offer a consistent Learning and Development experience across a global organization spanning 25 countries. The company recognized that learning effectiveness tied directly to employee retention, satisfaction, and brand integrity.
But that foundation faced a new and urgent challenge: uneven AI knowledge and adoption across teams. As generative AI and AI-assisted development tools have become central to the work at msg global solutions, the variation in AI fluency across teams grew wide enough that best practices didn’t scale reliably. Without structured education, employees would either underuse the potential of AI or apply it inconsistently — creating quality, security, and governance risks.
Governance risks are real and concrete. As a company with operations and customers across the EU, msg global solutions falls under the EU AI Act and related obligations. The company’s AI Adoption Board — a cross-functional group bringing together people from the market, legal, learning and education, development, internal development, and customer-facing roles — sees cases where customers ask the company to take full liability for AI-generated work, including potential IP violations identified years later.
‘We needed to structure what we educate’
The pressure comes from both directions: clients increasingly expect measurable efficiency gains from AI-assisted delivery, while msg global needs to ensure those gains are achieved safely, consistently, and with the quality clients expect.
“We realized pretty fast we needed to structure what we teach and how we help our people get the right AI knowledge,” said Harald Kienegger, Head of AI Adoption and Transformation. “Udemy offers great content that can be immediately used for educating our people to build knowledge and change behaviors.”
The company needed a structured approach to AI upskilling that could turn uneven experimentation into consistent, governed, and enterprise-wide adoption.
Head of AI Adoption and Transformation
AI education as the key adoption enabler
For msg global solutions, AI education was not a parallel initiative. It became a key enabler of successful AI adoption and was embedded in the core of the transformation strategy, with Udemy Business serving as an important learning platform.
The platform has become a central part of the complete enablement lifecycle at the company, which was an early adopter of Udemy AI Starter Paths, gaining access before they were officially released. It gave the company a head start on structured AI education.
“We never had any thoughts or considerations of changing the learning platform,” Kienegger said. “AI learning was easy to adopt due to existing Udemy content— on basics, large language models, how to use AI, governance awareness, and technology deep dives.”
Tying tools together
On the tools side, the company uses a broad AI stack: Claude Code as the gold standard for development, GitHub Copilot integrated across SharePoint and Office, Cursor AI, SAP-specific AI tools, and internally developed AI tools. Udemy Business provides the education layer that ties most of these tools together, giving employees foundational knowledge to use each one effectively and safely.
One pillar of the AI Adoption Board is called EmpowerAI. It’s led by Kienegger and focuses on enabling people.
The company leverages Udemy Business pioneering AI content alongside Starter Paths, or learning paths, and also builds custom upskilling paths. Learning spans priority topic areas including SAP, leadership, and AI, with content also drawn from AWS and Azure ecosystems. The rollout evolved over two to three years, moving from organic exploration across developers, consultants, leadership, sales, and operations teams to structured Udemy learning paths — and finally to curated, role-based learning journeys that combine content from internal sources, Udemy, and SAP — a fully structured program with experts from different entities sharing experiences and creating content.
To drive engagement, msg global solutions runs a company-wide AI training initiative, AI exchanges, and lunch-and-learn sessions where colleagues share real-world examples. These may include how they used AI-assisted development tools to build applications, the lessons learned, and the efficiency gains observed.
AI champions—early adopters who demonstrate improvements to their peers—help overcome initial resistance. As AI tool usage has scaled, token optimization has also become an important focus, and Udemy courses help employees use AI tools more cost-effectively.
Connecting to strategy
At the base of the certification structure is what msg global solutions calls the AI Driver’s License, a mandatory program for 100% of colleagues, covering 1,500 employees. Kienegger frames the analogy: “It’s not only important to understand how to steer the driver’s wheel or use the car, but it’s also important to understand the rules and regulations, because you’re driving on streets and there are certain rules.”
The AI Driver’s License covers foundational understanding of AI, large language models, and machine learning, including key limitations, red flags, and risks as well as awareness of relevant EU AI Act requirements. The program includes quizzes and assessments. For developers specifically, training goes beyond theory: participants apply AI in practice by developing small applications or internal accelerators, with solutions evaluated through code review by senior developers.
The company has also tied its learning program to workforce strategy. An AI Skills Taxonomy, connected to Udemy Skills Mapping, supports real staffing and workforce-planning decisions, ensuring the right skills are mapped to the right projects and people.
The need for better Udemy integration drove a migration from the company’s previous LMS to 360Learning. Previously, there was no standard API connection, and middleware workarounds were too complex. The new LMS, called msg global Campus and powered by 360Learning, enables learners to access Udemy content directly within the campus platform and combine internal and Udemy content. This allows msg global solutions to curate learning paths across platforms and provide users with a more unified learning experience.
Head of AI Adoption and Transformation
Faster development, certified skills, strategic workforce planning
Through structured AI education built on Udemy Business, msg global solutions has moved from uneven AI experimentation to consistent, governed, and enterprise-wide adoption.
In one internal SAP modernization evaluation, msg global modernized an application built as a monolith on legacy SAP technology, moving it to a modern technology stack with AI-assisted development tooling. A task estimated at four developer-days was completed in four hours. Because this was a specific internal evaluation rather than an organization-wide benchmark, msg global treats it as an example of the potential created when AI tools are combined with skilled, properly trained developers.
“The results were super impressive,” Kienegger said. “That’s when you see what becomes possible when your people actually know how to use these tools, and that’s what Udemy helped us build.”
Through the AI Driver’s License and role-based practical training, msg global solutions is building an AI-fluent workforce where adoption is consistent, governed, and practical. The company is creating AI-augmented professionals — specialists who combine human expertise, judgement and domain expertise with artificial intelligence to dramatically increase productivity, creativity and strategic impact. Every employee has a foundational understanding of AI, its risks, and its governance obligations, while developers demonstrate applied competence through real projects with senior code review.
“AI isn’t just a new tool in our toolbox. It’s a fundamental shift in how we create value for our clients,” CEO Peter Umscheid said. “The companies that win in this next decade won’t be the ones with the most AI, but the ones whose people know how to use it responsibly and skillfully. That’s why we’ve made continuous learning a strategic priority, not an optional extra.”
Udemy Business continues to deliver strong engagement for msg global solutions. The organization has sustained more than 80% user adoption, while the average course satisfaction rating has remained at 4.5 over the last year. AI-related content has contributed strongly to engagement as learning paths and the broader AI upskilling initiative have expanded.
“Udemy,” Kienegger said, “is a very crucial pillar of our learning strategy.”
Head of AI Adoption and Transformation
An 80% AI learning adoption goal
The company has established a strong foundation in AI upskilling but sees significant room to grow. While overall Udemy adoption is more than 80%, the goal is to achieve 80% AI learning adoption across the company—building understanding of the basics, confident use of AI tools, and responsible application in day-to-day work.
“I’m not expecting everybody to use coding agents and develop their own small applications every day, but we want them to understand what is possible,” Kienegger said. “That’s what we’ll keep using Udemy for.”
Kienegger frames the AI shift as the most significant change the consulting industry has faced in decades.
“This is maybe the biggest challenge we’ve faced in 40 years,” he said. “AI is changing our business. It’s changing our business models. It’s changing our way of working.”
As clients expect greater efficiency from AI-assisted delivery, the importance of maintaining a workforce capable of using AI responsibly and effectively will continue to grow.
Head of AI Adoption and Transformation
CEO, msg global solutions
Read more success stories
