Case study

Industry

Technology

Company HQ

Paris, France

Number of Employees

4,200

Office Locations

30 countries

Sopra Steria Upskills Critical Talent 50% faster with Online Learning Through Udemy Business

Udemy driving business outcomes

50%
Faster technical upskilling of critical talent
175%
Increase in training hours (from 333 in July 2020 to 916 in February 2023)
20%
Increase in online training (alongside other platforms)

Case study details

Sopra Steria, a European Tech leader recognised for its consulting, digital services and software development, helps its clients drive their digital transformation to obtain tangible and sustainable benefits. It provides end-to- end solutions to make large companies and organizations more competitive by combining in-depth knowledge of a wide range of business sectors and innovative technologies with a fully collaborative approach. Sopra Steria places people at the heart of everything it does and is committed to making the most of digital technology to build a positive future for its clients.

The company chose Udemy Business to increase the scale, scope, agility, and speed of its L&D program to help it better serve its staff, clients, and projects — upskilling and cross-skilling key talent and nurturing careers. As a result, it can match the speed of technology development to ensure project excellence while adding value to its staff — and the community.

Keeping up with fast- moving technology

Sopra Steria operates in one of the fastest-evolving global business sectors. Ensuring all consultants and developers remain up to date on the latest software and technology developments is fundamental to its success.

The firm’s previous L&D solution was on- demand and mostly face-to-face. Reporting was manual, so it was hard to gauge feedback and assess value. And keeping its critical talent up to date with technical skills and certifications was difficult; selecting courses, booking instructors, and covering learners’ travel costs was time- and cost-inefficient.

Moreover, investment in online corporate training licenses for a 4,200 strong workforce is expensive, particularly for technical certifications that involve pass-or-fail exams.

As the company looked to improve its L&D program, it explored options to accelerate critical talent upskilling, expand global learning accessibility, and save L&D costs by replacing in-person training.

The company wanted to build on its already strong culture of learning. So, following a short, small-scale pilot, it launched Udemy Business globally under the guidance of Training and Development Consultant, Sergio Monroy Gómez.

Certifications training is unusual for an L&D platform. It’s normally very expensive; you need a lot of investment. Udemy Business offers many certification learning paths that help people progress faster and in a structured way. It’s very cool and impressed me a lot.
Sergio Monroy Gómez
Training and Development Consultant

Certifying more people at a fraction of the cost

Implementing the platform increased Sopra Steria’s total online training delivery by 20%. Today, the company uses Udemy Business’ broad catalog of courses, mostly for technical upskilling but also for managerial and soft skills training.

Sergio explains: “Content is regularly updated, courses are high quality, and licenses are cheaper than other platforms. The courses are also rated by the community, which I love.”

There were two main features of the platform that particularly impressed Sergio. First was the training that prepares people for official certification exams — such as AWS, Oracle, Java, and SQL — by providing study plans and support.

“Certifications training is unusual for an L&D platform,” says Sergio. “It’s normally very expensive; you need a lot of investment. Udemy Business offers many certification learning paths that help people progress faster and in a structured way. It’s very cool and impressed me a lot.”

He continues: “This kind of training is powerful. And it’s huge for us. We can certify lots more people for a fraction of the cost. Udemy Business makes it cheap —and easy—to do. It is one of the best things about the platform.”

The second feature which impressed Sergio was the International Collection, which enables employees to watch content in their native language. The courses are taught by experienced instructors from around the world and are available in multiple languages Sergio says: “Learners can consume content in other languages with cultural relevance and they are more engaged. We appreciate that element of Udemy Business. Not all platforms offer this. It standardizes training and creates a level playing field for staff.”

Keeping pace with technology and scaling training

Udemy Business’ regularly updated catalog of technical courses allows Sopra Steria to keep pace with technology advances — a must-have for a tech consultancy. “With Udemy Business, we can learn new technical skills as fast as the developers update them,” says Sergio. “We could never do that with face-to-face training.”

The platform also allows the company to improve onboarding, ramp up new hires quickly, and rapidly scale up training delivery ahead of new projects, using its Learning Paths capability to develop nuanced training at an individual level.

“We can reach a huge number of people and deliver training which prepares us for new technology so we can work better with our clients,” says Sergio. “That has a big impact on our clients’ trust in Sopra Steria. We couldn’t reach the same number of employees with another platform.”

Focusing on client outcomes — and staff career development

Udemy Business helps Sergio and his global teams exceed the expectations of the firm’s clients while also delivering value to its staff. With enhanced certification training, more people are passing certification exams first time, more often. And thanks to easy access to thousands of courses on demand through Udemy Business, the company can develop new technical skills for critical talent 50% faster. This means the firm can speedily upskill senior talents as well as junior people when it needs bigger teams for a new project.

All this has helped the company respond faster to clients’ needs and build more trust — especially as developers are often embedded within their clients’ businesses when managing application development, for example.

It’s no surprise that staff are more satisfied with Udemy Business than with the firm’s previous approach to L&D. “Our staff tell us they’re so much happier since we launched Udemy Business and send us messages asking to expand the catalog even further,” says Sergio.

It’s not just technical staff that have felt the benefits. Both the HR and L&D functions have increased their value in the company since using the platform to learn managerial and soft skills. Their technical knowledge has also increased, which means they can provide better support to staff and meet their demands faster.

Data-driven insights for strategic decision making

Udemy Business enables Sergio and his teams to meet all the firm’s L&D objectives more easily by increasing the scale, scope, agility, and speed of its training. It has also helped the company improve strategic decision-making. HR teams use Udemy’s dashboards and reports to support strategic planning. They can see KPIs like the types of training, the most popular courses, and the number of hours per course and learner.

This helps them evaluate the benefit of each license so the firm can improve training to meet the needs of its entire workforce. “The dashboards help with strategic planning,” says Sergio. “It’s just one of the many parts of the Udemy Business platform that makes everything easier.”

Sergio adds: “For anyone looking to improve training, don’t hesitate to invest in Udemy Business. It’s a powerful platform. It has the largest and best-value courses on the market, allowing us to address a wide range of technical problems, from onboarding new colleagues to taking on new clients. It just makes everything easier. It exceeded all my expectations. I love it.

Our staff tell us they’re so much happier since we launched Udemy Business. And they send us messages asking to expand the catalog even further.
Sergio Monroy Gómez
Training and Development Consultant

Supporting the community through knowledge sharing

Sopra Steria is looking to expand its use of the Udemy Business online training catalog, not only for the benefit of its staff and clients, but for the people in its sector.

“We have a lot of talented people thanks to Udemy Business, and we want to support the global community and act as influencers by letting our employees share their skills through content creation,” says Sergio.” For that, Udemy Business is so important because it helps us maintain high technical skills.

Learners can consume content in other languages with cultural relevance and they are more engaged. We appreciate that element of Udemy Business. Not all platforms offer this. It standardizes training and creates a level playing field for staff.
Sergio Monroy Gómez
Training and Development Consultant

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