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.