Channel and Partner Learning: Top 10 Case Studies

Channel and partner learning is one of the most sophisticated and fastest-growing segments of the LMS market.

Many best-in-class organizations train and certify their sales and distribution channel using a learning management system (LMS) and proprietary online content. These organizations have proven that educating their channel provides a clear return on investment – and more importantly, a significant competitive advantage. As a result, these organizations treat channel learning as an ongoing mission-critical priority. Why? It’s all about measurable business benefits.

What are the Measurable Benefits of Channel and Partner Learning?

Proving the worth of channel education doesn’t need to be overly complex. Simply compare channel learning completion reports from your LMS with channel performance reports from relevant operational systems.

To demonstrate the business value of channel and partner learning, organizations often focus on these metrics:

• Increased volume and value of channel sales, cross-sales and up-sales
• Faster time-to-market for new products
• Reduced cost of customer support
• Improved customer satisfaction
• Shorter time-to-proficiency for new channel partners and partner employees
• Decreased cost-per-training interaction
• Increased premium certification content sales

No wonder LMS-driven channel and partner learning programs often gain executive-level attention and sustained support!

Two Key Approaches to Channel and Partner Learning

Organizations typically rely on one of these LMS deployment strategies for channel and partner audiences:

1. Implement a stand-alone partner and channel LMS
2. Expand and enhance an existing employee LMS to support external partners

Neither approach is right or wrong. But the best solution depends on three factors – an organization’s size, the importance of its external channel relationships, and any internal politics that can influence decision-making.

What’s the Best LMS for Channel and Partner Learning?

Compared with other LMS use cases, requirements for a channel and partner LMS often are often more comprehensive and complicated. Why?

Individuals in partner organizations often look and act like employees. Therefore, requirements for channel and partner initiatives often mirror employee learning systems requirements.

For example, think of a fast food or hotel chain like McDonald’s, Taco Bell or Marriott. Individual locations could be owned by the parent franchise corporation or by a 3rd-party franchisee. But as a customer, I shouldn’t know or care who owns and operates a particular location, because my customer experience should be identical, regardless of where I am served.

As a result, core employee LMS features like compliance management, onboarding, job profiles, automation, manager-employee relationship management, ILT, hands-on learning, and third-party content are all important in this franchise setting. In fact, these elements are even more important than they are in customer learning, association member education or commercial training use cases.

On the other hand, because channel and partner learners are externally located, extended enterprise requirements like learner experience, multiple SSO, PRM system integration, gamification, certification and dealer management are also highly important.

That’s a tall order. So, which LMS companies are rising to the challenge of channel and partner learning? Based on our extensive research and experience on the front lines of extended enterprise LMS buying and selling, these solutions rise above the rest:  NetExam, Thought Industries, Docebo, Crowd Wisdom, Latitude Learning, Absorb LMS, Schoox, BlueVolt and Fuse Universal.

Top 10 Channel and Partner Learning Case Studies

At Talented Learning, we love to collect and catalog case studies! Currently, our Case Study Directory features more than 100 extended enterprise case studies, including these top 10 channel and partner case studies from 7 different vendors:

#1: La-Z-Boy

LMS Vendor: Docebo

Founded in 1926, La-Z-Boy has become one of the world’s leading furniture manufacturers. From upholstered sofas, loveseats, chairs and ottomans to solid wood bedroom and dining room sets, La-Z-Boy is passionate about bringing comfort and quality to every room of the house. La-Z-Boy needed to replace an outdated LMS with one that could serve its staff and proprietary partners, worldwide. By partnering with Docebo, La-Z-Boy has increased learning engagement by 179%.

#2: Phillips 66

LMS Vendor: Schoox

As one of the largest finished lubricants suppliers in the U.S., Phillips 66 Lubricants is known for manufacturing and marketing high-quality base oils and sophisticated formulations in three lubricant brands: Phillips 66®, Kendall® Motor Oil and Red Line® Synthetic Oil. Phillips 66 relies on Schoox to deliver up-to-date curricula, courses and virtual instructor-led training (VILT) to new sales team members and their global distribution network.

#3: L’Oréal

LMS Vendor: Docebo

L’Oréal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, is committed to offering men and women everywhere the best of beauty, in terms of quality, efficacy, safety and responsibility. To achieve this mission, L’Oréal leverages Docebo as the center of its learning ecosystem. Moving its partner education experience online enabled L’Oréal to increase training enrollments, as well as completions.

#4:  Subway

LMS Vendor: Schoox

Subway provides customers in 115 countries with easy access to a fresh line-up of vegetables for made-to-order sandwiches and salads. Subway was unhappy with its old, outdated LMS. It wasn’t possible to customize data reports in a way that fit the company’s needs, and the platform often shut down when users were consuming courses. Subway chose Schoox as its LMS for its easy-to-use, modern interface, and its ability to support the organization’s complex structural relationships among corporate staff, franchisor business representatives and franchisees.

#5: Avon

LMS Vendor: Fuse Universal
Avon – the global cosmetics giant – operates in a fast-moving environment, which requires its global network of beauty entrepreneurs to continually learn about new products and campaigns. The company partnered with Fuse to drive social and collaborative learning in the flow of work. Now with Fuse as its digital learning backbone, Avon is supporting valuable learning connections, fostering culture and community, and supporting sales growth for its distributed sales representatives.

Join the Talented Learning Center as a free Basic Member and gain anytime access to our Case Study Directory, where you can search, filter and read a growing collection of more than 100 case studies from dozens of world-class LMS vendors!

#6: Cabify

LMS Vendor: Northpass

Cabify is a Spanish ridesharing company that provides vehicles for hire via a smartphone mobile app. This growing venture wanted to improve its onboarding process to scale its business more quickly. By relying on Northpass, Cabify has reduced driver activation time by 95%, enabling its transportation network to generate revenue faster than ever, while keeping operational costs low.

#7: Mace Group

LMS Vendor: accessplanit

Mace Group is a global consultancy, construction and facilities management firm. Mace Business School provides learning and support services to key businesses in the Mace supply chain. Over time, Mace realized that administration of its training courses had become overly complex and difficult to control. Mace wanted a system that could better facilitate communication with its external supply chain and provide an end-to-end training process, from course booking through certification. By choosing accessplanit, Mace has increased its client base by 200% while reducing its administrative resource utilization by 30%.

#8: Bernina

LMS Vendor: CD2 Learning

BERNINA has been one of the world’s leading sewing and embroidery machine manufacturers for more than 125 years. The Swiss company’s products are synonymous with innovation, precision and durability. BERNINA wanted to improve its training delivery to educate more personnel more efficiently at retail locations. The goal was to start with a B2B program of micro-courses for its dealer network, demonstrating how to sell BERNINA products to consumers. By partnering with CD2 Learning to customize these mobile courses for retailers and staff, the program has been very successful and retention has increased.

#9: Five Guys

LMS Vendor: Schoox

Five Guys is a global quick-service restaurant chain known for its hamburgers, hot dogs and french fries. With locations in North America, Europe and the Middle East, the chain continues to expand rapidly. But lack of in-depth training reporting had become a huge issue. The organization needed to track and report progress on individual courses and curricula in a way that reflects its hybrid corporate franchise structure. Five Guys chose Schoox because the platform easily adapts to the organization’s structure, its out-of-the-box reporting aligns with Five Guys’ unique needs, and it supports mobile content delivery in multiple languages.

#10: A&W Canada

LMS Vendor: Absorb

A&W Canada is one of the largest fast-food franchises in Canada, with more than 900 locations across the country. But the company faced a significant training management challenge, with its decentralized franchise structure including thousands of users and admins. A&W Canada needed a system that’s easy to use for veteran trainees and beginners, alike. Absorb made it possible for the company to standardize its training, with a customized solution that has successfully educated more than 45,000 learners.

Conclusion

Buying a channel/partner LMS may seem overwhelming. But you can accelerate the process if you know where to look. These 10 channel and partner learning case studies are a smart way to learn quickly about relevant challenges, requirements and available vendor solutions.

Want to learn from more than 100 LMS case studies of all kinds? Visit our new Case Study Directory, available to all Talented Learning Basic Members. (Join now – it’s free!)

About the Talented Learning Case Study Directory

Want to browse through more application stories from other vendors? No matter what type of LMS you’re searching for, you’ll find relevant real-world examples in the Talented Learning Center Case Study Directory.

Our team has been busy finding, summarizing, producing and categorizing more than 100 LMS case studies in this newly-updated Talented Learning Center Case Study Directory. And every story in this collection is freely available to Talented Learning Basic Members.

In this Case Study Directory, you can search and filter stories by any of these criteria:

• Use case – including partner and channel learning, as well as customer education, employee training, academic instruction, commercial training and more
• LMS functionality mentioned in any case study
• Vendor name and learning system type
• Professional services provided
• Vendor location and industry domain expertise

I invite you to join the Talented Learning Center as a free Basic Member for access to our ever-growing directory of customer education LMS case studies.

Thanks for reading!

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