By Luke Oubridge, CEO, Fuse
The idea of L&D driving company performance is great, but if we leave it at that, we’re missing out on a goldmine of ROI and profitability metrics. There is every opportunity for learning to significantly influence the bottom line in any business, and to become the biggest economic contributor in any company.
This article will help those who are looking to understand why ROI calculation is so important when doing your learning platform due diligence. Here, we’re looking at Fuse customer examples as we explore the top metrics that matter when it comes to making learning profitable in the corporate enterprise.
1. Engaged, continual learning creating an increase in sales: When Avon analysed different metrics such as completion rates, consumption of content and levels of interaction, the data very clearly showed that it was the frequency with which our beauty entrepreneurs were coming back to the platform that made the biggest difference rather - this is where we saw the really dramatic uplifts in business performance.
An incremental increase in monthly visits to the platform - the difference between low frequency (1 to 2 visits per month) and medium frequency (3 to 4 visits per month) - showed dramatic uplifts of +320% in aggregate sales over a 6 month period.
2. Better product knowledge and increased Average Order Value: Avon’s increased engagement also led to an increased in the average order value. Recent data pulled from the ‘Avon Connect’ Fuse platform across five markets shows a 20% retention increase amongst beauty reps who engage with the platform versus those who do not. The same group also produces around 6% more revenue in terms of Average Order Value.
3. Consolidation of learning platforms = cost savings: Like many companies, Alliance had an LMS, an antiquated intranet, and vast volumes of emails. They brought the three channels together - information, communication, and policy. Learners were able to access and engage with information in one system, rather than three. The cost saving associated with platform consolidation is significant in terms of employee resource, computing power and infrastructure.
4. Making other enterprise management systems redundant: Fuse serves additional business needs beyond learning as well - so much so in fact that our client Joules was able to retire its document management system, and move all documents to Fuse where they could more easily be shared. People were using Fuse as a hub for learning, internal comms, community-building, and wellness support, and that naturally rendered other platforms redundant.
5. Reduced onboarding time for faster time to market with sales: Hilti’s sales onboarding time and reduced costs with Fuse costs are also a strong metric: what used to be a 15 months sales onboarding process payback period has become a three-month payback process with Fuse. Surely helping your salespeople to hit the ground running has got to be one the strongest drivers of profitability a company can ask for, right?
6. Creating content in-house, based on tacit knowledge versus buying third-party libraries: Creating your own content (versus buying third-party libraries) is a big cost-saver - it’s also usually much better and more effective in terms of increasing engagement.
With Fuse, Scandic was able to establish function and role-specific communities, like food and beverage for example. Using these channels on Fuse, experts from across the organisation can share their knowledge, including community managers, who can share specific knowledge designed to support their business goals.
The power of peer-to-peer and tacit knowledge sharing is demonstrably strong at Scandic. Some of the best content Scandic has on Fuse is beverage and wine schools shared by bartenders, as well as chef schools, where chefs can share, for example, the secret to making perfect scrambled eggs. A chef looking for tips on perfect scrambled eggs can conduct a search on Fuse and find a colleague that has made a short video dedicated to exactly this task, and ta-da: peer-to-peer, supercharged tacit knowledge is being shared, and colleagues are learning from each other.
7. Higher staff retention rates = serious savings: The International Call Centre Management Institute says that the average call centre turnover per annum is 33%. We all know how expensive hiring and training can be, so when Panasonic boosted its customer service representative retention rates by 26% with Fuse and generated ROI in the first three months of using the platform, everyone was truly impressed. Watch the video here to learn more.
8. Increased customer lifetime value: In 2015, Vodafone retail UK moved to Fuse as its ‘mobile first’ learning solution. Before changing learning with Fuse, Vodafone’s classroom approach to training took its advisors away from customers for far too long. The company wanted its retail employees to exceed customer needs in a consistent way through great conversations.
With Fuse, Vodafone immediately saw an unprecedented level of learner engagement, growing month on month up to 10,000 items per day amongst the 4000 employees in its UK retail estate. The stand out statistic? At 90% active usage amongst employees, Vodafone has seen a marked increase in the lifetime value of the Vodafone customer - something which we (and they) are all very proud of.
9. Reduced internal communications costs: At Vodafone, HQ experienced challenges with employee communications, with paper and one-way based email from management creating an ineffective, cascade-like approach. Shop floor employees used WhatsApp to communicate, and while effective, WhatsApp conversations could not be shared amongst the group.
In deploying Fuse to handle employee communication and learning, Vodafone saved a net seven figures in internal communications, including a 60,000 savings in paper costs.
10. Reduced time to search to give employees back valuable time: In a business landscape where knowledge workers can spend 20% of their days searching for knowledge, think about how much time companies would save if people could just search for the answers intelligently and get them instantly.
The Fuse Intelligence Engine uses Natural Language Search. It’s Google-like and consumer-grade. Its granular, instant results give users access to exactly what they need at the moment they need it - we call it knowledge at the point of need - and it’s delivered in bite-sized learning that takes minutes, rather than hours or days to consume.
Intelligent search is helping to break down the barriers to learning while setting Fuse apart from SCORM and microlearning based LXPs. And, when time = money and you multiply that across the vast array of employees any enterprise may have, the implications are pretty damned impressive. Being able to give back 20% of a week translates into one full day. Think about what your employees could do with an extra day a week!
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