LMS Review: Saba LMS – Learning@Work

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Saba has been in extended enterprise solutions since the beginning of the LMS industry.  I saw my first Saba presentation 15 years ago when they presented to us at Wilson Learning on how we could support our many global clients with their LMS.  A lot has happened in our industry since then but Saba is still here and still talking extended enterprise.

Yesterday we attended Saba’s webinar presented by Charles DeNault on partner, channel and customer training.  It was really good and I’ll post the link when it’s up.  It’s the first extended enterprise webinar or whitepaper by one of the large integrated talent management providers in 2014.   Very refreshing to see a refocus on this key topic along with so many real life examples proving the business case.

All the TM providers have been too busy worrying about integrated talent management and have forgotten that the scale of external LMS solutions dwarf the size of internal employees solutions.  Saba hasn’t forgotten and they have some of the best customers and case studies of extended enterprise solutions in the industry.

Cisco, EMC, Yum Brands (KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut), NetApp, eTrade, H&R Block and American Red Cross are all long time extended enterprise customers delivering training to millions and millions of users in every corner of the world.   Here are some great ROI stats from Saba customers:

• Yum Brands reduced turnover in their franchises by 20% after implementing Saba for over a million users
• Liebherr Mining, maker of excavation and large load haul trucks, reduced their customers’ repair time by 35% and turned training into a profit center
• Cisco’s certified partners produce two to seven times the revenue of untrained partners
• EMC generates millions of dollars of training revenue every year
• NetApp increased bookings by 42% after deploying Saba

My assessment:   Saba has the full feature set outlined in Talented Learning’s 11 Buckets of Extended Enterprise Functionality and they can support all 5 Types of Extended Enterprise Learning.  If Saba is your current employee LMS or TM suite, and many of you are in this category, then you should be using their LMS to support your external audiences.  If you have a global, large-scale external audiences, it’s hard to find a company or product with better credentials than Saba.

 

Saba Learning@Work Extended Enterprise Vitals

 

LMS Name: Learning@Work

Website: www.saba.com

Twitter: @SabaSoftware

Contact Information: www.saba.com/contact

Extended Enterprise Ready:  Yes

Types of Extended Enterprise Expertise Learning Supported:

• Partner Channel
• Franchise
• Customer
• Association
• For Profit Training
• Government and Public Sector

Differentiation:

• Saba has all the learning pieces of learning technology solution in one place making a cost effective solution
• Easy to get started in channel learning, especially if you already own Saba

Licensing and Certification Features:

• Prescriptive rules engine
• Certification programs, paths and workflows
• Expiration and recertification
• e-signatures, audit trails and time stamps

Adaptive Learning Features:

• Smart lists for dynamic grouping of users

eCommerce Features: 

• Support for multiple currencies and payment methods
• PCI compliant
• PO management
• Training credits
• Marketing campaigns
• Discount coupons, subscriptions
• Price list management (tiered pricing)
• Shopping cart interface

State and Global Taxation Features: None identified

Social Collaboration Features: 

• Open Social Integration
• Chat, Groups, Teams
• Discussion
• Follow Users
• Create Virtual meetings right from inside collaboration team spaces, automatically record and save recordings for other members
• Saba YouTube video on Social Learning

Mobile Features:

• During webinar made point of how external users use LMS more as performance support via mobile devices
• Offline content
• Mobile apps

Gamification Features:  

• Custom Badges:  Badges, popular form of peer recognition, can be created and customized by clients. Badges are earned by completing learning activities.   You can see an example and read more about Saba’s badge capability on their blog here.
• PQ score or People Quotient:  Each learner has a PQ score which is a relative rating based on an individual’s contributions and other activity.  Sharing, commenting and the rating of your own content impacts a user’s PQ score.

Virtual Classroom Features:

• Proprietary virtual classroom available in product suite
• Can be integrated into social groups
• Unified experience for users and administrators to access virtual classrooms
• Detailed tracking and reporting
• VOIP or Conference call support
• Supports polling interaction
• There is a series of training videos on Saba’s virtual classroom on YouTube

Globalization Features: 

• Dozens of language localizations
• Global ecommerce support
• Six global data centers including Europe and Australia
• Saba has employees and partners in every corner of the world

Technology: 

• Java based architecture
• Deployed via Saba Cloud which currently has support for 20,000,000 users

Integration:

• Web service APIs
• Connectors to other virtual tools and moving to a connector strategy in general for popular connections
• AICC, SCORM, Tin Can support
• Open Social integration
• Workday integration’
• SalesForce.com integration
• Open Sesame, Skillsoft and Kantola content integrations

Reporting: 

• Enterprise level reporting and dashboards
• Scheduled reports

Links to Whitepapers and Webinars on Extended Enterprise Learning

• Increase Revenues and Margins With Effective Extended Enterprise Learning
• 90-second video on Saba’s extended enterprise capability

Links to Case Studies on Extended Enterprise Learning:  

• Learn how ADP improves client retention and fuels business growth using Saba Software for their virtual classroom, learning and content development projects.
• Embry-Riddle is widely regarded as the foremost aviation and aerospace university in the world. Learn how Embry-Riddle uses Saba to provide an interactive, real-time virtual learning environment that reduces travel overhead for instructors and better leverages faculty across a network of geographically distributed campuses.
• Alcatel-Lucent uses Saba to provide learning to employees, customers, and channel partners in more than 130 countries across 15 campuses.
• Business Environment is using Saba to deliver advanced training and educational services via its ‘School of Entrepreneurs’ – a service that Sberbank provides for entrepreneurs who are in the process of starting new businesses.
• Learn how Five Guys uses Saba to build award winning learning programs across all of their franchises. Their cloud-based learning program enables up-to-date, uniform training for all 21,000 employees to ensure Five Guys’ philosophy and commitment to quality are maintained as the company expands.
• Hitachi Data Systems wanted to consolidate global learning needs under one learning organization to better serve their employees, partners, and customers worldwide.
• Saba helps KFC transform their learning organization for the countrywide extended enterprise including over 25,000 employees across 825 restaurants through learning and virtual classroom.
• NextLab Ventures Group is a spin off of the MIT NextLab program where entrepreneurs, students, employees, and experts are using Saba to interact globally to enable innovation and entrepreneurship in emerging markets.
• Toyota Motor Sales is embracing learning on the cloud and using Saba to deliver training to their internal associates and dealerships.
• Springer Medizin wanted to offer a better, more convenient way for practicing physicians in Germany to obtain the continuing medical education (CME) training required in their profession.
• Accelerate Training for Global Success at YUM! recorded webinar

Links to Online Demos:

• Saba YouTube video on Social Learning
• Video overview of Saba virtual classroom
• There is a series of training videos on Saba’s virtual classroom on YouTube

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About Talented Learning LMS Reviews

Talented Learning LMS Reviews provide initial screening of vendors for extended enterprise suitability.  Vendors share lots of information on their websites — feature lists, video demos, case studies, position papers, press releases, free trials and more.  We review and analyze all of this information to determine a vendor’s mission, assess the platform’s strengths and weaknesses, and determine how effectively it serves extended enterprise learning needs.

As always, at Talented Learning, we’re not about making sweeping predictions or judging vendors.  Instead, we document the realities of today’s LMS landscape, and how learning technology is actually adding value.  We have only one goal — to help clients find appropriate LMS vendors based on their unique business requirements.