Degreed Leads the Way with a Fresh Look at Learner Experience, Skills Development

 By Michael Rochelle, Chief Strategy Officer and Principal HCM Analyst, Brandon Hall Group and
David Wentworth, Principal Learning Analyst, Brandon Hall Group

Following a highly strategic acquisition of its top competitor, Pathgather, Degreed has set its sights on forever changing the way learning is being thought about and delivered in organizations.

We have been covering Degreed since the beginning, along with the rapidly evolving learning experience platform market and are very impressed with the rate of brand awareness and client growth Degreed is putting on the board. Degreed has uniquely built its own technology category from the ground up and it is a hot one. They have also provided a blueprint for what best-in-class looks like as a product and a company.

We recently had the opportunity to attend its client conference, Degreed LENS. No surprise; it provided much more than a traditional deep-dive update of company news, product functionality and client experiences.

What was most impressive is that anyone attending the conference was exposed to a plethora of thought-provoking information about improving the learner experience in their organizations, the steps to accelerate learning to move at the speed of business, and creating a stronger bond between learning and driving individual and organizational performance.

Degreed may have started at the level of a content aggregator, curator and manager but that is now a distant point in their rear-view mirror. They got busy and did a lot of heavy lifting on the product-strategy and client-experience model. What used to be a tactical approach to improving learning delivery has evolved into Degreed assisting some the most prestigious companies in the world (including Booz Allen Hamilton, Capital One, Cisco, Citi, Marsh & McLennan and Unilever) to develop a highly sophisticated approach to data-driven learning analytics to drive learner engagement, accelerate and deepen skill development and create a continuous process-improvement approach to an organization’s learning strategy.

It’s been said many times but it’s proven every day: learning and development organizations must move at the speed of business to provide an agile, nimble and flexible approach to learning. Business today is a set of fluid battlefield conditions where global environments and competitive landscapes present complex and fast-moving challenges and opportunities. The key to a company winning in the marketplace is whether or not they have pulled every available ounce of ingenuity, creativity and innovation from their workforce. One of the conference attendees from American Airlines said it best: the world of learning is moving from ADDIE to agile.

Another organization leveraging Degreed in their learning transformation journey is MMC. Their strategy is matching future competencies and skills needs in finance to create a highly specific and impactful learning strategy for the finance department. Citi is leveraging its IT best practices to rebuild its learning culture to support the need for innovation across their organization. Unilever is working to more closely align the personal goals, milestones and aspirations of its employees with its learning strategy, and to connect systems across the organization to drive better people analytics and a more dynamic workforce planning process. Cisco and Capital One are reimagining their learning organizations by engaging software developers to build microservices to deliver a more self-service learning experience. These knowledge-sharing opportunities and best practices showcases truly transformed the meeting from a traditional user conference to a center of excellence for improving learning.

It has been crystal clear to us why Degreed is an industry leader and market maker in the learning experience space from a technical standpoint for quite some time. What was really a refreshing and energizing discovery is that Degreed is also establishing itself as a primary thought leader in the learning space and any client working with Degreed will benefit immensely from tapping into the deep expertise and experience of Degreed’s team and client community.

For more information on our research, please visit www.brandonhall.com

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Mike Cooke

Chief Executive Officer of Brandon Hall Group Mike Cooke Prior to joining Brandon Hall Group, Mike Cooke was the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of AC Growth. Mike held leadership and executive positions for the majority of his career, at which he was responsible for steering sales and marketing teams to drive results and profitability. His background includes more than 15 years of experience in sales, marketing, management, and operations in the research, consulting, software and technology industries. Mike has extensive experience in sales, marketing and management having worked for several early high-growth emerging businesses and has implemented technology systems to support various critical sales, finance, marketing and client service functions. He is especially skilled in organizing the sales and service strategy to fully support a company’s growth strategy. The concept of growth was an absolute to Mike and a motivator in starting AC Growth, in order to help organizations achieve research driven results. Most recently, Mike was the VP and General Manager of Field Operations at Bersin & Associates, a global analyst and consulting services firm focused on all areas of enterprise learning, talent management and talent acquisition. Tasked with leading the company’s global expansion, Mike led all sales operations worldwide. During Mike’s tenure, the company has grown into a multi-national firm, conducting business in over 45 countries with over 4,500 multi-national organizations. Mike started his career at MicroVideo Learning Systems in 1992, eventually holding a senior management position and leading all corporate sales before founding Dynamic Minds. Mike was CEO and Co-Founder of Dynamic Minds, a custom developer of software programs, working with clients like Goldman Sachs, Prentice Hall, McGraw Hill and Merrill Lynch. Also, Mike worked for Oddcast, a leading provider of customer experience and marketing solutions, where he held a senior management position leading the company into new markets across various industries. Mike also serves on the Advisory Board for Carbon Solutions America, an independent sustainability consulting and carbon management firm that specializes in the design and implementation of greenhouse reduction and sustainability plans as well as managing the generation of carbon and renewal energy and energy efficiency credits. Mike attended University of Phoenix, studying Business Administration and Finance. He has also completed executive training at the Chicago Graduate School of Business in Chicago, IL.

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