Avaya: Enterprise Learning Outsourcing

Through Learning Outsourcing, Accenture enables Avaya to transform its learning function. Avaya University, in support of its plans to grow and improve market share through an aggressive schedule of new product launches. As a result, Avaya University helped the company meet its strategic goals and drive high performance for its employees, business partners and customers.

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When Avaya—a global leader in business communications software, systems and services—embarked on a plan to grow and improve market share with an aggressive schedule of new product launches, a critical success factor was ensuring that its workforce and channel partners were ready to sell and service those products. Avaya's internal learning organization did not have the capacity or scale to transform the learning function for these new strategic initiatives.

Avaya outsourced its entire enterprise learning function to Accenture, based on Accenture's global scale and expertise, and our proven track record in delivering enterprise-wide learning solutions that drive business performance and growth.

The scope of the transformational outsourcing agreement included the development and delivery of all product and service training for employees, customers and business partners in more than 90 countries, as well as employee development and skills training.

In less than four months, Accenture put in place content and structure to enable learning solutions to Avaya employees; in six months, end-to-end learning services were available to more than 50,000 employees, business partners and customers globally. In the first year of the outsourcing arrangement, Avaya University successfully supported the largest release of new communications products in Avaya's history, with learning costs lower than pre-outsourcing levels.

Avaya University now delivers more training per employee with a reduction in overall learning investment. Time to proficiency has been accelerated by 60 percent in some cases, returning 35,000 work days to the corporation and channel partners. Of Avaya's courses, 81 percent can now be accessed electronically, compared with 23 percent before outsourcing, and e-learning utilization has increased more than 150 percent.

Avaya University is delivering real business value to the company. For example, a new sales certification program has resulted in a 13 percent increase in sales funnel size and an improved close rate of 6 percent in measured control groups, and a "Fast Track" learning program developed to drive IP telephony sales resulted in increased sales of 35 percent in six months for those that completed the program. Avaya has won multiple industry awards for learning excellence, including most recently the 2005 Chief Learning Officer magazine Gold Award for Strategic Alignment and Silver Award for Utilization of Marketing Resources.