Extending the services
What’s new since 2018 is that managed learning providers are increasingly being asked to:
- Consult, evaluate and strategise: giving market insight and a view of next-generation learning trends in a partnership-style relationship to deliver for the business.
- Provide access to an ever-widening scope of training courses, content library and skill development needs. In turn, these deliver for other important areas in the business such as commercial, HR, talent, and ESG strategies.
- Assist the needed transformation towards next-generation digital learning to provide future-ready skills in an engaging manner — including L&D function transformation, access to LXPs, and new virtual and hybrid delivery models.
- Deliver on clients’ expanding learning needs: in an increasingly disrupted world, organisations need learning programme delivery suited to multiple contexts (F2F, hybrid, remote) and for this learning to be accessible in the flow of work and deliver the latest skills needed for fast-evolving business challenges. This learning also needs to deliver for the talent management strategy (recruitment, retention, engagement) and adapt to in-house resource levels. As such, managed service providers need to be able to provide increasingly diverse services as well as adapt to service delivery expectations.
Where does MLS occur?
Half a decade ago, the UK and the USA were the markets where learning outsourcing most frequently happened. On either side of the Atlantic, organisations were turned to providers for cost effectiveness, to mitigate the impact of shrinking teams and for help with global scaling, and to access digital and data facilities. Elsewhere, in European countries, there was still concern about the impact of outsourcing many learning operations.
This had changed by 2023 with outsourcing more widely used regardless of location. Of the survey participants who worked in a business with a multi-location global presence, all described turning to managed learning providers for at least some learning function activity. This suggests that as employers have experienced the positive impact of long-term, culturally aligned, integrated partnerships that deliver for the business, the need for global outsourcing of learning, as well as the market for it, has grown since we last checked.
However, there was variance in how this multi-location approach to outsourcing worked. Some businesses enter into agreements to access global provision or economies of scale. Some to deliver consistent learning experiences across multiple sites or easily access local vendors. Indeed, one global organisation also told us they use a centralised outsourcing agreement which means the same elements of learning are outsourced, from logistics to delivery, wherever they have operations.
Elsewhere, multiple participants mentioned they worked with providers who could flex to localised learning needs. They put out requests for proposals (RFPs) with vendors who can tailor services to localised needs or skills requirements specific to a certain hub. Yet, these businesses would still expect vendor management from a centralised provider.
