Skillsoft is Fundamental to your Enterprise Learning Strategy
July 22, 2014

Skillsoft is Fundamental to your Enterprise Learning Strategy

Michelle Braden, MBA | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Other

Overall Satisfaction with Skillsoft

Skillsoft learning solutions are utilized across the organization to provide both foundational and specialized curricula for various programs ranging from on-boarding to functional skill development to professional skill development to leadership development. With the large library of courseware, we are able to pull Skillsoft content into our programs and align with our custom developed programs so that we provide a blended and fully rounded program to reinforce learning.
  • Covers a wide-breadth of topics ranging from desktop / office skills to communications skills to leadership development
  • Offers knowledge portals (Knowledge Centers) around specific topic areas such as Management Development, Six Sigma, Professional Foundations, Sales, etc - that aggregate content from the large Skillsoft resources and present it in a way that is both meaningful and relevant to the learners. Plus, they have editors update the featured topic each month.
  • Include a wide variety of learning media such as eLearning courses, books, book summaries and videos.
  • Some of the courses are too long - (eg. 4 hours) - however, a learner has the option to only access 1 or more sections making it easier to consume.
  • Some of the courses are outdated and boring. Skillsoft has gradually been updating these courses - but there is still room for improvement.
  • Courses provide a good foundation for learning - but Skillsoft needs to do more to attract millenials with their courseware.
  • Change their contracting to provide pricing more in line with what is needed in developing countries / third world nations.
  • With Skillsoft, we were able to displace over $10M Euros of funding that would've otherwise been spent on Instructor-led courses and purchasing of books.
  • Skillsoft allowed us to build solid and thorough learning maps so that employees knew what learning they needed in order to advance their career.
  • By utilizing Skillsoft's Leadership Advantage, we were able to impact the skills and knowledge of our leaders in a short amount of time. Having this resource available, our leaders were able to access a resource and get their answer in just minutes rather than doing their own research or attending a training class.
  • With Skillsoft, we were able to quickly get new employees up to speed and functioning.
  • Mindtools
Skillsoft has purchased many of their competitors - thereby improving their offering. However, we did recently evaluate Mindtools. Their offering is very good. It is a competitor of Skillsoft's Knowledge Centers. We are still in the evaluation process.
Currently we operate in developing nations. If Skillsoft had a pricing program for those nations versus what they use in the Americas / Europe, we would greatly consider it. Right now though, the Skillsoft pricing, while affordable for advanced nations, is out of reach for the developing nations. We hope that changes.
Courseware is either bought or built by a company. With Skillsoft, it is very economical to obtain a large library of courseware to supplement courseware that is custom built internally. Also, much of the Skillsoft content is foundational to other learning programs thus providing a more fully rounded learning program.

Using Skillsoft

25000 - People from ALL business functions - customer support, sales, IT, HR, Finance, operations, engineering, R&D, all utilized Skillsoft learning solutions as a key component of their learning roadmap. We had mapped Skillsoft courses and other learning assets to learning plans that were used for career development. There was not a single function that did NOT use Skillsoft. In fact, over 43% of the company used the product. This is an excellent utilization percentage.
2 - We had a technical project manager who worked with Skillsoft on any implementation and/or technical issues. This person had both IT and Project Management skillsets. We also had an individual in-house that was the primary "champion" of Skillsoft to drive utilization, etc across the enterprise. This person also worked with the Skillsoft sales team to ensure we were doing all we could to drive utilization.
  • Providing a foundational learning map for all employees
  • Displacing costs of other L&D solutions, such as ILT and books. We displaced over $10M Euros in costs that would've been otherwise spent.
  • Using deep links, we were able to reinforce messages / email / announcements from our Executive Team to help people learn about the topic. For example, when the financial crisis of 2008 hit, we were able to provide key Skillsoft resources to enable leaders to lead in a crisis.
  • Deep links for embedding Skillsoft resources into Executive Team announcements / emails / etc. Provided an additional resource to help people learn more about the topic.
  • Customizing the Knowledge Centers helped us align them to our custom built programs thus providing a common look and feel.
  • Having our CEO videotaped and including his messages in the Skillsoft Leadership Channel videos.
  • More customization of Knowledge Centers
  • Implementation of InGenius throughout the Enterprise
  • Integration of Skillsoft resources into our other blended programs

Evaluating Skillsoft and Competitors

  • Product Features
  • Vendor Reputation
Great price for a very large library of resources.
Would not change a thing.

Skillsoft Implementation

Just that it takes a village. It cannot be done alone. Everyone needs to know what you are doing and what their role is in the implementation. Tightly managing the project management schedule and resources is important in ensuring that everything gets done on time, and with quality. Education is KEY.
Change management was a major issue with the implementation - Marketing the solution across the enterprise is KEY. People think that if you "build it they will come." Not true. Another KEY was integrating Skillsoft assets into EVERYTHING. We included deep links into memos and announcements from executives whenever possible. We armed our HR Business Partners with knowledge so that they could leverage Skillsoft when having discussions with their clients. We provided Managers information on how to build Individual Development Plans utilizing Skillsoft assets.
  • Lots of time spent marketing and managing the change across the enterprise.
  • Educating everyone on this new solution and how to use it.
  • Getting our single sign-on to work properly with our tight security system.

Skillsoft Support

Very responsive, knowledge and helpful. They are always focused on ensuring they are doing the very best to support our success.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
Yes - Yes, we paid for a dedicated program administrator to help us with course mapping, login issues, reporting, implementation, etc. This person was virtual but they were a full-time employee assigned to us as a client. Whenever we had any issues, they were the first person we reached out to in order to resolve the problem.
We had some very difficult issues with single sign-on due to our companies security system. Skillsoft support engineers were extremely diligent in working with our IT team to ensure this was corrected satisfactorily with our security team. My team and I felt that no matter what the issue, Skillsoft went over and above to help us resolve it.

Using Skillsoft

The integration between the main Skillsoft portal and Books24x7 could use improvement. Most users don't realize there is actually a separate books portal because the link to it is not that visible. Yet, once they discover it, they realize that the books portal is actually easier to use to search for books, ebook summaries, and videos.
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Lots to learn
  • Search and Go tool is very easy to use and intuitive
  • Chapters to Go feature, which allows a user to download a book chapter, is very easy to perform
  • Playing a video works extremely well and is self explanatory
  • Having to switch from the main portal to Books24x7 is cumbersome - however once in the books portal, it is easy to find stuff
  • Having to use the Skillsoft course player is sometimes difficult as it may have problems if your PC isn't setup properly
  • Logging into the Skillsoft portal requires the correct level of Java and that you have pop-ups turned off. Users have difficulty with this at times.