How Enterprises Upskill their Employees to Achieve Digital Transformation

To remain competitive, digital transformation is essential. But what does successful digital transformation look like? It looks like upskilling your employees in emerging technologies and new skills to deliver real, tangible results.

Sounds easy on paper, but how do you leverage upskilling to make sure it works for your organization? Buy buying an integrated and specifically curated learning pathway that aligns with your business goals.

In this blog, we’re sharing real-life examples of how upskilling has helped enterprise companies achieve digital transformation and how you can get started.

Why bother upskilling your enterprise teams?

Aside from the obvious ‘you need to remain competitive’, there are many other benefits to upskilling your employees.

To boost productivity

Upping your skills helps you stay current in the industry and learn new things. This can help you work more productively and efficiently, which can lead to better results for your business.

To retain top talent

Employees want to feel valued and expect companies to invest in their learning and development. Over 75% of millennials think professional development opportunities are one of the most important aspects of company culture. 

“People are happiest when they're challenged and feel they're learning and growing. Upgrading our employees through training and certification has helped get the most out of our workforce and motivated them to want to stay with the company. When you see the benefits to the team and the company, you're more likely to want to upskill yourself to do your part to improve both.”

- Matthew Ramirez, serial entrepreneur, investor, and Forbes 30 under 30 alumni

To enhance innovation

Introducing new ways of thinking means your employees will have the ability to problem-solve. This new skill helps improve innovation within your organization, which can lead to new product development or new processes that help you further compete.

To address skill gaps

There’s a talent shortage, in case you didn’t know! Which means you might struggle to fill in skill gaps externally. By upskilling in-house staff, you’re equipping them with the skills to tackle any digital challenges that come your way.

For Future-proofing

Not only does upskilling help your organization can adapt to changing business needs, but it also helps you prepare employees for future roles or responsibilities within your organization or for a new role outside of your organization.

4 examples of digital transformation from enterprises

Sometimes, you need a little inspiration to get the ball rolling. Here’s how Airbnb, Sanofi, Spotify and Nestle approach upskilling their employees to achieve digital transformation.

1. Airbnb stay ahead of the curve with internal data science teams

The alternative travel heavyweight decided to combat the tech talent shortage head-on by creating Data University. 

The industry is short of tech talent, so over at Airbnb, they wanted to ensure their employees had a grasp of data literacy — training talent in-house rather than having to constantly rely on outsourcing or hiring new staff to close their knowledge gap. 

The Data University curates its very own data science team to help the company make data-driven decisions.

And even though Data University was founded back in 2017, there’s still a tech shortage happening right now. So the moral of the story? Don’t look for skills in an under-saturated talent pool; invest in upskilling and make your employees even more powerful to do battle on your behalf.

2. Sanofi upskill to give employees digital confidence

World-leading French pharmaceutical organization, Sanofi, noticed a gap in knowledge and a need to upskill its marketing team in key areas of digital transformation. 

The objectives for their upskilling program were simple — to increase people’s confidence and competence within the arena of digital transformation, improve dialogue internally and with agency partners, and encourage and foster a test-and-learn culture.

Within weeks after launching the global digital upskilling program, Sanofi noticed a 45% improvement in digital skills and knowledge. 

3. Spotify refuel marketing team to get more creative output

Marketer, Taj Alavi, joined Spotify with the aim of reconnecting consumers with the emotional side of the brand. But that meant adopting a different approach to internal team creativity. 

In an interview with Marketing Week, Taj said he was excited to “recharge a team that just went through two years of pandemic”, adding that he wanted to “fuel their creativity again”.

They restructured teams to enable cross-functional collaboration, investing in the talent they already had internally. Equipping them with a better structure to support creative outputs, including appointing captains within the team’s marketing leaders.

The restructure has meant Spotify has become a “contributor and shaper of youth culture”. And the brand now rolls out nearly weekly initiatives across 10 key markets, solidifying them at the forefront of the marketplace.

4. Nestlé maximizes ROI by upskilling teams on AI platform

The new AI platform that ranks ads based on online platform suitability has become a basic standard for all Nestlé creative assets.

All 15,000 marketers have been trained to use this new platform (CreativeX), a significant upskilling feat designed to help them achieve their ambitions for online marketing, making up 70% of the brand’s media mix.

The Nestlé upskilling program helped marketers cut down wasted time when creating impactful ads. Speaking to The Drum, Aude Gandon, Nestlé’s Global Chief Marketing Officer, said:

“We needed to help marketers understand that there are new rules of creative engagement on different platforms. Nestlé’s marketing operation is highly complex, with thousands of marketers – and even more agency partners – spanning hundreds of countries. The shift and evolution of media at the same time as the complexity of Nestlé meant we needed a way to give guidance and a framework.”

But how can you upskill your teams?

How to upskill your enterprise teams

Aside from setting up an internal training program  (which is doable but also very time and resource-intensive), you can work with an enterprise training platform like ours.

We:

• Get to know your individual and team goals
• Create customized learning pathways 
• Get your teams engaged
• Measure learning impact

Your team needs the necessary digital skills to help drive your organization forward — here’s how to effectively enable digital transformation within an organization.