Hungarian telecoms company UPC switch from closed to open source LMS

UPC is Hungary’s leading digital cable television, voice telephony, broadband internet and data provider. The company services homes, businesses and wholesale partners across the country and employees around 3,000 staff.

Challenge

UPC places a strong emphasis on providing high-quality services and training their staff well to be able to achieve these standards. To support education, the company had already tried several different learning management systems (LMS), none of which met expectations.

In 2014, UPC went out to market to find the perfect LMS to meet their needs of:

• supporting the training of their staff and sub-contractors
• creating learning plans based on role and/or departments
• integrating learning with performance management
• managing face-to-face training
• notifying/reminding learners about their training and important actions/dates
• supporting migration of existing courses and development of new learning materials
• meeting the organisation’s rigorous security standards
• integrating the LMS with other internal systems.

The Solution

UPC considered a number of well-known LMS systems, including open source options. They chose Totara Learn due to its breadth of functionality and suitability for the corporate environment, as well as the friendly price. Most of UPC’s needs were met by standard Totara Learn functionality, with only minimal customisation required.

Results

• Over 3000 employees have successfully completed training on the new LMS, with positive feedback.
• In the first year after implementation almost 200 training courses made available to learners.
• Significant savings in travel-related training costs.
• Improved flexibility has provided the ability to both create customised in-house learning materials and integrate standard “off-the-shelf” learning materials purchased externally.
• Improved efficiencies in managing face-to-face training also.

Totara Learn supported the training of UPC staff and sub-contractors by effectively managing both online and face-to-face classroom learning, and personalising learner development plans based on role and department. This also enabled learners to be enrolled to complete specific courses prior to their start date. Learners receive automated notifications about their training, and learning plans and progress are visible by both the learner and their managers.

Prior to implementing Totara Learn, UPC had an Oracle eLearning system in place. Their existing training materials from this system were successfully migrated into Totara Learn with little or no re-work. UPC has also been impressed with the ease they have experienced in creating new materials within Totara.

Totara Learn has integrated well with other systems the organisation utilises and performed to very acceptable standards during UPC’s rigorous security testing.