Building a new cloud delivery model with cutting-edge tech: A smooth SaaS evolution starts with investing in talent

In fact, that’s how the company started more than 50 years ago, with technology developed and spun out of Cambridge University. Today, they help leading firms worldwide manage complex engineering assets.

And when the company made the strategic decision to transform its offerings from a traditional on-premise software solution to a cloud-based, SaaS delivery model, AVEVA’s leaders knew exactly how to make the transition work:

• Invest in their workforce –which has grown recently to more than 1,700 employees
• Provide innovative training at scale
• Leave traditional classroom learning behind

The ecosystem change was significant for the company, and employees needed to adopt new frameworks and technologies quickly. With traditional classroom training, it would be tough to prepare for a transformation of this magnitude.

Closing key skill gaps meant AVEVA developers needed to know how to program for the cloud. And all employees needed to be consistently learning to stay ahead of market and technology disruption.

Access to thousands of courses led by Pluralsight’s expert technologists and learning tools like skill assessments and paths made it easy–and cost effective.

“Value with Pluralsight reaches across the board for us. On one project alone, we saved over 20,000£ over more traditional training courses,” says Graham Dalton, VP of Product Development. “Even more importantly than the cost savings is our ability to scale it across the business.”

With Pluralsight, it’s easy to provide all employees–across management, technical and supporting roles–access to a learning platform that’s tailored to their career paths and aligned to the company’s strategic initiatives.

AVEVA also understands that the accelerated pace of business today means technologies can quickly become outdated.

“We're transitioning to new technologies very quickly, so it's critical for our teams to get training right when we need it to push the technology forward,” says Graham.

Access to a platform that includes guided learning, a community of experts and mentors, and a vast library of technical answers is more important than ever to help employees keep pace and for AVEVA to ship products faster.

“It's crucial for global organizations to consider an online facility like Pluralsight for their training needs,” says Stefan Haller, Head of SaaS Transformation. “You’ll never meet 100% of your needs with an instructor-led course regime.”

That’s because traditional classroom training is one-size-fits-all and expensive, making it so that many businesses can typically only offer instruction to a few employees a year.

“We’ve saved massively on training. It would simply be impossible to send all of our employees to an equivalent classroom-based course to learn these bleeding-edge technologies,” says Chris Richards, Principal Software Engineer. “Without Pluralsight, there's no way we could have expanded as quickly as we did.”

Technologists at AVEVA like how Pluralsight makes it convenient for them to increase knowledge at their own speed.

“Wherever people feel like picking up to train they can…on the tram, at home or even at the office,” says Graham.

“Pluralsight gives us the opportunity to remain innovative in our learning style, so people can learn anytime, anyplace, anywhere and always the latest technologies,” says Paula Graham, Group Learning Development Manager. 

Navigating the shift to the new ecosystem was business critical for AVEVA. Keeping employees satisfied is also a top priority.

“Training is at the forefront of our agenda,” says Stefan. “It's vital for employees to feel they can expand their horizons here rather than feeling like they need to change jobs to grow.”

“It’s particularly useful for the young talent that is joining us,” says Paula. “It gives them that first opportunity to start self learning, develop their programming skills, and build their confidence.”

It’s an opportunity so strong that The National Apprenticeship Service recognized AVEVA for its new employee apprenticeship program.

And now that the company moved away from classroom training, they’re not looking back.

Start to align learning to achieve – and exceed – business goals. Talk to us about starting a pilot.

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