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“Intrepid’s learner-centric

approach to modern learning has transformed

our sales enablement

training at Microsoft.”

— Ludovic Fourrage, Head Virtual Learning, Microsoft

OVERVIEW

Microsoft wanted their global public sector sellers (non-profit and

government) to better engage with and connect to customers

while making the case for Microsoft products.

Intrepid Learning collaborated with Microsoft to design and

deliver an innovative corporate MOOC solution on the Intrepid

platform. “Leading the Way in Public Sector” debuted summer

2016 to their global public sector salesforce.

The program’s first run generated hundreds of actionable

customer plans for critical customers through peer-reviewed

final assignments, produced both high job readiness and

learner satisfaction ratings, and has revolutionized the public

sector sellers’ approach in alignment with Microsoft’s

overall business transformation.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Microsoft is gaining momentum with their recent significant

business transformation to becoming a “Cloud-First, Mobile-First”

software provider. This strategic shift has required their sales

organization to adapt to fundamental changes in “What They Sell,

How They Sell, and Who They Sell To.”

So it has been critical for the entire sales force to learn how

to quickly shift from selling primarily on-premise enterprise

software via multi-year enterprise agreements to buyers in IT

organizations, to instead selling cloud and devices solutions

through subscriptions to business decision maker (BDM) buyers.

CASE STUDY

Business Acumen + Soft Skills: How Microsoft Is Using Online Collaborative Learning for Public Sector Sellers

Business ChallengeSALES ENABLEMENT

IndustryTECHNOLOGY

DistributionGLOBAL

Learner LevelMID-CAREER

Learning Design ApproachCORPORATE MOOC

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PUBLIC SECTOR’S SPECIFIC CHALLENGES

Within the larger sales and marketing organization, Microsoft’s

3,000 global public sector sellers have additional challenges related

to their vertical. For instance, purchasing and decision-making is

approached differently by public sector buyers than for-profit clients,

involving different types of stakeholders and processes.

In addition to a shift in knowledge and approach, successfully selling

to the public sector in this new paradigm requires learning a great

deal of ‘soft skills’ such as empathetic listening, relationship building,

and other collaborative interpersonal skills traditionally viewed as

nearly impossible to effectively learn in an all-online environment.

LEARNING STRATEGY ON THE INTREPID PLATFORM

Microsoft built on the wildly successful approach of their previous

award-winning sales enablement MOOCs delivered on the Intrepid

platform. With the Intrepid Learning team and the London Business

School they created a customized program tailoring a MOOC

(Massive Open Online Course) model for the Microsoft’s public

sector sellers—the first time public sector sales training had been

done online at Microsoft. The team was particularly excited to “up

the ante” on the use of social and collaborative interaction features

to meet the soft skills learning goals.

Goals for “Leading the Way in Public Sector”

• Deliver world-class executive education knowledge of economics and finance essentials, as well as business-ready ‘soft skills’

• Tightly tie course curriculum and assignments to Microsoft’s overall business transformation

• Shift global salesforce field readiness from a consumption model to a demonstrated capability model

• Respect the learners’ time, intelligence, and desire for consumer-grade online experiences

• Offer learners a chance to learn from peers and connect emotionally with a global learning community

• Embed real on-the-job application during the learning experience, so sellers could not just take, but really learn from the training

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Each week’s content consisted of a multi-modal blended learning approach with:

• Video lectures

• Online discussion forums

• Case studies, selected specifically for their relevance

to Microsoft customers

• ‘Mission’ exercises: strategically-placed opportunities to

immediately apply key learning to their customer portfolio.

In order for participants to immediately apply key pieces they were

learning, the team introduced a structure with exercises (“Missions”)

sprinkled throughout, rather than just one formal assignment at the

end of each lesson. Each week had Objectives and Access Points,

so learners knew what they were working towards and how the

final assignment of the 6–week course was to create a full “value

proposition” account plan for a critical customer (i.e. a customer

the learner was actively engaging or pursuing). Thus, the real-world

application of the course included both weekly activities completed

with their broad portfolio of clients in mind, and a final assignment

focused on their most critical customer.

“[Our sales success] will be

thanks to the foundational

training I gained through this

program. The highest impact

is on positioning, the value

narrative, and the motivators

for potential members.”

— Learner

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MOTIVATING & ENGAGING

Video content was recorded onsite in the classrooms at London

Business School in order to connect the learners to the LBS

environment and professors. The homepage design features art

commissioned for London Business School, a striking visual design

which helped to brand the course. Imagery of the London skyline

can be found throughout the experience.

This cohesive course branding in conjunction with the efficacy of

the short-form content approach allows learners to access and

learn in-depth, complicated topics within the rhythm of their busy

workday—and convenient, easily-accessible, highly-relevant learning

is always motivating and engaging.

DYNAMIC & BI-DIRECTIONAL

Discussion forums allowed learners to engage with one another

and along the way explore topics at length with peers, professors,

and subject matter experts. Forums were curated by moderators

to highlight particularly relevant comments and surface common

threads and questions, and frequently also included a short

web-video response from a professor (shot on their laptop webcam

or phone) answering discussion forum questions or adding more

Microsoft context to a strategic concept.

“One of the most focused

trainings I have ever had. Very

valuable.” — Learner

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Program Overview:

• 6–week course

• Amalgam of topics: Macroeconomics Public Sector Finance, Stakeholder Management, Innovation, and the Value Proposition

• Delivered via corporate MOOC modality with content rolled out weekly

• Content included videos, discussions, reflections, and frequent assignments (“Missions”) for applied learning.

• Guiding questions each week directly contributed to final cumulative assignment

• Learners who pass the course achieve an Online Executive Education Certificate of Completion, which includes an open digital badge usable on their LinkedIn profile.

• Program design heavily leveraged Intrepid’s threaded discussions, shareable field reports, and peer review

Even though all of the videos had been pre-recorded, the team was

able to create a compelling and bi-directional online experience for

the learners leveraging not only the dynamism of the professors,

but the platform’s myriad built-in social and collaborative features.

The students participated in discussions on targeted weekly topics

as well as broader forums where they could ask questions of the

Professors and of Microsoft experts. Moderators participated in

discussion forums to guide and encourage participation, while

professors and internal subject matter experts at Microsoft joined

to ask and answer questions.

Learners went above and beyond in the discussions, even though

that was not where their grade was coming from – they did it

on their own time, for their own edification, and of their own

volition. These discussion sections allowed for true interpersonal

connections and engagement, which highlighted the value

learners placed on peer-to-peer sharing of strategy and the

continual refining of a customer approach.

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FLEXIBLE PACE FOR LEARNERS

Learners have maximum flexibility to absorb the content at their

own convenience and pace, while still benefitting from moving

through the course with a cohort of peers. The shared deadlines

at the end of each week keep individuals on pace with the overall

course, but also allow them to learn at their own convenience

throughout the week.

REAL-WORLD APPLICATION OF LEARNING

The course ensures practical absorption of abstract concepts. The

guided “Missions” or real-world exercises feature of the courses

encourage learners to take newly-learned skills, apply them

directly into the context of their actual job, and then upload a

“field report” which is shared via the platform with other learners.

This not only ensures business impact but also facilitates peer-

to-peer learning. For each course’s final assignment, sellers

apply their “Leading the Way in Public Sector” learnings and

demonstrate their new capabilities using their “critical” customer,

the most strategic of their portfolio.

In addition, thanks to Intrepid’s peer review feature, each learner is

required to review 5 other final assignments and offer feedback on

its efficacy according to criteria from the learning team, another

example of this program’s benefit of harnessing ‘the wisdom of

the crowds.’

“An amazing experience to

understand the market conditions,

what’s out there, the challenges

we face with customers.

Every time it’s forced me to

put everything I have learned and apply the

solution … It helped us a lot

to close our business very

quickly and [clients] feel that Microsoft is here

to solve a lot of problems they

are facing day in and day out.”

— Learner

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“Being able to show our

many internal stakeholders

the Intrepid platform was

pivotal in getting the initial green light, and then updating them

and getting feedback.

The visual nature and ease

of build made this process so

much easier and ‘real’ for our

stakeholders.”— Hilary Albert

Learning & Development Specialist, Microsoft

Administrative view

QUICK TIME TO LAUNCH

From film shoot to launch, building the course took less than

8 weeks, due in large part to the platform’s flexibility. The

team’s ability to “live build” the course as professors’ segments

were being filmed, meant easy rapidly iterating and approval

processes for things like course architecture and module

scaffolding, asset flow, “grouting” (asset descriptions and

“what is this and why do I need to know it” explanations), and

exercises. This allowed the team to not only meet the overall

business demand of rapid change, but get approval for and

tweak the design without burdensome rounds of feedback or

storyboarding—the course was fleshed out within the platform

itself and the experience the learners would get was therefore

easy to see.

206.518.9870 | info@intrepidlearning.com 8INTREPIDLEARNING.COM

RESULTS

The high expectations were matched by the first run of the public sector

program, with 74% of the 505 participants-to-date completing all the

required content and passing their final project to earn a certificate.

In addition, Microsoft’s public sector sales team measures all training

through course evaluations, during and after training. The criteria is rated,

and expressed in the net satisfaction (NSAT) and Readiness Impact Score

(RIS). 140/200 is considered to be a solid RIS. The RIS for this first run of

“Leading the Way in Public Sector” was 168/200, as was the NSAT, both

very robust for training at Microsoft (online or otherwise). These post-

survey results reflect the careful blend of an engaging online learning

experience via the Intrepid Learning platform and highly-relevant, tailored

content from London Business School.

In addition, learners were excited to exchange ideas with a globally-

dispersed, diverse cohort of sellers. The MOOC program has helped

Microsoft sales managers and salespeople build relationships across the

globe, from Britain to Oman to Bahrain to Mexico, sharing struggles and

insights with selling strategies in a manner not possible with their old

training models. This, in addition to the learner satisfaction and strategic

alignment of course takeaways like the customer plans with on-the-job

requirements and rubrics, has made Microsoft’s learning leadership very

happy with the results and enthusiastic about continuing this program.

“Intrepid’s learner-centric approach to modern learning has

transformed our sales enablement training at Microsoft.

“Leading the Way in Public Sector” has proven that online

learning is effective for not just imparting knowledge and

enabling collaboration, but nuanced interpersonal and “soft”

skills as well. The program has been delivered once already with

similar business impact to the amazing results we’ve seen from

our other corporate MOOCs on the Intrepid platform.”

— Ludovic Fourrage, Head, Virtual Learning, Microsoft:

Client Testimonial