SAP Chief Learning Officer Max Wessel and SAP Chief Partner Officer Karl Fahrbach discuss the newly announced partner edition of SAP Learning Hub, designed specifically to support partners from the SAP PartnerEdge program.
Q: Can you tell us what is new about SAP Learning Hub, partner edition?
Max Wessel: SAP Learning Hub, partner edition, is our all-new, one-stop-shop for SAP PartnerEdge program partners to develop, cultivate, and validate their SAP skills. This is the first time we’ve created an environment exclusively for partners that houses all SAP product learning content, training systems, certification opportunities, and partner-specific enablement content in an affordable, single-priced package.
Could you expand on what this means for partners?
Karl Fahrbach: The new edition is built based on partner feedback and a key initiative within our Next-Generation Partnering efforts. We are launching this as part of SAP’s ongoing commitment to investing in and equipping partners with the relevant tools they need to drive customer success. Enabling partners with the right skills — along with providing the opportunity to validate their skills in the marketplace via our certifications — enhances our partners’ ability to deliver value to customers and to market their expertise accordingly. Furthermore, we generate trust in our ecosystem among our customers.
By enhancing the learning and certification journey for our partners and by increasing the opportunity to access these resources, partners are better positioned than ever before to leverage the market opportunity available to them.
How is this new offering designed to meet the needs of today’s partners in SAP PartnerEdge?
MW: We designed this offering by listening to our partners and our customers. We heard that partners wanted a streamlined way to both train their people and help spur innovation for their customers. With one flat per-learner price, we have lowered the barriers to access, making the partner edition of SAP Learning Hub available for all SAP PartnerEdge members, regardless of size. Now, their subject matter experts can obtain and maintain the skills that their business requires across SAP solution areas.
SAP Learning Hub, partner edition, combines expert-led and peer-to peer learning, hands-on practice with the latest SAP software releases and innovation, and opportunities to obtain SAP Global Certification. The content is tailored for partners’ specific goals, and where they and their customers are in their digital transformation journeys. The opportunities for certification are especially critical, as a recent IDC study found that organizations are better positioned to accomplish business objectives, achieve shorter deployment times, and face fewer critical issues when the professionals doing the deployment are certified.
The current global pandemic is accelerating an already growing trend of digital transformation, as McKinsey found in a recent survey, so there is an even greater need for partners to continuously update their relevant skills. As many partners in SAP PartnerEdge continue to work remotely, we have built this offering so that users can access all learning content and features wherever and whenever they learn best.
Altogether, this solution meets the enablement and performance needs of partners and will continue to evolve as new SAP products, solutions, and innovations are released. With certifications in SAP’s latest technological advances via this exclusive edition of SAP Learning Hub, partners can stand out from the crowd as the preferred choice for customers.
Why is it essential to have partner-specific and continuous learning content for SAP partners?
KF: Today, it is critical to keep up with the rapid pace at which innovations and new solutions regularly emerge. To remain relevant and effective, partners must keep the skills of their workforce—and recognized certifications for those skills—current. According to the World Economic Forum, technology is expected to transform upwards of 1 billion jobs throughout the next decade. It is clear that having and maintaining up-to-date skills is a necessity for partners’ tool kits — not simply a nice-to-have.
Enabling partners with proficiency in the most up-to-date skills and certifications that align with their specific industry and business needs also helps to further differentiate them in the marketplace and outperform the competition. As Deloitte’s recent report on the top workforce trends driving organizations in 2021 explains, “empowering workers with agency” creates more value. When enterprises shift to a greater focus on their workforce’s learning, their teams are more equipped to “drive growth and navigate uncertainty” moving forward.
By providing tailored, continuous learning opportunities through SAP Learning Hub, partner edition, our aim is to build on the existing partner engagement framework and maintain the best in class partner ecosystem that continually empowers successful customer outcomes.
We’re looking forward to providing this resource to help drive success for partners and customers alike in the year ahead.
Sabine Benz is vice president and head of Outbound Go-to-Market for SAP Knowledge and Education.