Quick facts about Bhagwan Marine: flexible learning platform

Challenge: Lack of flexible learning management

Bhagwan Marine is a leading marine solutions provider based in Australia. It has a highly diverse onshore and offshore workforce that can grow quickly based on its projects.

The company was looking for a flexible, Microsoft 365-friendly learning platform that could deliver standardized, engaging training to support compliance in a heavily regulated industry, and also meet future challenges associated with rapid growth.  

“As a business that is under rapid growth and change, we need systems that can meet the future of the company and its people. Zensai has the capacity and capability to meet all the current learning needs and future challenges of Bhagwan Marine.”

Peter Fox, Business Systems Trainer, Bhagwan Marine

Solution: Future-focused learning with Learn365

Bhagwan Marine’s diverse workforce includes office-based staff, maritime crew, crane operators, engineers, and more. While there are around 400 permanent employees, the workforce can rapidly double in size with temporary staff working on projects. Learning is essential to support compliance and operations.

Peter Fox, Business Systems Trainer, explains:

In Australia we’ve got federal, state and local laws as well as international maritime regulations to comply with. Providing training on areas such as Health & Safety and Quality is essential to meet compliance and deliver client projects.

The business was seeking a single, flexible learning platform that would tick the box for both current and future learning needs.

We need systems to support our rapid growth and future needs, but we’ve relied on solutions for onboarding and certification that aren’t quite fit for purpose.  We wanted a true learning platform to deliver training at a consistent standard that can be accessed by anyone at any time.

Peter Fox, Business Systems Trainer

Any solution had to be flexible and easy to use, accessible by anyone from anywhere and at any time. Therefore, integration with Micorosft 365 was also key.

Employees need to get up to speed very quickly. Many of our people work remotely and on different shifts. They’re even out on our boats. Zensai allows to them to access training whenever they are ready. Additionally, we’ve recently adopted Microsoft Dynamics HR. Because Learn365 sits inside SharePoint it marries up perfectly with the Microsoft stack.

Peter Fox, Business Systems Trainer

After identifying Learn365 from Zensai as the ideal solution for Bhagwan Marine and going through several rounds of beta testing, Zensai launched to the entire company in April 2024.

Results: Flexible learning delivered through Microsoft 365

Currently, employees are accessing Learn365 through SharePoint, although access through Microsoft Teams and mobile devices is on the roadmap.  While it’s still early days, Peter Fox describes initial engagement as “highly positive” and is excited by the new learning capabilities Zensai brings to Bhagwan Marine.

This is the first time the company has had a true, purpose driven LMS. At last, we can push training to personnel at all levels and locations of the business at a consistent standard that can be accessed by anyone at any time.

Peter Fox, Business Systems Trainer

Learning now happens anywhere, both onshore and offshore. Additionally, Zensai also puts learning back in the hands of learners who can access courses at times convenient to them. Peter Fox explains:

We have connectivity on all our vessels. One new starter needed to do some training and was able to complete it in the middle of the ocean! If you have a quiet moment on a boat you can catch up in your compliance training. They’ve got that window of opportunity to do that.

Zensai’s seamless integration with Microsoft 365 is important, placing learning directly into the flow of work, but also making the site easier to set up and manage.

Learners can access through SharePoint, Teams or mobile. There’s no glitching and it’s easy to set up. It integrates with HR Dynamics. You can build an extra SharePoint page off it. The fact that Zensai’s so easy is a big draw card.

The ability to leverage Microsoft Entra ID groups has also been key. Peter Fox comments:

We have training packages that are confidential to a specific role, for example for senior managers. We can now lock down a course to a specific Entra ID group.

The platform’s ease of use is now lowering barriers to adoption and course completion.

Zensai is universal. It’s standardized. Everybody knows how it works. Everybody knows what it looks like. And it’s so easy to use. People can just go straight into their own training page and see if they have some training to complete.

Peter Fox, Business Systems Trainer

Another advantage of Zensai is that it will empower the team to craft learning experiences that are unique to Bhagwan Marine’s needs. And, Peter Fox also appreciates Zensai’s reporting capabilities.

Now we have our own learning platform we’ll be moving content away from a third-party to in-house. We’ve got full control over the branding and the content so it’s fully bespoke for our needs. Previously courses have been slightly generic and sometimes outdated but now we can refresh our training on a regular basis and push out any critical updates. Additionally, reporting on training completions is critical, especially on compliance areas such as maritime security. The reporting in Zensai more than meets the needs of the business.

With the platform only recently launched, the team are busy adding more courses to Zensai on a wide variety of topics.

We’re training people on how to use our recently launched Microsoft Dynamics HR system. We’re also rolling out a corporate compliance package to everybody in the business as well as more targeted compliance learning for our blue-collar workers. Employees can also access some of the third-party courses that come with Zensai on areas such as cyber-awareness and how to use different Microsoft tools. The more we empower our people, the better off we are.

Peter Fox, Business Systems Trainer

There are also plans to migrate inductions from another system into Zensai, as well as move the certifications that employees need to carry out their role. The team have calculated that this will mean Bhagwan Marine will even save on licensing costs.

Future: Maximizing the full potential of Learn365

As well as adding new courses and migrating areas such as onboarding, there are future plans to empower local learning admins by adding classroom-based training to the course catalog. Peter Fox comments:

Going forward we plan to start doing instructor-led training through Zensai. People in the regional centers will be able to take on those administrative roles. Zensai can easily accommodate whatever we need to do.

Beyond this, the team is excited to explore the full potential of additional Zensai features and capabilities.

Having Zensai empowers us to start looking at many different processes. How do we track the development of people? How do we control certification? How do we deal with local or state-level training and compliance? We’ve now got the capabilities to do so many things. I’m already getting lots of questions about whether Zensai has the capacity to do this or that. We have a very strong appetite to maximize the full usage out of the system.

Ultimately, the team feels that whatever they need it to do, and however much Bhagwan Marine grows in the future, Zensai will be able to meet their needs. Peter Fox adds:

We have literally picked the best LMS for this business because it has so much scope for development and growth. You don’t need to worry about the company growing tenfold and getting to a point where you need to find a bigger solution. Zensai is completely scalable to our needs and can support our growth.

About Bhagwan Marine

Bhagwan Marine is a leading marine solutions provider operating across a number of industry sectors including oil & gas, civil construction, and defense. Headquartered in Perth, the company has operations across Australia. The workforce of both permanent employees and contractors means it experiences periods of rapid growth.