Quick facts about Marabu: 

  • Industry: Chemicals
  • HQ: Tamm, Germany
  • Established: 1859
  • Web: www.marabu.de/

Challenge 

Marabu manufactures inks for screen, digital and pad printing, as well as liquid coatings for industrial and graphical applications. Headquartered in Germany, the company needs to support learning for a diverse and mainly frontline workforce of 550 people employed across 18 different countries.

When Marabu introduced Microsoft 365, the company required an easy-to-manage learning platform to help train employees about the new digital workplace. The solution also needed to offer future possibilities to access a wider range of courses to drive self-learning, enable innovation and provide a strong employee experience.

“Our LMS has changed the way we learn at Marabu. It’s so easy to use and manage. It’s supported us through our digital transformation and all the way through the pandemic. Now Go1 content is increasing the learning opportunities for all our employees. Learn365 has made a real difference.”

Solution 

When Marabu decided to switch to Microsoft 365, the company’s busy IT team needed a way to train employees across multiple global locations.

Stefan Würtemberger, Executive Vice President, Information Technology explains,

“We had to train employees on how to use Microsoft 365. Instead of travelling to our locations around the world, we wanted a learning platform that allowed people to learn flexibly at a time that was right for them.”

Any solution had to integrate with Microsoft 365, but also be intuitive to support a frontline workforce, 80% of whom work in laboratories or production plants.

“Learn365 is very easy to use and is fully integrated with SharePoint Online. That strong integration was one of the key factors in choosing Learn365.”

Stefan Würtemberger, Executive Vice President, Information Technology

Learn365’s launch in March 2020 to support IT learning proved to be good timing. Stefan Würtemberger comments,

“One week later we were all in lockdown from the pandemic! We were happy to have launched Learn365 to use for training our people remotely.”  

The pandemic also meant that Marabu’s HR team needed to pivot away from on-premises training. Here Learn365’s integration with content from Go1, the world largest marketplace for training, was attractive.

“Our HR colleagues needed a solution to deliver remote training on a wide range of business topics. After exploring the possibilities, the HR team opted to integrate Go1 into Learn365, launching in early 2022.”

Results 

  • 1800 courses based on content from Go1
  • Fully automated onboarding process
  • Learning and knowledge are now much more digital

Today, 500 employees are using Learn365, which they access through Marabu’s intranet.

“Learn365 has seamless integration with our SharePoint intranet and has our branding. Employees don’t even know they are accessing a separate application.”

Stefan Würtemberger, Executive Vice President, Information Technology

Learn365 has successfully delivered the opportunity for remote, self-learning, something that has proved far more efficient than purely classroom-based training. Stefan Würtemberger shares,

“We have transformed learning. You no longer have to go to a training facility outside Marabu. With online training you can learn when you want and in half the time.” 

Currently a wide variety of different course content is available on the platform. Stefan Würtemberger explains,

“We have four different academies. Our IT training has around 200 courses, and we’ve also integrated our cybersecurity awareness training. We have product management courses. We also have deployed 1800 business and personal development courses based on content from Go1, with as many as possible in the native language of each country.”

Meanwhile courses on product management are produced in-house.

“We have a catalog for operational training from our facilities and production sites. The production management team makes their own SCORM courses that are unique to Marabu.”

To date, the adoption of Learn365 has been impressive, including among frontline staff. All staff that have access to Learn365 have completed mandatory training, and nearly 80% of frontline staff in Germany have completed other courses voluntarily. Here, a policy which sets times when frontline staff can access Learn365 using terminals within the premises, has helped support learning.

Learn365 also enables employee onboarding. Stefan Würtemberger remarks,

“Learn365 is one of our most important onboarding tools. We have a new onboarding process that’s fully automated. New joiners can see all the relevant training they need to take as well as the courses completed. Learn365 is also fully integrated with our HR software. We no longer have to manage onboarding using spreadsheets!”

Learn365 is also supporting Marabu’s commitment to innovation and digitalization, helping the company maintain a competitive edge.  

“To be strong in digitalization people need to have the right competencies, so having a strong training platform is really important for us. We’re already using Learn365 to train employees on using the HoloLons, a virtual reality tool from Microsoft that we use with customers and internally when we are producing a new color or service. We are also committed to being a leader in the industrial Metaverse. Learn365 is already an important enabler of that business model inside Marabu.”

Stefan Würtemberger, Executive Vice President, Information Technology

The new platform is also helping to attract new talent to Marabu by enabling a better employee experience.  Stefan Würtemberger comments,

“For HR, Learn365 is a recruitment tool. They can tell candidates that we have a learning platform with at least 1,000 courses for every kind of training that they want to have, which they can just use when they want. This is helping us attract talent.”

Stefan Würtemberger attributes part of the success of Learn365 to its ease of use.

“From a user perspective, Learn365 is very straightforward to use. It’s also easy for administrators. The HR team and other colleagues only needed two sessions to learn how to manage Learn365, and the IT team haven’t had to provide any ongoing support.”

The stability of the platform has also played a part.

“It’s been a very easy partnership with Learn365! In the past three years I’ve only had one ticket. Everything is working fine.”

Future  

Marabu continues to refine its learning to support its global onboarding program as well as rolling out Go1 courses across locations around the world. Stefan Würtemberger explains,

“We’re extending our business and personal development learning with Go1 content to teams around the world, launching to another region every couple of months. We’ve just launched in Scandinavia.”

Learn365 will be extended to the small section of employees who don’t yet have access. It will also continue to support the learning required for the development of new products and services, particularly as the use of mixed reality and the Metaverse continues to grow.

The flexibility of Learn365 also allows the platform to reflect future changes to the way employees want to access training. Stefan Würtemberger comments,

“At some stage we may roll out the smartphone or the Microsoft Teams app to extend the options of where people can choose to learn.”

Learn365 still has many features that are yet to be explored and opportunities to extend access in different ways. Stefan Würtemberger is excited about the potential for the future.

“We can do a lot of fancy stuff with LMS3565. We can optimize it, we can integrate it in Microsoft Teams, we can integrate it into an onboarding platform. We can even use it with customers. There are so many possibilities, and we have a lot of ideas. We’re excited about how we may use it in the future.”

About 

Marabu manufactures inks for screen, digital and pad printing, as well as liquid coatings for industrial and graphical applications. Headquartered in Germany, the company employs 550 employees across 18 countries, including five production plants and several laboratories. Marabu’s heritage stretches back to 1859 and is still a family-owned business.