Our Partnership with The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Why did you choose Percipio and Learning People over other platforms?

TE: We went through a full procurement exercise between July and September. Following the council's procurement policy, we identified three different platforms, including Percipio, and did a structured comparison. We got it down to a final two, of which Percipio was one. We then had interviews where we explored the options in more depth.

The Evaluation Panel

We looked at the quality of the offerings and at the different learning modes that were involved in each platform. We involved senior managers, two members of the IT leadership team, and also two of our more technical colleagues—one a software developer and the other a data scientist. We really put the platforms through their paces.

We looked in detail at the different learning offers that were available in those particular domains and carried out a comparison. It was close, but ultimately it was very clear and unanimous from the panel of the four of us that Percipio was the strongest of the platforms.

Why Percipio Was the Preferred Platform

The reason why Percipio was our preferred platform was the quality of the curation and the quality of the learning offer. While there was a more limited number of courses, we felt confident in the quality of all of them.

Probably the biggest winning factor was the learner experience. With Percipio, there was a whole range of different learning options, from videos to books to courses. The interactive features were key—things like the tests where one could check one's level and see where one's weaknesses and strengths were, and then have learning focused on that.

For our technical colleagues, the "clincher" was the ability to try out new technology skills in a safe learning lab environment. They felt that was a clear winner; I remember one of them saying, "I wish that this had been the platform that we'd had for a long time now."

Relationship Management and Cost

Percipio was also the clear winner on quality regarding the relationship management support. We had been a customer of Percipio and another learning platform for some time, but the quality of the relationship management here was higher. We felt very confident inviting Ryan to talk to managers and to the wider organization. There has been a real sense of continuity and a feeling that Ryan and Percipio understand our requirements as an organization and are able to help us get the most out of the platform.

The final reason was cost. As well as winning on quality and relationship management, Percipio was actually less expensive than the other learning portals.

How has Percipio met your learning and development needs, and would you recommend it to others?

TE: I think I've covered a lot of how it meets our needs. We’re very happy that we’ve made that choice. It is still early days, but we’ve started to work with our managers to introduce them to the functionality that allows them to assign learning and development to their members of staff. We will continue to raise awareness of it and promote it. I would most definitely recommend Percipio and the learning platform to others.