valantic Academy: Training offers for employees

Our platform as a common knowledge base, networking space, and future skills training

Heike Springmann provides insights into the rapidly expanding valantic Academy, its structure, what trainings it offers, and why its user and requirements-oriented approach is essential.

Hello, Heike, please tell us a bit about yourself!

Well, of course. About three years ago I joined valantic in Sales, and I have been managing the valantic Academy since November 2019. Now the question is, of course, how did I get to the Academy or, better still, into the training sector?

Since the start of my career, the topic of knowledge transfer has followed me across a wide variety of jobs, and I am still very interested in it. That’s why I’m so pleased that I can continue to engage with this topic in my current role. 😊

That sounds interesting, but can you give us a detailed picture of the valantic Academy?

On the Academy team, our goal is to provide all employees with access to the training and learning content that they need so they can apply it in their daily work.

It is important to us that we take all types of learning into account with our offerings. After all, each person learns in their own way: Some people do better with visual content, others through reading or listening. Our training courses are designed as blended learning. With a mix of group training and self-learning phases, we ensure a sustainable transfer of knowledge.

The learning units are divided into well-portioned sequences. This means that the training courses can be integrated well and flexibly into our colleagues’ demanding daily work.

What was the idea behind the valantic Academy?

When we look at today’s world of work, we realize that our business moves faster, and our projects are more complex than ever before. Whereas a pure ERP or CRM system was implemented in the past, our customers’ processes are now increasingly intertwined. This means that we too have to think end-to-end, act, and constantly look beyond the ends of our noses. Only this way can we create real added value for our customers. When working on a project, our colleagues should always ask themselves the question: What effects do my actions have on the overall system, i.e. also on other project participants’ subsequent tasks?

We quickly realized that if we want to interlock the knowledge of the various valantic disciplines, we need to create a common knowledge base and an active network for it. At the same time, we see great demand for future skills such as collaboration and agility in our digital world.

That’s where the idea for the valantic Academy came from. Through structured, professional training and personal development, we want to help all colleagues learn new, relevant skills.

What would you say is special about the Academy?

From the beginning, our goal was that our training courses should be user- and requirements-oriented. After completing a training session, every participant should be able to say, “that was really worthwhile!”

In order to ensure that this is the case, we are generally very open to feedback. Since our training courses run over a longer period of time, we obtain participants’ opinions at the start in order to make adjustments wherever necessary. We critically examine whether our existing and future learning formats fulfill our colleagues’ needs and desires. For example, if we look at current requirements, I can say that there is a strong tendency toward individual coaching formats.

As you can see, our Academy is a “living” format that we want to optimize continuously.

What can you look forward to at the Academy?

For our SAP starters, we have a 10-week introductory course in the SAP S/4HANA environment. The focus is on building up end-to-end process knowledge. Our consultants teach the technical training courses. This gives everyone real insight into valanticworld and our daily work from the very beginning. Questions such as “what are you doing on the project and what is your role?” are not uncommon. 😊 And of course, our new employees make valuable contacts early on.

We supplement the theoretical SAP process training with people skills training, and attention is paid to practical skills as well. That’s why all participants work on the system from the start and hone their skills on our demo system – that’s a lot of fun for everyone!

That sounds great! Are there also non-SAP offerings?

Of course! We are currently developing a training course about quality assurance in development. Furthermore, we have also recently offered English and German language training. And our offerings keep expanding! 😊

What do the offerings for experienced colleagues look like?

Our offerings for experienced colleagues are also expanding on a weekly basis. We currently offer a total of 9 people skills training courses for all employees. In addition, there are 15 e-learning modules and nearly 100 learning nuggets that we offer via the learning platform.

We will expand our current offerings with special e-learning modules for our sales and CRM areas. Here too, there are always new requirements that our employees encounter – whether in lead management or CRM reporting.

And these are just a few topics and examples from the current range of courses. It makes me totally happy to see the Academy growing like this and to be able to offer our colleagues custom-tailored topics and formats.

Thank you for the interview, Heike!