Zutari is an infrastructure, engineering, and advisory practice with 31 offices across Africa and the Middle East. The firm provides comprehensive infrastructure solutions for water, transport, energy, resources, and built-environment resources.
Zutari was formerly known as Aurecon, part of Australian engineering consultancy Connell Wagner, but struck out on its own in 2020. This meant Zutari was “basically starting off as a new company” and would need a comprehensive training solution for its 2,000 technical staff members, explained Selvan Murugan, Digital Practice Leader.
“We needed to fill a gap in terms of rapidly scaling and training,” he said.
The Challenge
Zutari’s multiple offices meant that teams in different locations sought out their own training solutions. But those solutions weren’t often shared with other markets, said Samantha Duncan, Digital Collaboration Leader.
“Our markets were working in silos. It was an isolated solution,” Duncan explained.
“We were finding that teams were working in different ways… different workflows, different processes. And that was driving a lot of inefficiency,” Murugan added.
As Zutari staff began working with more advanced software packages, leadership saw a growing need for training that could keep up with the speed of software updates and technology advancements.
This need spurred the selection process for a cloud-based learning management system that could provide the relevant training content, connect Zutari’s 31 offices, and be rolled out efficiently across the organization.
The Solution
After thoroughly evaluating several learning management systems, Zutari selected Pinnacle Series from Eagle Point Software for its constantly evolving Autodesk, Bentley, and Microsoft training content and its ability to provide continuous learning to the entire organization regardless of an employee’s job role or discipline.
One pilot program later, and the Zutari staff knew they had found their solution.
“We were extremely blown away by the support from the team,” Murugan said. “There were quite a few criteria that we used to select the platform, and Pinnacle was ticking all of them. We were very impressed.”
He also noted the quality of Pinnacle Series’ learning content, and how it keeps pace with software releases and updates.
“If there’s an error in the training, that means 2,000 people will get something wrong. We are highly impressed with the quality of the training in Pinnacle.”
Pinnacle Series’ cloud-based browser platform also meant that employees could pursue training on their own time, no matter where they were working or the technology available.
“As long as they have the company login details, they can access the platform,” Duncan said. “It is also very cellphone user-friendly, so they can train wherever they are.”
Zutari began introducing Pinnacle Series to its teams in September 2021, selecting champions in each office to field employee questions and showcase how the system could help upskill their employees.
The leadership team decided not to assign any training to employees, instead trusting that they would seek out training and resources as needed. Duncan credits the on-demand, bite-sized nature of Pinnacle Series’ content as a major driver behind encouraging employees to take charge of their learning and development and foster a learning culture throughout the organization.
“Employees do not always have hours to spend on training,” Duncan said. “That was a very good selling point… it’s easy to go to Pinnacle, search for specific fields that you’re busy with, and do the training while you’re busy problem-solving.“
The Results
Following this employee-led training strategy has helped create cohesion across Zutari’s offices, and has encouraged a growing culture of proactive learning that puts the employee and their preferences first.
“Zutari is like any other organization, an organization with different generations who consume and train differently,” Murugan explained. “We don’t have to put as much effort into driving the platform’s usage because those numbers are naturally climbing.”
Since implementing Pinnacle Series, Zutari employees have completed more than 9,000 courses. The organization has also enjoyed increased efficiency in its upskilling efforts since it no longer has to rely on in-person or siloed training to keep employees updated on the latest software releases.
“Our efficiencies have definitely improved because we don’t have to send people away for training for a week… the turnaround time in learning new material has been shortened quite a bit,” Murugan said.
After one year of tracking the adoption of Pinnacle Series, Zutari pivoted to focusing on the return on investment the system has delivered.
“We were astonished to see that Pinnacle has paid for itself repeatedly,” Duncan said.
Zutari is now moving to make Pinnacle Series its go-to source for training for its entire organization, not just technical staff, and creating in-house content focusing on customer service and personnel training.
No matter what software and technology updates come their way, the Zutari team knows that they will find the resources they need to upskill and progress as an organization within Pinnacle Series.
“It’s the updates, the scalability for 2,000 people to access the platform with no issues,” Murugan said. “We know that nothing is fixed forever and that we need to update and stay on top of our game. Which is why we are drawn to Pinnacle and Eagle Point, because we think the same.”
