Three Global Consulting and Systems Integrators (GCSIs) provide a variety of innovation, technology and business analysis and assessment services around the world in Asia, Europe, North America and South America. Combined, these companies employ about 1 million people.

A GCSI with offices in India needed new employees who were recruited fresh out of college to be able to deploy their IT and business consulting projects. They also needed their employees to become technical level 1 resources on IBM software and hardware products. As it happened, Global Knowledge Asia-Pacific (APAC) found that IBM product onboarding was a market need and successfully identified two more global consulting firms challenged with onboarding new hires on IBM products. All three international companies had offices in India.

All three companies perform diagnostic and troubleshooting work to match customers' needs with existing IBM products. They may create or design customized information systems to merge with new or existing hardware, software and other infrastructure.

The GCSIs wanted employees to receive training on IBM server administration and software programming in order to carry out day-to-day activities at their respective client sites. All professional development until that point had been provided by freelancers who would teach theory-related courses. Without gaining hands-on experience, the new hires could not meet GCSIs' standards.

The GCSIs wanted a training partner who could provide practical, real-world knowledge on IBM servers and software. They also wanted a training provider who offered custom-designed curriculum to improve program effectiveness. As IBM System Integrators (SIs), GCSIs are also expected to have onboarding programs to increase knowledge and certification rates.

Global Knowledge APAC put together a new employee training program, as well as certification preparation workshops for the GCSIs. Over the course of three months, from January to March 2015, Global Knowledge expert instructors trained approximately 200 students from all three GCSI firms on IBM products that included IBM mainframe, Power i, Power AIX, SPSS and security.

The training sessions were delivered to GCSIs' employees on-site in the cities of Kolkata, Chennai, Coimbatore and Hyderabad in India. The sessions were held at the different GCSI companies in different locations. Certification preparation support was delivered as part of the workshops, and certification exams were provided as part of the training solution.

There were different workshops/certification prep solutions for each GCSI.

• GCSI Firm 1: 86 students took IBM mainframe courses, 50 students took Power i courses
• GCSI Firm 2: 12 students took AIX, SPSS and security course
• GCSI Firm 3: 18 - 30 students took Power AIX courses

Global Knowledge offered a Cisco WebEx session, delivering classes remotely in order to cater to different time zones. This cost-effective solution met the needs of a varied group of professionals working on the same projects while operating in different time zones. An instructor was available on-site in classrooms and IBM remote labs.

The GCSIs required a certain number of employees to be certified post training, so instructors delivered a separate certification preparation session.

Training is still underway for some employees. With certification-specific training resources and post-class support, GCSIs' employees are achieving key performance indicators (KPIs) both in certifications and performance enablement.

The GCSIs were able to deploy new hires faster to improve their time to market. Training also resulted in better relationships with business partners and clients by reducing the time to develop quality, well-prepared employees. Results from some of the post-assessment sessions showed that new recruits have advanced from new hires to technical level 1 employees with the required skills to deploy client solutions.