New WalkMe offering embeds training directly into apps

WalkMe, the digital adoption platform (DAP) vendor that SAP bought last year for $1.5 billion in cash, on Tuesday launched what it described as a “new digital learning solution”, an AI-based offering it says embeds training directly into the software tools employees use daily.

Most enterprise training, the company said, “still happens too early, too far removed from both where work happens and the moment of need. This approach clashes with a fundamental reality of human memory: cognitive science shows up to 90% of information is forgotten within a week.”

The result, WalkMe stated in a blog, is that when employees cannot recall their training, “they are forced to search for answers …  This new offering reinforces key skills by embedding training directly into the applications employees use every day, even when workflows extend across multiple applications.”

The new solution is now in beta, with general availability (GA) scheduled for December, according to Hila Sigal, senior vice president of product marketing at WalkMe. Pricing will be announced at GA. The product can “deliver content on any application, whether it’s SAP or non-SAP applications,” she said. “You are not limited, and you can bring in that learning to wherever it needs to be.”

She added, “we have the guidance product [WalkMe DAP], and now we are introducing the learning product, and both of these together help people navigate technology and change in general.”

Scott Bickley, an advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group, described the offering as one that “essentially seeks to tackle two primary use cases: new employee onboarding and training, and customer guidance on public-facing websites. This works via workflow step-by-step training, pop-ups, tool tips, and real-time prompts. “

Traditional training can be error-laden

There are, he said, “few events in a professional employee’s life that are more daunting than learning how to perform one’s job on an SAP ERP system. It can be excruciatingly painful, complex, and overwhelming in terms of sheer scale. Now, take an employee from a legacy SAP ECC system and ask them to re-learn their job under a completely new UX.”

Under these circumstances, he said, “[it is] not uncommon for employee morale to tank, process efficiencies to stall out, and overall enterprise throughput to take a step back … until the workforce can master the new solution capabilities, workflows, and ways of doing their job to eventually surpass the previous status quo.”

Traditional training “is comprised of copious and unwieldy documentation sets, incomplete documentation, laborious training sessions, and constant system issues in the event of a system launch or even routine bug fixes,” he said. “This process is time-consuming, error-laden, and the information can be out of date as soon as it is internalized.”

Now, said Bickley, “imagine today’s alternative: a system that sees you perform a task correctly the first time, learns from it, and memorializes those sequenced steps, mouse clicks, and keystrokes, such that when the employee gets stuck, the system can pull them through to task completion. With many end users accessing dozens or hundreds of system transactions as part of their job, this functionality is invaluable — a real efficiency driver, and also a means to reduce risk via the built-in guardrails and guidance ensuring accurate data is entered into the system.”

He said, “WalkMe tracks users’ usage of their systems — where they stop, what they do, and where they run into problems. This existing baseline of ‘user context’ is a natural jumping-off point for an AI-assisted evolution of the product. The Visual No Code Editor is where the employee guidance flows are built, and the no-code, visual point and click nature of this tool enables business teams to build the training tools and not be dependent on developers.”

‘I see this as much more than Clippy for SAP’

“[The ability] to build highly granular workflows that can discern across user group segments (for example, role, device type, geography, behavior), coupled with already existing automation for things like auto-completion of form fields as an example, provides a meaningful nudge when an employee gets stuck on a process step,” said Bickley.

“Considering that WalkMe can also avail itself of non-SAP data sources, it is likely that complex, multi-app business workflows can be extended to this solution as well. I see this as much more than Clippy for SAP,” he added. “The ability to have tailored, contextual, and personalized guidance through systems of record, in real time, is compelling.”

However, Bickley noted that it is not clear why SAP has created two SKUs for the product: the WalkMe Digital Adoption for “doing” the work, and WalkMe digital learning for “learning” and training the system. “The inherent purpose of one necessitates the other, so this may rightfully be viewed by many as a money grab on the part of SAP,” he pointed out. “I would have preferred to see this new functionality incorporated into the existing product, perhaps with functionality tiers and associated pricing.”

He said, “as the backdrop for WalkMe pricing is historically opaque, with no public pricelist available and pricing dependent on a multitude of factors such as company size, internal/external use or both, number of users, and deployment type, this seems like a lost opportunity for SAP to simplify this part of the [learning and development] track to create a more universal appeal for this add-on capability.”

“With SAP attracting many net new S/4 HANA customers in the SMB space, simplifying the commercial structure could go a long way towards driving mass adoption of this critical tool,” he said.New WalkMe offering embeds training directly into apps – ComputerworldRead More