Wingspan, a digital learning platform, was developed by the technology giant Infosys to prepare its employees for change. Infosys chairman and co-founder, Nandan Nilekani, wanted a learning ecosystem that would support an enterprise-wide digital and talent transformation, and equip Infosys employees for the future of work.
Noting the rapid pace at which technology was evolving, Nilekani felt it was imperative that employees’ skills and knowledge be kept up to date or they would quickly become obsolete. It did not help that in an industry where disruption had become the norm, much of what they were taught at universities had already become outdated. Furthermore, Infosys’s employees were young and purpose-driven, so it was important to keep them engaged. Hence, it became critical for the company to have an in-house talent management strategy that ensured employees were provided with a best-in-class learning environment.
Srikantan Moorthy, Executive Vice President, Head of US Operations, and Global Head of Education, Training and Assessment at Infosys, commented, “Moving away from the culture of leaders of just ‘sending’ people to get trained, organisations must foster an environment of continuous learning, inspiring employees to self-initiate their own learning paths to stay professionally relevant through lifelong learning.”
Wingspan, developed in 2018, was a first-of-its-kind digital learning environment with internally developed content and content from Infosys’s external alliance partners. Originally tightly integrated with other Infosys systems, it subsequently became a full-fledged product for Infosys’s corporate clients too.
The COVID-19 pandemic that erupted in early 2020 significantly accelerated its acceptance and adoption. With the closure of Infosys’s physical corporate university at Mysuru (Mysore) in the Indian state of Karnataka, Infosys staff migrated their learning completely online to Lex (Wingspan’s internal name) en masse. By the end of 2020, Wingspan had served more than 220,000 Infosys learners and chalked up over three million hours of learning time. Additionally, 34 organisations spanning different industry verticals had introduced Wingspan into their internal training and talent development systems, which played a critical role in accelerating their individual talent transformation journeys.
What was next for Wingspan? Was it going to be a matter of adding more learning modules? Find out how it was enhanced to serve Infosys staff and their clients better.
Written by Adam Tatarynowicz, Associate Professor of Strategic Management at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business, Wee Kiat Lim, Associate Director at the Centre for Management Practice (CMP) and Mahima Rao-Kachroo, Case Writer CMP, from Singapore Management University, this case discusses the significance of knowledge management in organisations as well as the key factors behind the successful large-scale implementation of a digital platform.
To read it in full, please visit the CMP website by clicking here.