Doubling AMD’s Training Engagement and Cutting Costs with NetExam LMS+

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How AMD doubled participation and saved 40 admin days per year with NetExam LMS+

The Challenge

After AMD acquired Xilinx in 2022, it wanted to build a new customer portal that offered extensive product and systems training to authorized training partners worldwide.

The solution it was seeking needed to support on-demand e-learning with smart e-commerce capabilities for promoting and selling the training materials.

The tool would be used by the sales team in the field, so it needed to be user-friendly and visually appealing. The company also needed to consolidate all of its training materials under the AMD brand, which was going to be a huge task.

About AMD

AMD is a multinational corporation that drives innovation in high-performance and adaptive computing, AI, graphics, and visualization technologies for business and consumer markets. Its technologies advance the future of the data center, embedded, gaming, and PC markets.

Visit AMD website.

The Solution

AMD’s extended enterprise training is a customized blended program. It includes on-demand e-learning, Instructor-Led Training (ILT), and Virtual ILT. These sessions are delivered by Authorized Training Partners (ATPs) worldwide. The program is supported by the NetExam Learning Management System (LMS). A coaching service will be added in late 2024.

AMD ILT and Virtual ILT training calendar with filters for courses, venues, and countries

Training Purchases Made Easy

AMD uses credits and vouchers to enable customers to purchase training via the NetExam ecommerce functionality. While many organizations want each learner to purchase training with their credit card, AMD customers find it more convenient to submit a purchase order to buy vouchers for training credits.

AMD has offered bundles of training, which are considerably less expensive than buying courses and content individually, offering cost savings of up to 65%.

– Kimberly Powell, AMD

In the last two years, AMD has offered bundles of training, which are considerably less expensive. These were created based on customer demand, as customers wanted a convenient, cost-effective way to purchase training. These bundles are tiered, offering the best possible value for money for AMD training customers.

On-demand course available to purchase via credit card, vouchers, or credits.

Content for Every Customer Need

There are currently 44 e-learning courses available, which are updated twice a year to reflect changes and new launches in the AMD product line. This helps customers rest assured that they are always taking training based on the most up-to-date, relevant information, which maximizes the impact of every training purchase.

A “course” in the AMD training platform is a certification with around 20 topic clusters, which translates to around 40-50 hours of training per course. Within these courses, learners will find self-service e-learning, and the course is integrated with CloudShare, enabling them to participate in virtual labs. In these labs, learners can explore and train in a virtual environment.

Virtual labs available with on-demand courses

These courses are available in two formats: instructor-led or on-demand e-learning. Each course is first developed as interactive e-learning with visuals, voiceovers, animations, and clickable hotspots allowing customers to further explore a specific topic. The interactive labs also allow e-learning to take place either in a cloud-based virtual lab or on the customer’s computer. Assessments take place at the end of each course to test the customer’s understanding.

Customized Training Mixes Modalities

Instructor-led courses are derived from the e-learning content to better facilitate in-person instruction, with a simple “next” button for the ATP to move to the next animation or topic. ATPs create their own ILT and VILT sessions based on the e-learning content, with each ATP specializing in its own delivery style, meaning every customer can find an ATP that suits its preferences.

There is a blend of modalities in each training course, including demos, labs, videos, PDFs, tests, and more. Each content cluster contains a variety of these formats, alongside the comprehensive e-learning, accommodating the learning preferences of each customer and allowing learners to constantly reinforce their knowledge via a range of formats.

New and popular courses, making it easy for customers to explore the latest, most relevant training content.

The Results

Since launching the extended enterprise training platform, AMD has put in countless special features and customizations to cut down on admin time by replacing manual processes with automated ones.

Prior to 2016, course participation remained relatively flat, averaging 40,000 Trained Student Days (TSD) a year. Following the launch of the NetExam Customer Training Center, AMD saw course participation jump 33% in just two years, from 36,000 TSD in 2019 to 48,000 TSD in 2021.

Since launching the training platform, the results speak volumes: the more students trained, happier learners, and significant efficiency gains, all while navigating budget constraints.

Recognizing the advantage of NetExam in extending the program’s reach, AMD introduced a number of free VILT events in 2022 and 2023 that have driven a further increase up to 68,000 TSD in 2023 – almost doubling the number of Trained Student Days from 2019.

Additionally, since deploying the customer learning portal with NetExam, AMD has seen its yearly trained student count climb from 16,000 in 2018 to 31,000 in 2023, almost doubling in just five years, owing to the ease of use of the NetExam solution and a larger learner population.

Business Impact

Beyond the learning impact, this solution has had a powerful effect on the wider AMD business results. The customizations arising from its close partnership with NetExam has resulted in 20 hours saved for learning admins every week, or 40 days a year.

AMD was able to achieve a 70% increase in TSD over the last 10 years, despite the fact the training budget has been significantly reduced in this time. This is a testament to the cost-effectiveness of its NetExam solution, alongside the efficiencies realized thanks to the platform customizations.

Following the shift to on-demand training in 2020, necessitated by global lockdowns, AMD has seen a 20-percentage point increase in aggregate training experience NPS from 2020 to 2024. It was relatively easy for AMD to make the switch from primarily live training to on-demand, virtual training thanks to the groundwork laid by the initial customer portal deployment.

About NetExam LMS+

Not just a one-size-fits-all LMS; NetExam LMS+ is a powerful suite of tools that leverage cutting-edge AI and exceptional support to streamline customer and channel partner education programs for large extended enterprises.

NetExam LMS+ has been perfected over years of delivering successful training solutions to best-in-class extended enterprises like Oracle, Dell, Johnson & Johnson, AT&T, Honeywell, AMD, McAfee, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Royal Canin, Sabre, Stanley, Aetna, and Bobcat.

View other NetExam LMS+ Case Studies

About the Author

Gordon Johnson brings over thirty years of experience in the customer training industry, having worked with various high-tech companies, training firms, and learning technology providers like NetExam.