The International Chamber of Commerce created an ecommerce-powered LMS for B2B and B2C audiences

The ICC Academy is a ground-breaking e-learning platform by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). They offer online certifications and professional development services to meet the educational needs of banks, corporates and other organizations at the forefront of international trade. Their vision is to be an indispensable partner for learning solutions known for setting business competency standards and best practices that enable global growth, and their mission is to be the premier learning academy committed to capacity building that empowers business to work for everyone, everywhere, every day.

The Challenge

Given the multiple needs of the business, the ICCA faced several challenges when it came to finding a new LMS:

• The platform needed to be flexible and customizable in the back end to accommodate different revenue streams (B2B and B2C Clients, user-friendly ecommerce, manual operations)
• The platform would need to allow the administration of different audiences and hierarchies for different users and products in the back end, minimizing manual procedures and enhancing automatic processes for registration, enrolment and records management
• The platform needed to be flexible enough to accommodate structural changes due to new partnerships
• Freedom to innovate products, and to collaborate with third-party technology services without impacting the budget and with an optimal ROI for every development

The Solution

Thanks to Totara, ICCA managed to solve the challenges resulting from different internal and external factors (business development, change of business model, widening of revenue stream types, user feedback, partners’ needs and requests).

Being open source made a big difference. For the first time, it was possible to design and shape the platform according to the business needs rather than the other way round, which normally means sacrificing functionalities or adapting the offer.

In terms of innovation, ICCA was able to work on a number of developments and improvements which were the result of a year-long collaboration process with Kineo. This was achieved using ad-hoc plugins, developments and customizations built by Kineo, which modified the existing frameworks to allow for flexible designs.

At the same time, customized scripts allowed ICCA to accommodate both technical developments (for example, offering online proctored services and streamlining the booking process via a dedicated plugin, allowing users to directly purchase an extension to their enrolments, assigning final certificates for programs and other developments) and administration needs by automating onboarding processes and modifying and making good use of existing structures, such as the program feature.

The innovation process, completed in October 2020, was conducted successfully, allowing the business to respond to the market’s needs.

The Results

• New ecommerce catalog integrated with Totara Lear
• SSO between platforms (Magento and Totara)
• New structures applied to programs, allowing clients to pursue a complete certification pathway
• Ad-hoc course selection structures created, allowing users to purchase and select only relevant sections of a program
• Internal processes improved, allowing the IT team to reduce onboarding times and response times
• Customized scripts allowing different users to see different records
• Improved UX

“With Totara we are able for the first time to move on from static off-the-shelf solutions. ICC Academy can now leave behind the old concept of product, and start creating experiences instead.”