How upGrad Helps Smart Companies Build A Soft-Skilled Workforce
One in four workplaces in India lack a formal skilling strategy, and most skilling practices today are out of sync with learner needs, says research from upGrad. But at the same time, industries across the country are coming to acknowledge the need for skilling and are willing to invest in its infrastructure.
In an interview with BrandSutra, Shirin Rai Gupta, Director of Marketing at upGrad Enterprise, tells us how they play a role in helping companies create and fix their upskilling structures.
She also generously shares invaluable insights into B2B marketing, which she believes “doesn’t have to mean boring to boring”, proving that the culture at upGrad is to never gatekeep knowledge.
Edited excerpts…
What caused upGrad's renewed focus on upskilling in B2B spaces?
Skilling and learning are no longer just individual imperatives. We've done a bunch of research and have realised that people whose organisations invest back in them are more likely to stay loyal to their company.
Besides that, every time the landscape changes, organisations aren’t going to run around and rehire. They’re going to look at the people that they’ve already invested in and focus on them. And that ends up being good for the business as well.
While the B2B angle has always been part of what upGrad does, we're now doing it in a much more organised fashion. We brought together legacy brands within the corporate learning space, and created ‘upGrad Enterprise’ to help organisations scale, skill and shape their talent.
By scale, we mean hiring and finding the right talent to join your company. Skilling is to finetune specific skills or add new ones, and then shape how leadership can actually evolve through different programs.
How are programs created and deployed?
Thriversity, our online learning platform, has a vast library of on-demand content which caters to everything from technical training to soft skills. It’s a cool platform for people who want to learn at their own pace.
But, on the other hand, the master classes and immersive workshops are exclusively for our clients. While we have a playbook of what works, we also have an in-house solutioning team which directly works with each client to see what fits.
We also have a network of several hundred trainers across the globe actually, and we tap into them based on each customer's requirement.
But what's most interesting about B2B spaces, is how hybrid it is. When upGrad first started, it was primarily an online interface. Now with both B2C and B2B, we've got a strong offline presence. We've got our learning centers and counselling spaces. We also do a lot of in-person interactions with our clients, immersive workshops and retreats for B2B.
Are there specific industries that are heavily investing in education? What are some trends in terms of courses in demand?
In the last two years, we've seen immense interest from IT and GCCs. Companies whose business model is that of a GCC are incredibly interested in making sure that their workforce is ready for the future and know what's going on right now.
Each industry is looking for something different for its people. But in the last couple of months, the interest that we've seen in Gen AI training has been remarkable.
We're also seeing a lot of queries on the leadership side of things. Companies are not just looking for talent that is either technically sound or good at managing people. People who have both the skill sets are much more likely to be promoted, and that's what organisations are looking to cultivate.
What have been the most effective ways to market to and convert potential clients?
With B2B marketing, we prioritise two parts of the experience—awareness and engagement.
A study by LinkedIn and Bain & Co., revealed that people are 80% more likely to choose a vendor or partner that they’re already aware of. And that awareness must span the entire decision-making funnel, reaching multiple stakeholders.
One of the ways that we do it is with our quarterly reports. We find these reports helpful because, one, they give clients a reason to believe and, two, they get covered strongly in the news.
Unlike B2C marketing, where you need to speak to millions of people, in B2B, it's okay if you speak to just 100, but they have to be the right 100. And that's what we're trying to do with our podcast, GenAIrous Commentary.
We also partner with a number of industry events. So, of course, you could do a keynote, which is great. But then we also do little engagements in the speaker lounge, closed door roundtables, leadership lunches etc.
Because industry events are like a mela and people get exhausted, we try to create an oasis in the middle of madness. So we’ll invite about 30 people to have lunch with us, and there is no agenda.
Industry movements can be very scripted and we want to go completely off script. But the attendees also know that they can talk to us about our work. And we've actually seen these engagements convert to business.
Someone I worked with once put it very nicely: ‘B2B doesn’t have to mean boring to boring’. And I take that to heart.
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