What is an extended enterprise?
Does your organisation have partners, resellers, contractors or even customers who need educating about your business or products? If so, it's likely you're running an extended enterprise. An extended enterprise model can help to support all those people that are associated with your organisation or corporation but who are not employed directly by you. To get the most from this model, you’ll need to provide these stakeholders with a talent experience such as providing them with a space that can be used to communicate widely, have skills development training and hold performance management conversations. Having one centralised space for your extended enterprise to come together will ensure all your stakeholders understand and uphold the values of your brand.
The benefits of implementing an extended enterprise model include improved profitability, efficiency, quality assurance and customer advocacy. But to achieve these gains, you need a wider network with the appropriate skills and knowledge.
The Totara Talent Experience Platform allows you to create a collaborative learning and performance support solution that makes it easy for individuals to complete training on topics such as common standards of service provision, production and delivery. It can also help to keep your stakeholders aligned and up to date with new developments in work practices as well as products and services offered.
In this course you’ll look at:
Examples of how organisations are currently managing their extended enterprise solutions with Totara
Totara features you could use when setting up your own extended enterprise solution
At the end of this course you’ll be asked to put what you’ve learnt into practice by taking a short quiz. Once you’ve passed the quiz you’ll earn your course badge.
Join the conversation
Did you know that we have a dedicated workspace on Extended Enterprise, where you can share experiences and ask questions of the Totara team or other Community users? We encourage you to join this workspace as part of completing this course so that you can share best practice ideas and ask questions.
What is extended enterprise training?
In this video, here from industry expert John Leh as he explains, in a nutshell, what we mean when we talk about an extended enterprise solution.
- This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
To complete the course and achieve your course badge, you’ll need to log in, or create a Community account.
Supporting your extended enterprise solution with Totara
Aperçu des sections
- Généralités
Généralités
- Experience extended enterprise solutions
Every organisation is different. Deciding how you best support your extended enterprise solution will take some reflection on your part.
To help you think through what the solution could look like for your teams take a closer look at how other organisations are currently building out an extended enterprise.
Note* The videos in this section are longer than our usual Academy videos. As a result there are time stamps under each video to let you know what's included and you can decide on what will be most useful to you and your organisation.
Extended enterprise with Shimano
- Duration: 20 mins
- 0:00 Introduction
- 0:47 Why do you offer customer learning?
- 2:56 How do the external users find the platform and get onto the platform?
- 4:06 What do users see when they log into the platform?
- 6:14 Do different groups of users see different things when they log into the platform?
- 6:53 What is the learning experience like for the group of users?
- 9:53 Do you have any social learning elements switched on for your different groups of users?
- 11:49 How is the platform managed for different groups of users?
- 13:36 How do you encourage your users to learn?
- 15:44 Do you report on what your learners are achieving?
- 17:18 Do you have any advice for people?
Extended enterprise with Watts Water
Join, Rebecca Braunert-Plunkett, eLearning Program Manager at Watts Water to take closer look at the Watts Water platform.
- Duration: 10 mins
- 0:00 Introduction
- 0:55 Outside of your organisation who are you educating using Totara?
- 1:18 Why is it that you’re educating this group of people?
- 1:40 How do the external users find the platform and get onto the platform?
- 2:33 What does the first interaction with the system look like to the user?
- 3:18 Do different groups of users see different things when they log into the platform?
- 4:01 How do you make the experience personal to each set of users?
- 5:54 What is the learning experience like for the group of users? Do they take courses / Programs or any assessments?
- 6:36 Do you do any reporting on what your groups of learners are achieving?
- 7:09 How is this helping your organisation?
- 8:16 Do you have any advice for people wanting to set up their platform to create an extended enterprise model?
You can read more about the Watts Water platform here.
Extended enterprise with The Builders Merchants Federation
- Join, Kerry Wilson, Learning and Development Manager at The Builders Merchants Federation (BMF) and Jonathan Griffiths from Cortexa to take a behind the scenes look at The BMF's extended enterprise solution.
- Duration: 15 mins
- 0:00 Introduction
- 1:30 Who are you educating using Totara?
- 1:57 Why is it that you’re educating this group of people?
- 2:23 How do you employees find and then get onto the platform?
- 4:18 What does the first interaction with the system look like to the user?
- 4:58 Do different groups of users see different things when they log into the platform?
- 7:43 What is the learning experience like for the group of users?
- 9:54 How is Totara helping The Builders Merchants Federation?
- 11:20 Do you have any final advice?
You can read more about The Builders Merchants Federation (BMF) extended enterprise solution here.
Extended enterprise with the Totara Community
Join Rachel Griffith-boyes and Matt Linaker from Totara Learning as they discuss how the Totara Community works as an extended enterprise solution.
- Duration: 25 mins
- 0:00 Introduction
- 0:21 Who is the Community for?
- 1:00 How does the Community support an extended enterprise model?
- 1:40 What does the first interaction with the system look like to the user?
- 9:41 Do different groups of users see different things when they log into the platform?
- 14:47 Are there any other features that could be helpful to an extended enterprise solution?
- 20:58 Do you have any advice for people wanting to set up their platform to create an extended enterprise model?
- Skill up
Now that you've had a chance to see some customers who use Totara to support their extended enterprise solution, we'll take a closer look at the main features they are using on their platforms. In this section we'll take a high-level look at some of the main features you could use when setting up your own extended enterprise solution.
Are you ready to take your extended enterprise solution to the next level? In this tutorial, we'll dive into the features that will help you bring your vision to life. Let's get started!
Setting up an extended enterprise model with Totara
- This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Using audiences to provide a multitenancy experience
If you want to provide your users with a multitenancy experience, but you’re happy to have centralised user management, you may not need to enable Totara’s multitenancy features. Instead, you could use audiences to replicate a tenanted experience. Take a look at this video to see how that could be achieved.
- This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
- If you'd like to learn more about the ins and outs of multitenancy take a look at this dedicated academy course.
Creating different stakeholder experiences
- This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
Building out a communication strategy
An extended enterprise is one where suppliers, partners, and customers are considered as part of the larger entity. To achieve this, effective communication and a strong sense of community is crucial. Utilising Totara can aid in this process by providing a centralised and engaging platform for communication and development. The platform's features such as notifications, personalisation, and automation can save time and increase engagement. Communication is key to the success of the platform.
When thinking through all the different methods of communication, consider using notifications as part of your strategy. A notification can be sent as an email, push notifications linked to the Totara mobile app, notifications in Microsoft Teams or appear within the Alerts or Tasks block on your users’ dashboard.
Notifications can be personalised too, using placeholders to add the right information for each user – such as their name, the course they have been enrolled in, or the user who has requested their feedback.
Take a look at the short animation below to learn more about notifications and then consider taking this dedicated course on notifications to learn even more.
Remember, that communicating about your platform will have a huge impact on whether or not your space will be a success.
Notifications in Totara
- This video is best viewed in full screen Duration: 5 mins
- This video is taken from the notifications course.
Now that you've acquired knowledge about various features that can be used to construct your platform, it's time to put it into practice. This activity presents an opportunity for you to design and develop an extended enterprise solution that caters to the specific needs of your organisation. As the decision maker, you'll have the authority to create a solution that is tailored to your organisation's requirements. Let's begin!
- Summary
Extended enterprise – winning through collaborative advantage
This guide will explore the ways your organisation can think beyond its traditional boundaries. You are no longer one entity, but an extended enterprise. Download the PDF to help you reflect on the topic.
- Prove it
Test me*
- Complete this 10-question quiz to prove your knowledge of extended enterprise. You’ve got three attempts and you’ll need a score of 90% to pass. Good luck!Duration: 10 mins
- Tell us what you think
Please spend a minute providing your feedback on this course.
- Resources
Case studies:
Use case courses:
Feature focused courses:
Webinars:
Further reading: