Not just good – a Meisterpiece: How Jägermeister combines LMS and Blended Learning

Established as a vinegar factory and wine trader in the Lower Saxony town of Wolfenbüttel in 1878, the company launched its first herb liqueur under the name of Jägermeister in 1935. The secret recipe comprising 56 herbs remains unchanged from those early days.
Mast-Jägermeister SE grew from a small family business to an international organisation, and is now in the fifth generation of family ownership. In 2020, the company recorded global sales of 89.6 million 0.7 litre bottles, now selling the main product Jägermeister in more than 150 countries.
Jägermeister has around 1000 direct employees. Resellers and external distribution partners around the world add to the large number of people requiring training.
Top-quality training in line with the brand
Before corona, Jägermeister took a rather traditional approach to learning and knowledge-sharing. In most cases, new employees, distribution partners and resellers were invited directly to the headquarters in Wolfenbüttel to help them learn about the brand and understand it better. There, they would receive all the necessary training on the products and get a feel for the brand.
Yet, even before the pandemic, it was clear that this system needed to be optimised, and Jägermeister started to look into procuring a learning management system (LMS). Professional training courses in e-learning format were also on the wish list back then.
The range of training to be covered by the LMS, individual learning nuggets and web-based training (WBT) went beyond the offering for external distribution and trading partners. For instance, different target groups from apprentices and trainees to the CEO needed to gain an in-depth understanding of e-commerce.
At the same time, a coherent and strong brand image that all employees identify with is a top priority for Jägermeister. Therefore, the learner experience was considered crucial.

A blended learning journey masterpiece
Jägermeister decided to use the imc Learning Suite as its learning platform. The well thought out extended enterprise scenario in combination with the clear module structure was a major deciding factor in favour of imc. The Learning Suite also scored with its customisable configurability and great system reliability.
Simply sharing knowledge is not enough – it also has to be packaged right to reach all target groups and meet their needs. To this end, imc created a sophisticated blended learning scenario for Jägermeister.
Kathrin Heidler, Instructional Designer at imc, analyses the collaboration with Jägermeister: “What set the project apart is how complex it was. A blended learning journey embedded in classroom training, web-based training, performance cards and our BizQuiz is far from routine – even for us!
We were really able to go all out with this project. It was great fun helping to design such a complex project using a large variety of techniques.”








Learning that doesn’t feel like learning
The feedback for the initial platform tests was all positive. Users were especially taken with how the e-learning content triggered an emotional response. The consensus among the employees: Once you log in to MeisterAcademy, the training courses don’t feel like learning. The direct integration of LinkedIn learning courses was also received very favourably, as it gives employees an even greater choice of courses.
Philipp Terstesse, Manager Global Trade Marketing at Jägermeister, summarises: “Our goal was to create a learning experience that takes a new approach and motivates learners. The learner and employee experience were extremely important to us.
We firmly believe that our digital ambitions go a long way towards shaping the future of our brand. We are thrilled to have a strong partner in imc who will stay by our side as we embark on this journey into the future together.”

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Ensuring high quality across global operations

The Hansgrohe Group is a major player in the bathrooms, kitchens, and wellness industries, generating €1.4 billion in sales annually. The company lives and breathes premium quality and design. It needed a best-in-breed learning platform to ensure the highest quality delivery across all its global operations with over 5,400 employees in 34 companies and 20 sales offices.
How to achieve a consistent delivery worldwide
The Hansgrohe Group is committed to top quality. Delivering on this commitment entails communicating the quality message to all employees at multiple locations around the globe. To that end, the company needed to guarantee the same high level of expertise in all its divisions, whether in the USA, Europe, or China.
Face-to-face professional development was another challenge: shift workers in production had few options for attending courses held at remote locations during their normal working hours.

A top-tier distributed learning system
In 2006, Dynamic Media GmbH (later merged with imc) developed an LMS for Hansgrohe. Since that time, all employees have been able to learn independently, free of time constraints. They have access to industrial safety courses, fleet training programmes, and diverse learning offerings for topics in IT security, quality management, and staff development. More recently, the company introduced its employee app, giving its production workers easy access to the learning platform and relevant training content.
But that’s not all. In 2021, Hansgrohe adopted the imc LMS. This opened up a whole new category of learning to its installers, resellers, designers, and others. These users can now access a wealth of e-learning content and information on the company’s entire hansgrohe range and its AXOR luxury range.
Each division of the Hansgrohe Group is able to design its own training content. The company uses imc’s content authoring tools – Content Studio and imc Express – to create engaging e-learning content. Hansgrohe chose Content Studio because of its impressive user-friendliness and wide range of options for interactions. Thanks to imc Express, the company can now automatically translate user-generated content and integrate it directly into the LMS. This is possible because imc Express is browser-based. The system also includes approval workflows to ensure that only approved high-quality content gets shown to learners.

Flexible corporate training a big hit with employees
During the pandemic, Hansgrohe hit on the smart idea of using their imc LMS as a vaccination booking tool. The platform gave employees and their families an easy and convenient way of booking appointments, enabling them to take advantage of the company’s in-house vaccination offer.
The project manager in charge, Jasmin Gargano, is pleased with how the system worked. “Our main criterion was to give our employees a fast, bureaucracy-free booking system so they could protect themselves and their families. And the imc Learning Suite seemed the perfect choice for the necessary central administration capability. Our employees were already familiar with the system, so they found the booking process very easy. The resulting personal data was deleted from the system afterwards. Needless to say, the offering was very well received by our workforce.”
At Hansgrohe, learning ties in with the company’s core value of mutual appreciation and respect. A key tenet of the corporate culture is for all employees to be empowered to learn independently. Thanks to the adoption of the imc Learning Suite and imc authoring tools, this is now a reality at all the corporate locations.
The company also continually expands its learning paths and optimises internal processes with regard to skill and competency level. Hansgrohe plans to focus ever more closely on the needs of its employees to provide them with even better training.

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A slightly different kind of
compliance training

Audi is one of Germany's leading premium car manufacturers. Based in Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm, Germany, the company has been producing high-quality vehicles since 1909 and is now part of the Volkswagen Group.
Motivation for an unloved topic
When employees learn that they have to attend compliance training, their enthusiasm is often limited. The trainees are usually hostile to the training even before it begins.
Audi therefore wanted to train employees with an unusual compliance training course in such a way that the necessary knowledge is clearly conveyed to them and, ideally, they also have fun during the training.

Web-based training of a different kind
“Welcome to Fraud City. The city “eats” its residents – skin, hair and all. We hope you’re up to it. Enter at your own risk.” This intro sounds ever so slightly different to the traditional “Click here to start your training”.
The entire web-based training course with motion design adopts the style of “Sin City”, and takes the brave participant to a corrupt city full of dangers and suspect colleagues – accompanied by Detective Fraudless who is always on the brink of solving yet another crime and starts off by explaining the rules.
As the employee navigates through the training course, the criteria for identifying cases of fraud are revealed, as are the behavioural patterns that call for special attention.

Positive feedback on the intranet

Audi demonstrated great courage with this unconventional concept – and reaped the rewards: The elaborate and polarising concept leaves a lasting impression, creating a buzz among almost all employees. Similarly, the intranet feedback was predominantly positive, and many employees praised the web-based training, as Laura Schumacher from the Audi compliance department confirms.
- “Great job! This makes ‘learning’ fun!”
- “Very pleasant WBT, executed superbly. That’s what I’d call modern. Let’s have more of this.”
- “I thought the presentation of the WBT as a homage to Sin City with L.A. Noire elements was extremely original. A great example for knowledge transfer in an entertaining package. Keep it up!!!”
- “We need a lot more web-based training in this style. It gets the message across in an entertaining and easy-to-understand manner, well narrated with cool stories!”

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A holistic learning management experience for Australia’s national rugby league
Reinvigorating the learning centre of Australia’s second largest professional sporting association

The National Rugby League (NRL) is the world’s premier rugby league competition run by the Australian Rugby League Commission. It is the second biggest professional sporting association in Australia and is the dominant sport in the states of New South Wales and Queensland.
With sixteen teams in Australia and New Zealand, the NRL is synonymous with Australia’s sports culture and is the best-attended rugby league in the world. It was founded in 1998 as a merger of two competing leagues, but its roots reach right back to 1908.

THE BACKGROUND
A learning management solution with limited functionality
The NRL needed to reinvigorate its NRL Learning Centre, which provided training for coaches, referees, trainers and volunteers.
The Learning Centre also offered accreditation programmes for aspiring NRL referees, and
LeagueSafe: an online safety awareness course for parents and volunteers at children’s games, which was designed to help create a healthy and safe rugby league environment for young players.
At the heart of the LMS was an outdated Content Management System (CMS) which at the back end did not give users much autonomy over their content or integrate effectively with the league’s membership database.
Modernising the Learning Centre System
There were several challenges for the NRL with their current suite of technology, and they were using multiple systems for differing purposes, many of which were not performing well.
The LMS included a coach reaccreditation programme which was poorly organised and did not effectively address many different skill levels. It also included a referee training programme that had a high dropout rate, which indicated a poor user experience.
In addition to the LMS they were using for the NRL Learning Centre, the league also needed to use a third party system to manage all of their certifications, and it was proving very difficult to track and report on these internally.

A fully-integrated NRL Learning Centre portal
Our solution was the implementation of a new LMS to combine the functions of the two previous systems it was using. The new system enables users by giving them greater control over content, certification management, and syncing with the membership database
The system consists of an interactive e-learning programme using imc’s Chatbot framework, with options for all experience levels. The programme contains scenario-based learning modules that account for different personality types and the challenges they present at games.
The Coach Reaccreditation and Referee Training programmes are now also using imc technology to provide an entertaining and informative journey to users. The new system provides students with the opportunity to learn through a variety of real-world scenarios that best fit their interests (for example, age-appropriate training for children or teenagers). Each learner has access to video examples of real-life, correct and incorrect performances.
As part of the redevelopment, we reinvigorated the referee-accreditation programme with real game footage and used an authoritative subject matter expert (SME), Kasey Badger, to attract referees from all walks of life.
A rejuvenated approach
This project successfully helped to rejuvenate the learning approach for our client, and the LMS solution was delivered both on time and within budget.
Not only did NRL meet its original objectives, but post-implementation, there was an uplift of the participation rates for online learning and positive feedback from users of the upgraded NRL LeagueSafe courses.


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Culture Change Through E-Learning on the Factory Floor

The RONAL GROUP is a leading manufacturer in the international market for light alloy wheels and has about 7,000 employees worldwide.
Founded in 1969, the Swiss-headquartered company has 13 production locations on three continents and is an OEM for all the world’s leading manufacturers of cars.
RONAL produces some 18 million wheels annually, and generated sales of EUR 1 billion in 2021.
Cross-departmental training for all workers, from white to blue-collar
“We make the best wheels in the world.” The RONAL GROUP’s vision statement is an uncompromising commitment to top quality. To live up to this claim, all the company’s employees need to be committed to quality and work to defined standards.
This applies to all employees, wherever they are based, whether in Switzerland, Taiwan, Mexico or elsewhere, and whatever their role, whether office or factory worker. Everyone throughout the RONAL GROUP needs to live and breathe quality so that the company can live up to its quality promise and meet the demanding standards of the automotive industry.
That was one part of the challenge. At the same time, the company wanted to digitalise its systems for documenting training completion. It wanted to do away with the labour-intensive, manual processes of keeping lists and gathering, signing and scanning paper certificates. Going digital would not only give the company a clearer overview of its training landscape, it would also reduce the error rate inherent in manual processing.

An enterprise-wide blended learning strategy
In order the better to administer, sustain and document its training courses, the RONAL GROUP decided to digitalise all learning-related processes using a learning management system (LMS). First and foremost, the managers in charge of the project at RONAL were looking for an LMS that could be integrated into the company's existing system landscape and that was easy and intuitive to use.
As well as the LMS itself, they were looking for a provider who could develop tailored training courses and enable the company to create its own learning content.
imc Learning Suite, the LMS provided by imc Learning, met all of these requirements and has now been implemented at the RONAL GROUP as an employee development centre (EDC). The EDC is now used to administer all the company’s online training courses, as well as analogue courses.
Where once the various steps involved – everything from participant invitations by email to course completion to certification and verification – could only be accomplished by switching between media, they are now all digitalised and can be coordinated via a single system.
HR managers with the relevant access privileges can now log in to get an overview of which training courses have been started or completed, and by whom. And employees can use their personal log-in credentials to check their learning progress. As well as this, all employees can independently search for and request courses from within the platform.

The beginnings of a culture shift through targeted anytime, anywhere training
Philipp Leupoldt from Group Learning & Development at the RONAL GROUP provides support for the learning platform and also had a hand in the development of the first digital training courses. He has noticed that carefully targeting the training to key groups of employees encourages new ways of thinking that lead gradually to a culture shift throughout the company.
This is clear from two e-learning programmes in particular.
One is a training course on quality awareness which, in terms of methodology and didactic approach, is specially designed for blue-collar workers and can be undertaken either using tablets while on the shop floor or using PC workstations located nearby.

The other programme is a training course for all RONAL GROUP employees designed to raise awareness of social engineering – the risk of being manipulated into disclosing sensitive information, such as passwords. The online content is supported by a poster campaign that specifically targets blue-collar workers.
The posters, which are displayed in staff cafeterias, production halls, common rooms, and staff facilities, summarize the learning content in the form of a comic strip. They also feature a QR code that employees can scan to receive further information on an internal page.
Leupoldt is pleased with the outcome. “We can see that the various measures and digital training courses are slowly giving rise to a genuine shift in culture,” he says. “Many of our blue-collar workers have demonstrated a matter-of-fact and pragmatic attitude to digital learning. The feedback from many other of our employees has been positive as well. Interest in work-related content is increasing, and the innovative methods are fostering independent learning.”

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Upscaling an organisation’s LMS in the time of crisis

The Department of Health plays a critical role in the health system of the state of Victoria in Australia and is responsible for meeting the health needs of Victorian locals.

THE BACKGROUND
Capability-building a new response unit in record time
With the rise of the coronavirus pandemic in Australia in March 2020, the Department had a sudden, urgent need to upscale their learning management system (LMS) to accelerate the transfer of knowledge to a COVID-19 task force.
The speedy nature of the national emergency created many major challenges, which included recruiting new staff, implementing various new systems, the rapid development of new learning content, training an influx of newly recruited staff members, and the ongoing challenge of developing processes for combatting an unknown and quickly evolving virus that was threatening the health of Victoria.
Dealing with many unknowns
The major challenge facing the implementation of new training content was the scale of which COVID-19 was evolving throughout Victoria in 2020. This then lead to the up-scaling of the Department’s COVID-19 response group, who also had to pivot away from face-to-face training to consuming their mandatory compliance training and other important information via a largely online environment.

Building the COVID19LMS in several days
The Department’s solution was to work with their existing LMS vendor imc to develop an additional system (referred to as the “COVID19LMS.”)
The LMS was set up and ready to use in several days to assist with the rapid response to COVID-19. It was set up to accommodate a rapidly expanding workforce who were in need of individualised training through a role-based learning pathway.
A successful system that is still in use today
The successful delivery of COVID19LMS enabled the Department staff to access and complete their compliance training, in rapid response to the unfolding pandemic.
After onboarding the initial COVID-19 response team onto the system in March 2020, the Department has continued using the LMS for compliance training and it continues to provide a critical service for the Department to this very day!
imc and the Department of Health Victoria were recognised as Gold winners in the 2021 LearnX awards, in the category Best pandemic response: Compliance Training. The international award program honours innovative and creative projects in the fields of learning and design every year.


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Delivering an impactful driving experience

The Transport Accident Commission (TAC) is a Victorian Government-owned organisation whose role is to promote road safety, support those who have been injured on Victorian roads and help them get their lives back on track.

THE BACKGROUND
An ageing program that was failing to engage its audience
In the 1990’s, the TAC launched DriveSmart, a computer-based simulation training tool designed to support learner drivers develop skills for safe driving.
The program was originally delivered on CD-ROM, and then transitioned to an online resource in 2014. However, as the program aged, so too did its effectiveness in engaging an audience that had grown up in the age of gaming.
Even though the research within the program withstood the test of time, the tool was now outdated for a Gen Z audience who have come to expect a good user experience, interactivity, and mobile accessibility, which are necessary factors to deliver an impactful learning experience for this up-and-coming generation.
Rebuilding content from the ground-up
The major challenge of the project was to build a new system that was primarily aimed at a Gen Z audience. Therefore, the platform had to be fully mobile-optimised, with intuitive UI, a custom interface, and be accessible to all participants.
To effectively connect with the intended audience, the development of new content had to include realistic learning scenarios, gamification elements, interactivity and feedback and had to be embedded in research.

A portal with media-rich content
Our solution was the implementation of the imc Learning Suite, as the front end portal (website) for the TAC.
This portal was combined with a mobile-first interactive video format which was designed in a way that was easy-to-use, playful and mobile-optimised.
There were gamification elements included within the development of content such as badges, storytelling and driving games which enabled the learner drivers to build up their driving knowledge. They also had the ability to share badges on social media to share the safe driving message with their peers.
New video footage of driving conditions and risks were filmed for the scenarios. The videos were to be adapted into interactive scenarios by imc. These scenarios were designed to resonate with real-world examples that a young driver might experience whilst driving and be exposed to common dangers on the road.
A successful transition to mobile-first
The project was delivered on time, on budget and in its initial launch phase in March 2019, where over 8,000 users had been onboarded.
The successful redesign of the DriveSmart program has resulted in management who are very satisfied with the modernisation of the website and the mobile-first platform.
There has been a lot of positive word of mouth from the program’s users. The consensus within the community is that the bright colours and design of the website are very engaging, and it seems that users are more open to absorbing the information because of the way that the scenarios have been designed.


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Unifying an Organisation Under One Learning Management System

KiwiRail is New Zealand’s national rail network operator and one of the largest transport employers in New Zealand. They have over 4,200 permanent staff and more than 6,500 contractors.
Their employees are split over five distinct business units: KiwiRail Freight, Interislander, KiwiRail Passenger, KiwiRail Infrastructure & Engineering and KiwiRail Corporate.

THE BACKGROUND
Replacing ageing systems
KiwiRail required a single Learning Management System (LMS) for its five business units and over 5,000 users.
They had been using ageing and inflexible systems which were inefficient for the business because they did not communicate with one another.
Ensuring that the LMS met compliance
imc needed to ensure that the new platform, based on their Learning Management System imc Learning Suite, met critical safety business processes, skill competencies and compliance with legislation.
Another challenge was ensuring the system reduced administrative efforts and costs whilst also improving KiwiRail’s data quality and availability.

One source of truth for all business functions
imc built one system which helped KiwiRail to undertake a variety of business functions. These included:
- A way for employees and contractors where they can find and register for training
- The ability for employees to track their progress and manage their career training goals
- A method for the business to manage skills, certificates and competencies
- Enhancing managers’ ability to monitor and report on what their staff are completing
This system also helped to reduce costs across the business through the synchronisation of the HR system within the LMS.
Another highlight of implementing this new system was the topic of compliance. The system tracks safety, regulatory and legislative compliance training requirements. It helped to ensure that all of these are met with the ability to deliver company-wide reporting.
Efficient management of all rail personnel
The integration of all old systems into one new LMS helped to ensure the efficient management of all certifications and career developments across all business units. In addition, it gave KiwiRail the opportunity to further enhance their training access within their organisation.
This meets the individual requirements of the five different business units by providing one complete view across the enterprise. The new system is still being flexible enough to allow creativity and innovation across business units.


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With chatbot and WBT to the
trade fair

Villeroy & Boch is one of the leading premium brands for ceramic products worldwide. Founded in 1748, the family business based in Mettlach, Germany stands for innovation, tradition and abundance of style.
As a renowned lifestyle brand, Villeroy & Boch has a presence in 125 countries with its bathroom, wellness and fine tableware products.
Fit for the leading trade fair
The ceramics manufacturer Villeroy & Boch needed to train around 400 sales representatives worldwide for a trade fair. Each employee attending the fair had to complete mandatory virtual product training so they would be able to present the new products.
The greatest challenges were:
- Time pressure: training had to be complete by a certain date
- Ensuring mandatory participation
- Subsequent testing of learning success
- Catering to different ages with different e-learning skills

Virtual product training
Two different web-based training courses (WBT) were created for the predominantly technical products. For all other new developments a chatbot was developed.
The chatbot was filled with short learning units aka learning nuggets, each taking 3 minutes to complete. Each participant moved through different topic areas and product training units.
Each employee arriving for the trade fair was required to complete these training courses in advance and demonstrate in a test that they had understood the learned content.

Delighted customers
The training received a strong response and achieved high levels of acceptance. Employees provided extremely positive feedback.
Villeroy & Boch therefore plan to work with equally innovative, digital training concepts for future trade fairs.

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Training internal and external audiences

Headquartered in Hamburg-Eppendorf, Eppendorf AG develops, produces and distributes products and services for laboratories all over the world. These products are often used in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and food sectors.
The company is the world market leader in many areas of laboratory technology. Across its global operations, the group has more than 3,000 employees at 34 locations.
Knowledge acquisition in record time
Increasing legal requirements, fast global growth, more employees, a more extensive portfolio and a shorter time to market – A few years ago, Eppendorf AG faced all of these challenges. To fight these challenges, it required not only the employees to be trained but also the network of external partners and service providers to be educated. Only when this network of both internal and external groups (together the so-called "Extended Enterprise") is up to date with the latest products, services and developments, at all times, Eppendorf can provide the quality that it strives for. Time and efficiency are essential in this training process.
Mastering these challenges is even harder when old-fashioned and time-consuming training processes slow down the progress. This is where the professionally set-up blended learning concept within a cloud-based solution comes to the rescue.

An open professional development concept
As part of an integrated e-learning strategy, the imc Learning Suite was implemented across the entire company as “Eppendorf Academy”. Hosting in the Microsoft Azure Cloud ensures virtually unlimited scalability and immediate availability
The objective was to systematically complement or replace existing face-to-face training courses with e-learning offers to create a blended learning experience.
The imc authoring tool Content Studio was chosen for the creation of interactive and multimedia learning content.

90 % of users rate the courses
as helpful
In order to facilitate swift identification and rectification of gaps in the content, obtaining continuous feedback from the course participants was very important for Eppendorf AG.
The dialogue with the learners directly shows to what extent the learning content helped the learners perform their daily tasks, and where further improvements were needed.
The participants’ feedback has been impressive: A staggering 90% of users to date rate the courses as helpful or very helpful.


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