CORPORATE LEARNING SYSTEMS
Cornerstone | September 14, 2022
Cornerstone OnDemand, Inc., a leader in adaptive HR solutions, today announced several advancements to EdCast, the industry-leading Learning Experience Platform (LXP) acquired by Cornerstone in May 2022. New skills capabilities, deepened cross-platform integrations and more intuitive insights and dashboards top the list of the latest capabilities being delivered since the acquisition to help customers improve people growth and business productivity. In the past five months, we have made tremendous strides in strengthening the connections between the EdCast and Cornerstone offerings,” said Himanshu Palsule, CEO of Cornerstone. Our priority is to deliver more value to combined customers and their users, while ensuring the EdCast LXP is still open, independent and available broadly to any organization with different learning management tools. We are invested in EdCast and bringing to life innovation that revolutionizes the learning and development market.
Some of the most recent enhancements to EdCast include:
Enriched User Experience: EdCast customers can now take advantage of an updated user experience across products and channels based on a new design system. The new experience provides improved user experience consistency across the platform, visual design with more modern visual identity, improved accessibility standards and more seamless connection between mobile and desktop.
Enhanced Learner & Manager Dashboards: Updates to EdCast’s learner dashboard allow employees to connect to one another more intuitively, track their progress, manage their skills profiles and further personalize their learning experience. Manager dashboards provide new actionable insights with a singular view of how their teams are learning, what skills they have and at what level, and assign new relevant and timely learning content to engage them as an active participant in their team’s development.
New In the Flow of Work Integrations: The next evolution of the EdCast Integrations Hub includes an enterprise-level workflow automation platform with ready-to-use connectors across a variety of enterprise applications and content providers, and the ability to create customized connectors, ensuring customers can seamlessly incorporate learning into the platforms their people are already using. This includes EdCast’s latest integration with Zoom Video Communication, Inc., which embeds learning and training tools within Zoom Meetings to drive productivity and upskilling in the flow of work.
Subject Matter Expert (SME) Empowerment: The EdCast platform now offers more power to internal SMEs so they can share their knowledge and skills with others across their organization. Employees can create their own learning badges to showcase and celebrate skill development and expertise. Employees can also share certification on LinkedIn to promote their skills outside of their organization.While Cornerstone is committed to keeping the EdCast product open and platform-agnostic, the company has also invested in deeper integrations with Cornerstone's existing learning and talent solutions. Together, joint customers will have improved end-to-end content experiences for learners regardless of where they consume learning via a native inline player. A new integration between EdCast and the Cornerstone Skills Graph opens up a taxonomy of over 53,000 skills to develop skill profiles and make skill recommendations based on job roles.
Following its acquisition by Cornerstone, EdCast continues to receive industry recognition for its outstanding leadership in the market. Most recently, MyGuide, the Digital Adoption Product (DAP) offering from EdCast, was recognized as a major contender in Everest Group’s PEAK Matrix for DAP Technology.
"EdCast is a critical part of our product portfolio at Cornerstone, and our team is diligently focused on doing what we originally set out to do when we launched EdCast: provide the best learning experience platform on the market,The amount of integration progress we’ve made in this short amount of time is astounding, and we have long-term plans to continue at this pace of innovation and transform learning at work.”
Karl Mehta, Managing Director, EdCast by Cornerstone
About Cornerstone
Cornerstone powers the future-ready workforce with adaptive HR solutions designed to unite technology, data and content and inspire a work environment of growth, agility and success for all. With an AI-powered, skills-forward, experiential system designed for the contemporary workforce, we help organizations modernize their learning and development experience, deliver the most relevant content from anywhere, accelerate talent and career mobility and establish skills as the universal language of growth and success across their business. Cornerstone serves over 7,000 customers and 90M users and is available in 180 countries and 50 languages.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
STRATACACHE, LPI | July 20, 2022
X2O Media, an international provider of hybrid collaboration technology, today announces it has been awarded the status of Accredited Learning Technologies for its X2O OneRoom solution by the LPI (Learning and Performance Institute), the leading global authority on workplace learning and development.
X2O OneRoom technology is an immersive hybrid training platform that provides an engaging learning experience with a human element for in-room and remote learners. To achieve this accreditation, X2O OneRoom technology underwent a rigorous evaluation against a comprehensive set of KPIs developed by industry experts. The assessment included a review of the OneRoom product, the teaching and learning experience and product development roadmap.
Commenting on the accreditation, Edmund Monk, CEO of LPI said: "LPI accreditation is not only an independent validation of an organisation's quality, but also a statement of intent: that it will constantly improve, innovate and develop its portfolio to the benefit of its customers. I am proud to hear of X2O Media's outstanding achievement and look forward to working with them throughout the coming years as they seek to strengthen their position in the market. I have no hesitation in recommending X2O Media to prospective customers and partners as their accreditation proves they are an exceptional provider of learning technologies."
"At X2O Media we are passionate about developing hybrid and virtual learning spaces that meet the high standards and needs of our customers. We are proud to have our OneRoom solution endorsed by the LPI as it reflects our commitment to providing quality, immersive learning experiences," said Mansour Brek, President of X2O Media.
As part of the continued development of X2O OneRoom, X2O Media have also announced the latest release of OneRoom version 2.5 which introduces dynamic seating charts, anonymous polls/quizzes, and the evolution of breakout groups to provide an enhanced learning environment for hybrid learners.
About X2O Media
X2O Media provides technology to build virtual collaboration solutions and unified visual communication solutions for higher education and corporations across the globe. The award-winning X2O Platform represents a new category of communication tools that improves how enterprises and learning institutions engage with their employees and students. X2O Media's collaboration technology has helped organizations like Nestlé, IMD Business School, HEC Montréal, FutureDJs and City of London Freemen's School set a new standard for hybrid meetings, training and learning.
About STRATACACHE
STRATACACHE provides scalable customer experiences, empowering retailers to learn deeply about their customers' shopping preferences and behaviors, allowing for personalized shopper interaction. Our solutions deliver consumer activation at the point-of-decision, generating new sales opportunities and enhanced retail profitability. With 3.3 million+ software activations globally, we power the biggest digital networks for the world's largest brands. Across the STRATACACHE family of complementary digital media/ad tech solution companies, we have the technology, expertise, and track record to bring retail innovation that delivers results.
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EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY
Flywire | July 14, 2022
Today, Flywire Corporation , a global payments enablement and software company, announced that it has completed the acquisition of Cohort Go, an international education payments provider that brings additional students, agents and essential student services to Flywire. The acquisition will build on Flywire’s existing education business to accelerate the growth of its agent focus and team, deepen its commitment to product and payment innovation, and further invest in Asia-Pacific (APAC), a key geographic focus for Flywire.
Cohort Go’s core focus is on providing international students with the ability to make cross-border tuition payments through international agents. Cohort Go’s agent platform is expected to bolster Flywire’s existing agent solutions to deliver even greater value to educational institutions, agents, and students. Additionally, with partner relationships in almost 40 geographies, Cohort Go’s global footprint and penetration in APAC and Latin America also present new growth and expansion opportunities for Flywire.
“Recruiting agencies play a critical role in the international student journey by assisting students in finding placements in higher educational and other institutions. “Cohort Go has been prominent in this space, with a network of over 1,000 agent partnerships, including some of the most prestigious student recruitment agencies in the world.”
Mike Massaro, CEO of Flywire
Massaro continued: “As we continue to invest in our Flywire Advantage – the combination of our next-gen payments platform, proprietary global payment network and industry-specific software – we seek opportunities to embed deeper into the workflows of our clients, agents and payers, with the goal of driving more value for them. Cohort Go’s successful agent platform, global footprint and adjacent services complement our existing capabilities and will help us power the higher education ecosystem into the future.”
Growth in international student recruitment indicates strong secular trend
Recent research suggests that the international education industry is poised for significant growth. According to new data from the market intelligence firm HolonIQ, 8 million international students will be enrolled with foreign higher education institutions by 2030 – 3 million more than were abroad in 2019 – and that their total spending will amount to more than double what it was before the pandemic.
As the demand for higher education accelerates, education agents are expected to play a critical role in international recruitment. Estimates from the international education consultancy, ICEF, suggest that more than 1 million students are placed through agents around the world, and rising. According to a 2021 report from the American International Recruitment Council and the National Association for College Admission Counseling, nearly half (49%) of U.S. colleges who responded were partnered with education agents, which is up from 36% of U.S. in 2017-2018. Agent growth is also on the rise in other popular higher education destination markets like Canada, whose international student population has grown sixfold over the past two decades.
Cohort Go was founded in 2012 by industry experts Mark Fletcher and Paul Jones, who combined their respective expertise in banking and commercial software to enable students to pay for their international education using their local currency, saving on fees and transfer rates. Grounded in their aligned vision to deliver value to the broader education ecosystems, the founders continually sought ways to work with education agents, institutions and students alike, and evolved their single solution into an online platform that offers a tailored experience, with capabilities to reduce costs, increase choice and improve productivity.
Today, Cohort Go partners with more than 1,000 agents globally. Students from more than 180 countries have leveraged Cohort Go, which services more than 60 currencies with local specialists all over the world. The integration of Cohort Go into Flywire’s existing agent platform will enable Flywire to provide even more value to agents, payers, and educational institutions.
Combination of software and payments powers future vertical ecosystems
Cohort Go’s strong regional focus in APAC, global agent relationships, and its existing payment infrastructure will help Flywire bolster its global payment network. Cohort Go’s relationships with payment partners all over the world will add to Flywire’s network of partners, further supporting Flywire’s clients and payers across all vertical industries.
Additionally, the acquisition of Cohort Go also enhances Flywire’s ability to accelerate Flywire’s roadmap to enable a broader suite of financial services targeted to international students and other payers. Already, Cohort Go is improving the way students pay for and save on health insurance, which augments Flywire’s focus on adding more value through its payer services.
“Working with our clients on delivering high-stakes, high-value tuition payments, we’ve continued to discover pain points in the education ecosystem that we believe we’re uniquely positioned to solve,” Massaro continued. “Cohort Go gives us an opportunity to accelerate the investment we have been making to further extend our value proposition to international students. With our Flywire Advantage, we can apply our existing framework of using software to drive value in payments to solve very specific use cases.”
Complements strong organic growth
The acquisition of Cohort Go is a continuation of Flywire’s long-term plan to supplement its strong organic growth and continually expand across all business lines. The acquisition is expected to be modestly accretive to revenue and Adjusted EBITDA. More details will be shared on the upcoming earnings call scheduled for August 9, 2022.
About Flywire
Flywire is a global payments enablement and software company. We combine our proprietary global payments network, next-gen payments platform and vertical-specific software to deliver the most important and complex payments for our clients and their customers.
Flywire leverages its vertical-specific software and payments technology to deeply embed within the existing A/R workflows for its clients across the education, healthcare and travel vertical markets, as well as in key B2B industries. Flywire also integrates with leading ERP systems, such as NetSuite, so organizations can optimize the payment experience for their customers while eliminating operational challenges.
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