Publicis Sapient
How the consulting company increased customer confidence, bill rates, and AI readiness with Section programs
At a glance
Publicis Sapient started learning with Section in an effort to upskill their junior analysts to better meet clients’ needs. After 3 months of learning with Section, clients were not only happier with the analysts’ work, they were willing to pay more for them.
The success of their Section trial run led Publicis’ Capability L&D Lead to explore the Section’s full AI and business curriculum. Section’s approach to AI training – which focuses on mindset shift and real-world application – gave L&D what they had been looking for in their journey to AI readiness.
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Ian Stevens, Capability L&D Lead
“We found a reliable partner that we can trust the quality of the content regardless of what the content focus area is. That is a difficult thing to do.”
264
Courses Completed
The story of
Publicis Sapient
Publicis Sapient is a transformation partner focused on helping customers keep pace with technological, societal, and cultural change. They offer product management consulting as a key craft to unlock value for clients – but in 2023, many of their client-facing junior analysts didn’t have much in the way of product management experience. In an effort to provide their clients with the best possible partner, Publicis Sapient purchased 50 licenses to Section’s Product Management Sprint.
The challenge
How it started...
Publicis junior analysts often served in a product owner or advisory role with clients, where they lacked real-world experience. Historically, Publicis had upskilled employees by relying on internal learning content that was developed and delivered by senior leaders. But that required senior leaders to spend billable hours developing content, which jeopardized revenue.
Looking for an external partner that could take the burden of upskilling off senior leaders, Publicis Sapient partnered with Section. They invested 3 months in Section courses to bring their junior analysts up to speed on core product management skills – such as writing user stories and understanding user journeys. Their promise to clients: If at the end of 3 months you’re not satisfied, we’ll pull the analysts off your project.
The solution
...How it's going
The Product Strategy Sprint was a wild success with junior analysts – client confidence scores soared and bill rates increased.
Motivated by the success, Publicis’ L&D lead started exploring Section’s AI curriculum. He was tired of seeing AI courses that just explained the difference between LLMs, and wanted courses that changed the way employees approached their work.
He personally took a few of Section’s AI courses – including Intro to Prompting and AI for Personal Productivity – and noticed his own AI mindset start to shift. He went to leadership with a pitch: Put Section’s AI courses at the center of Publicis’s AI training going forward.
“From a price standpoint, there's just no competition for that ability to scale the learning.”
Ian Stevens, Capability L&D Lead
Results & the future
Publicis Sapient’s trial of Section through the Product Management Sprint dramatically boosted client confidence and armed their junior analysts with skills that made them more billable and more successful. Publicis has since upgraded their licenses from 50 to 10,000 seats, in order to upskill their entire organization – largely focused around generative AI training.
Once employees have finished core AI courses, they’re encouraged to enroll in functional, role-specific AI courses, and many even request budget to join AI Mini-MBA cohorts. To date, 327 Publicis Sapient users have taken a Section course, with 264 earning new skills badges, and 170 returning as power users
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