"As we looked at the market, we realized most external learning solutions are complex, have limited capabilities, and are not designed for digital transformation. With the upcoming release of SAP SuccessFactors Learning Marketplace, we plan to deliver a turnkey solution that's easy for learning leaders and organizations to adopt. The new offering will provide a unique way for organizations to extend their existing learning investments to strengthen their brand, engage customers, and enable their partner community."

With SAP SuccessFactors Learning Marketplace, professionals will be able to work with business leaders in marketing, sales and, partner organizations to help these organizations

• improve customer satisfaction by providing easy-to-access training on products and solutions to speed time to value
• accelerate partner engagement and effectiveness through just-in-time training and full certification management
• improve organizational branding by reinforcing organizational brand value through targeted marketing and search-engine optimization
• attract new customers and build new market channels with a global commerce platform developed to support the unique needs of learning markets.

The new solution will be built upon the SAP SuccessFactors learning-management system (LMS) and the SAP Hybris® customer-engagement and commerce technologies. It is expected to help remove the technical burden that companies face when trying to deploy training outside the employee base. It will include industry-leading LMS capabilities such as core course management, qualification and certification management, online content handling, and business-rule definitions for audience segmentations.

The proven and flexible customer-experience engine will manage content, optimize search, and offer a configurable user-registration process and dynamic catalog presentation. With integration capabilities to financial systems, it will support multiple credit-card processors, fraud detection, and integration to global tax engines.

"Learning programs are becoming as important and widely distributed as any product in the world," said Josh Bersin, principal at Bersin by Deloitte, Deloitte Consulting LLP, a leading research organization. "Platforms such as SAP's new learning marketplace are becoming indispensable as organizations distribute and market their learning solutions to new audiences and channels."

Training professionals today require a combination of strong content and platform to deliver learning programs across and beyond the enterprise. SAP SuccessFactors Learning Marketplace will complement an already extensive portfolio of learning and education services and solutions, including SAP SuccessFactors Learning and SAP Workforce Performance Builder software. SAP SuccessFactors President Mike Ettling has appointed award-winning industry veteran Karie Willyerd as the new head of Global Customer Education and Learning.

"Coming into a new position to drive our learning and education agenda with full support from SAP and innovation from our product team is a rare opportunity to bring new and exciting products to market," said Willyerd. "Even though I have had the honor as a CLO of building the number-one-ranked training organization in the world and have been a founder and CEO of the industry's first social video-learning platform, the commitment, people, and resources of SAP ensure we will break through in unprecedented ways to deliver the next generation of learning solutions."

SAP SuccessFactors Learning Marketplace is expected to be available in Q4 2016.