Case Kaswu Oy: Creating Value through Digital Solution for Business Trainings

Learning analytics solutions enhance the effectiveness of corporate training

Kaswu Oy established in 2011, is a sales and leadership training company. Its mission is to affect lasting change and concrete everyday actions through corporate training.

The palette used by the company is based on extensive research knowledge of learning pedagogy and cognitive processes of learning. The goal is to achieve as effective learning and change as possible, both in thinking and action. Continuous improvement and finding better solutions for effective coaching have been a central driver of the company's operations from the beginning.

Kaswu's CEO, Mikko 'OJ' Ojanen, and Harri Puupponen from Cloud1 initially crossed paths through a common hobby, as both were involved in the same skateboarding circles. Gradually, the idea of utilizing digital solutions materialized into joint development projects.

Digitalization has had a Huge Impact on Business

Kaswu and Cloud1 have jointly developed various learning analytics solutions utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence, revolutionizing Kaswu's approach to conducting corporate training. These solutions provide the opportunity to accumulate concrete data on changes in thought and behavior, as well as demonstrate the effectiveness of the coaching project to the end customer.

In the early stages of collaboration between Kaswu and Cloud1, it was quickly realized that data could indeed be the 'new oil' in the coaching business as well.

In a coaching project, data can be gathered from the initial state of expertise, thinking patterns, or performance levels. As the project progresses, data collected from various points offers a view of the individual's change journey and helps analyze the reasons behind the change. Additionally, the data can identify individual learning challenges, allowing for targeted support where it is needed.

Data Aids in Assessing the Effectiveness of Trainings

The leap from the traditional way of evaluating trainings is tremendous. Too often, the success of training is still assessed using simple feedback forms. The problem with these is that the feedback mostly evaluates the personal characteristics and enthusiasm of the trainer during the training days, not the individual’s learning process. Learning analytics solutions bring a change to this. Now it is genuinely possible to track the change brought about by the training.

With digital solutions, the client also gets a better grasp of whether there has been a change in the trainee's thinking or behavior. Data offers a deeper opportunity for interpreting things like employee satisfaction or sickness absence metrics.

Mikko Ojanen states that with the developed learning analytics and machine learning solutions, Kaswu Oy is now able to create value in its coaching in a completely new way. Data has immense importance.

”With learning analytics and machine learning solutions, the client can directly understand whether learning has occurred,” outlines Ojanen.

The Digital Leap must be the Right Size for each Company

Ojanen encourages companies to engage in continuous and active development work. The importance of development work becomes particularly evident when there are disruptions in the operating environment. However, when talking about the opportunities brought by digitalization, the steps of development need to be of the right size.

According to Ojanen, both small and large companies need a knowledgeable partner to ensure that digitalization and data utilization progress at the right scale. Solutions should be appropriately sized both in terms of investment and value creation.

It is clear that every company needs some form of development steps, but if these are taken from the wrong starting points, the result can be poor. Instead, it is necessary to interpret which aspects will produce the most added value for that particular company. Therefore, it is crucial to correctly interpret each company’s business challenges so that the best solutions can be found.

In finding the right-sized development steps and taking the appropriate scale of digital leap, Cloud1 has played a major role for Kaswu.

For a small company, the Visionary Perspective of Cloud1 has been Irreplaceable

Ojanen believes that Cloud1's experience working with both large publicly traded companies and small operators is of great value. Especially small businesses need a partner who can look further ahead and see more than they might be able to perceive themselves. Working with such partners feels safe and trustworthy, as they are always one step ahead.

Ojanen shares that it has been gratifying to see how wholeheartedly Cloud1's experts have been involved in developing new solutions for Kaswu's business. There has been a sense that they genuinely want to contribute to creating solutions in the world that facilitate learning.

Thanks to the collaboration with Cloud1, Kaswu now has a solid and robust digital foundation. This enables continuous development far into the future, in a sustainable manner