The FIEGE Group is a leading European logistics company specialising in efficient supply chain solutions, operating internationally from its core markets in Europe to Asia.
As a fifth-generation family business, FIEGE is considered a pioneer in contract logistics and has evolved from a transport company into a global full-service logistics provider. The tradition-conscious company is constantly reinventing itself to stay at the cutting edge of technology in times of digitalization and automation.
FIEGE develops integrated customer solutions for eCommerce, transport, sea and air freight, customs clearance, warehousing, parcel delivery and real estate management, with services ranging from consulting to the implementation of a supply chain concept.
Be it process optimization or completely new ideas and business models, innovation is one of the key drivers for long-term success as it offers the opportunity to differentiate from existing competitors or to expand into adjacent markets. However, innovation rarely comes about by chance, but is the result of an overall corporate strategy.
As FIEGE recognized, involving the entire workforce in this process can leverage department-specific knowledge, and thus leads to increased innovation power. To use the huge opportunity of every single employee, FIEGE decided to equip employees with a new set of innovation skills. The required skills came from various areas such as intrapreneurship, business model innovation or data analysis and were to instill an entrepreneurial spirit throughout the organization by enabling employees to develop innovative ideas themselves. Consequently, offering employees easy access to upskilling became a top priority.
“We want to be the innovation leader in logistics and a very important task is to take our employees along with us on our journey. Especially, we want to provide the whole company with state-of-the-art skills to succeed with digital innovation in order to remain our leading position in the field of logistics” - Felix Fiege, CEO
Ultimately, the learning solution should also prepare employees for the annual Innovation Challenge, which was launched five years ago and successfully encourages internal and external employees to present their best ideas and business models.
Given the desire for more flexibility in the wake of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, a digital solution was needed. With the help of an easy-to-use learning platform, employees should be provided with easy access to relevant learning content. Through the edyoucated platform, employees were able to flexibly organize their learning time and were not tied to a certain time or place.
Furthermore, FIEGE wanted to create an offering that appeals to all employees – regardless of their previous level of knowledge, learning objectives or position in the company. With personalized and adaptive learning paths on the platform, combining both external and internal learning materials, FIEGE has been able to provide an efficient training program that inspires learners and leads to new high-quality innovation ideas.
As the topic of innovation is a significant part of the corporate strategy, a cooperation with edyoucated for upskilling the workforce was a logical next step. The project launched at the beginning of December under the name of "FIEGE Innovation School".
Accompanied by internal promotion via landing pages and a video announcement, every employee was given access to the edyoucated platform and specific innovation learning paths. Learners were free to choose their own interests and time of learning. The range of curated learning paths was wide and included topics such as Digital Transformation & Trends, Business Model Innovation, Intrapreneurship & Lean Startup, Data Analytics, Agile Management but also industry-specific topics like Digital Innovation in Logistics.
“I was excited about the learning platform as such. The interface was super intuitive and the fact that my previous knowledge was taken into account right away at the beginning saved me valuable time and allowed me to dive deeper into the topic.” - Simon Deutler, Controller
In addition, some learning paths were directly linked to the popular FIEGE Innovation Challenge. Participants were able to conduct hands-on projects like designing a business model canvas for their own innovative business idea.
The integration of edyoucated with Microsoft Teams helped build a vibrant internal learning community for collegial sharing, current updates, and learning initiative coordination. In addition, edyoucated experts were always ready to answer learners' questions as they learned, thanks to the mentorship feature. "It was very helpful for our learners to always have a contact person from edyoucated by their side who could quickly respond to upcoming questions. In this way, our colleagues were never completely on their own," recalls the initiator of the project at FIEGE Andreas Pott.
The introduction of gamification and competition between different departments was an additional motivational boost for all learners involved. Each colleague received "learning points" for completing learning activities on the platform. Different teams could then combine these learning points and compete with other teams, quickly making the self-learning approach a company-wide goal.
Looking back, the Innovation School has proven to be a great success for FIEGE. Hundreds of participants were counted just 5 months after the launch. Plus, the project resulted in a number of high-quality applications for the annual FIEGE Innovation Challenge.
Regardless of department or prior knowledge, learners were exposed to a range of innovation-enhancing concepts and learned many future-relevant skills over the course of the learning journey. In the end, a full 84% of participants surveyed felt that edyoucated should remain a long-term part of the company's training offerings.
“We are extremely pleased to see that the Innovation School has been so well received by our workforce” - Andreas Pott, Director Corporate Development & Innovation
The high level of commitment of all participants gives rise to great optimism that in the future more and more innovative ideas in the logistics industry will come from within their own four walls now that the spirit of innovation has been further strengthened!
"Besides edyoucated's approach of personalizing the content for each individual, I really liked the playful aspect of learning. More than once, elements like the learning points or the leaderboard have provided me with a motivational boost while learning." - Simon Deutler, Controller
edyoucated is funded by leading research institutions such as the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB), Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK).
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