Contact centers face an uncomfortable paradox: agents need more sophisticated skills than ever before, yet they’re being prepared with the same training methods from two decades ago. The result? New hires who sound robotic on live calls, tenured agents struggling with soft skills, and training teams drowning in the time it takes to certify people for customer interactions. Meanwhile, turnover rates tell the real story — contact centers lose agents faster than they can train replacements.

I recently spoke with Brian Tuite, CEO & Co-founder of Zenarate, and Katie Leahy, the VP of Marketing, and came away convinced that what they’ve built addresses training challenges I’ve heard about for years from organizations struggling to prepare customer-facing teams. The company last year acquired Bright Software, adding conversation analytics and AI agent capabilities to their existing simulation platform. This move positions Zenarate, a six-time Brandon Hall Group Technology Excellence Award winner, as one of the few vendors tackling the complete agent lifecycle — from pre-hire assessment through live call coaching.

The Training Gap

Today’s contact center agents juggle complex software, navigate sensitive customer situations, demonstrate empathy under pressure and solve problems without escalating. They need to sound natural, not scripted. They must balance compliance requirements with authentic conversation. And they’re expected to do all of this confidently from day one, often working remotely without the safety net of floor supervisors nearby.

The training industry has attempted to solve this with various approaches:

• Traditional LMS platforms like Axonify and TalentLMS excel at knowledge transfer through microlearning and gamification.
• Video roleplay tools such as Rehearsal from ELB Learning allow agents to record themselves and receive feedback. The experience lacks the unpredictability of live conversations.
• Sales-focused AI simulators like Second Nature provide conversational practice for outbound teams, delivering strong results for sales enablement. They’re primarily designed for sales scenarios.
• Scenario branching tools, including BranchTrack offer choose-your-own-adventure style training that helps with decision-making skills, but the paths are pre-defined and can’t replicate the organic flow of real customer interactions.
• Game-based simulation platforms such as Attensi create engaging 3D environments for training, providing immersive experiences that work well for process training.

What Makes Zenarate’s Approach Different

Zenarate’s AI Coach uses Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to engage agents in open-ended dialogues where scripting doesn’t work. Here’s what sets their technology apart:

• Intent-based conversation AI, not keyword matching: The platform understands what an agent is trying to communicate, not just whether they said specific words. An agent can explain a policy five different ways, and the AI recognizes when they’ve covered the required points. This trains authentic communication rather than memorization.
• Simultaneous voice and screen simulation: Agents practice navigating software systems while conducting conversations exactly as they’ll do on live calls. The platform can simulate any application without requiring IT integration.
• Real-time coaching that adapts to performance: The AI provides immediate feedback on tone, pace, soft skills and compliance adherence during practice sessions. It identifies exactly where agents struggle — perhaps they’re great at empathy but consistently miss required disclosures — and adjusts coaching accordingly.

Following their merger with Bright, Zenarate now extends this capability into live call analysis. The same skills agents practiced in simulation are automatically scored on actual customer calls, creating a closed feedback loop that identifies performance gaps and deploys targeted coaching. This connection between practice and performance represents a genuine advance in how contact centers can develop their teams.

Who Should Pay Attention to This Platform

Zenarate isn’t trying to be everything to everyone. Their sweet spot is organizations where conversation quality directly impacts business outcomes:

• High-volume contact centers in regulated industries: Financial services, healthcare and insurance companies that need agents to balance compliance requirements with authentic customer service. These organizations struggle with the dual mandate of following strict protocols while avoiding the robotic interactions that damage customer satisfaction.
• BPOs managing multiple client programs: Outsourcers running diverse campaigns face the challenge of training agents on different client standards, processes and voice. The platform’s ability to rapidly build new simulations, sometimes within hours, addresses the constant flux these organizations face.
• Enterprise contact centers with distributed teams: Companies with remote agents or multiple locations need standardized training that ensures consistency. When agents practice with an AI coach rather than varying quality of human role-play partners, every agent receives the same high-quality preparation regardless of location.
• Organizations struggling with agent attrition: Contact centers losing agents within the first 90 days often find the root cause in inadequate preparation. When agents feel unprepared for live calls, anxiety builds and retention suffers. Simulation training directly addresses this by building genuine confidence before customer interactions.
• Companies launching new products or changing processes: Any time agents need to ramp quickly on new information, traditional training creates bottlenecks. Zenarate’s approach of practicing while learning accelerates proficiency. Their data suggests agents reach competency twice as fast compared to conventional training methods.

The platform supports deployment across 79 languages and works for teams of dozens or tens of thousands, making it viable for both mid-market companies and global enterprises.

Making Sense of the Merged Capabilities

The Bright acquisition gives Zenarate three interconnected capabilities that few competitors can match:

First, pre-hire simulation allows organizations to assess candidate communication skills before they’re hired. Rather than relying solely on interviews, companies can evaluate how candidates handle difficult conversations under pressure. This shifts some training burden to the recruitment phase.

Second, the core simulation training builds proficiency before agents take live calls. Rather than hoping classroom training sticks, organizations know agents are ready because they’ve already handled dozens of simulated customer scenarios.

Third, live call analytics creates ongoing development. The platform analyzes actual customer conversations using the same criteria from simulation training. When gaps appear  — perhaps an agent’s soft skills have slipped or they’re missing compliance elements  — automated coaching assignments deploy the specific simulations needed.

This lifecycle approach means training doesn’t stop at onboarding. Agents continue developing throughout their tenure, with personalized coaching based on their actual performance patterns rather than generic refresher courses.

The inclusion of AI agent capabilities also positions Zenarate to help organizations test automation before deployment. Companies can use the platform to simulate how AI agents might handle customer interactions, identifying gaps before those agents interact with real customers. As automation expands in contact centers, this testing capability becomes increasingly valuable.

The Strategic Value for Training Leaders

Contact center training has traditionally been viewed as a cost center, necessary but not strategic. Zenarate’s platform shifts that calculus by directly linking training investment to business metrics that matter to executives.

Organizations report measurable impacts, including faster time-to-proficiency, higher CSAT scores, improved first-call resolution and reduced attrition. These metrics translate to revenue protection and operational cost savings. When agents handle more calls successfully and stay longer, the ROI becomes clear.

The platform also addresses a hidden cost in most contact centers: the burden on experienced agents who serve as role-play partners and coaches. By offloading practice to AI simulation, organizations reclaim hundreds of hours from their best performers while ensuring every new agent receives consistent, high-quality preparation.

For learning leaders, perhaps the most strategic value comes from visibility. The platform provides granular data on exactly which skills agents have mastered and where gaps remain — for individuals, teams, and entire centers. This intelligence allows training teams to be proactive rather than reactive, addressing skill gaps before they impact customer experience or compliance.

The challenge for training leaders evaluating Zenarate will be thinking beyond traditional procurement criteria. This isn’t a learning management system or a quality monitoring tool — it’s a performance development platform that touches recruitment, training, coaching, and quality assurance. The value case requires buy-in from multiple stakeholders, but that same characteristic makes it potentially transformative for organizations ready to rethink how they develop customer-facing teams.

For organizations navigating technology selection in this space, Brandon Hall Group’s Institute, which offers benchmarking and strategic advisory services, can help frame the right evaluation criteria and connect training outcomes to business metrics. We regularly work with contact centers to assess their learning technology stack and identify where simulation platforms fit within their broader talent development strategy.

Looking Ahead

The contact center training market is fragmenting between vendors who help with knowledge transfer and those focused on performance development. Zenarate clearly positions itself in the latter category, betting that organizations will invest more in solutions that directly improve how agents perform rather than what they know.

Their integration of simulation, live call analysis, and AI agent capabilities suggests that Zenarate anticipates a future where human agents handle increasingly complex interactions while AI handles routine ones. Training for that future requires systems that can develop sophisticated judgment and communication skills, which is exactly what simulation does well.

Organizations exploring this shift can benefit from examining case studies of similar implementations. Brandon Hall Group’s Institute features detailed case studies from award-winning organizations that have successfully deployed innovative training technologies, providing insights into implementation challenges and measurable outcomes. For solution providers like Zenarate, our strategic marketing services help communicate these success stories to the market.

The platform isn’t perfect for every situation. Organizations with simple, highly scripted interactions may not need this level of sophistication. Companies happy with traditional training approaches won’t find enough differentiation to justify change. And organizations without clear metrics for agent performance will struggle to quantify value.

But for contact centers where conversation quality matters, where agent confidence impacts retention, and where training needs to scale without sacrificing consistency, Zenarate offers a compelling alternative to training methods that haven’t fundamentally changed in decades. The question isn’t whether simulation training works — the evidence is clear. The question is whether organizations are ready to make the shift from training agents to actually preparing them.

The post Beyond the Scripts: How Zenarate Is Reinvigorating Contact Center Training appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Some leadership development providers are still selling you resources from their library. DDI, a frequent Brandon Hall Group Excellence Award winner, understands that what you actually need is the entire library — and someone who knows which resource to pull when your strategy changes next Tuesday. 

I sat down recently with Verity Creedy, SVP of Product, and Kevin Tamanini, VP of Professional Services at DDI, and what struck me wasn’t the usual parade of features and functions. Instead, they described something I’ve been hearing from HR leaders everywhere: the gap between when you identify a leadership need and when you can actually address it has become too costly. Three months to design and deploy a new program? In today’s environment, that timeline might as well be three years. 

This conversation came right after DDI’s customer summit, where they unveiled LeaderLab, their new platform that represents exactly the kind of strategic shift we explore in our advisory services with corporate clients: helping organizations evaluate when a provider’s approach truly aligns with how their business actually operates versus how they wish it operated. 

Leadership Development that Addresses Continual Evolution 

Here’s what I keep hearing from talent leaders: “We just had our strategy shift. Again. And now our leadership team needs completely different capabilities than what we planned for six months ago.” 

The traditional model of leadership development was built for a world that moved slower. Now? I watched one client adjust their leadership development approach three times in the month before I presented to them. Through our Brandon Hall Group Institute membership, we work with HR and learning leaders navigating exactly this challenge: how to build leadership capability when the target keeps moving. 

How the Market Is Responding (And Where Most Providers Fall Short) 

The leadership development space has fractured into distinct camps, each with their own approach and limitations: 

Franklin Covey brings decades of brand recognition and their famous content library, including The 7 Habits and The 4 Disciplines of Execution. Their All Access Pass subscription model provides broad content access across leadership, culture transformation, and execution. But content breadth doesn’t solve for real-time application or individualized development paths. 

Korn Ferry delivers sophisticated assessment tools and executive services, particularly strong in succession planning and C-suite evaluation. Their Four Dimensions of Leadership framework provides deep insight into leadership potential. Their solutions tend toward the high end, more suitable for executive assessment and selection than everyday leadership development at scale.  

LinkedIn Learning offers massive content volume and convenient access through a familiar platform. Leaders can search thousands of courses on any leadership topic, often with strong production quality. Search-and-discover models place the burden on learners to diagnose their own development needs and find the right content.  

What Makes DDI’s Approach Different (And Why It Matters Now) 

DDI made a pivotal shift to a subscription model a few years ago — one I called transformational at the time because it fundamentally changed how organizations could access their expertise. But their new LeaderLab platform takes that concept to the next level. Here’s what caught my attention: 

• Assessment and development connected in real-time. LeaderLab integrates behavioral assessments (the quick ones that take under 10 minutes) directly into development paths. Complete a simulation, get immediate insight into where you stand, and have relevant content automatically recommended. The profile updates continuously, so leaders and their organizations can see progress over time rather than waiting for the next annual assessment cycle. 

• AI that reinforces rather than confuses your approach. Most AI coaching tools operate as search engines. They’ll give you five different coaching models depending on how you phrase your question. DDI’s chatbot uses a closed-source approach, meaning it only draws from DDI’s leadership content. Ask about coaching, and you’ll get their ACE model. Ask about engagement, and you’ll get their Everyday Engagement framework. The consistency matters because leaders aren’t trying to remember which of the fifteen models from different sources they’re supposed to use this week. 

• Configurable assessments that don’t require months of custom work. Organizations can now build their own behavioral simulation assessments based on the competencies they care about most. Scored by AI, but using DDI’s proprietary model rather than generic language models.  

The practical application shows up in their continuous leadership intelligence approach — this idea that you’re constantly taking the pulse of your leadership population rather than doing annual check-ins. When strategy shifts (and it will), you already know where your leadership gaps are and can immediately deploy relevant development. 

Where This Model Makes the Most Sense 

There are specific organization types where DDI’s approach addresses real pain: 

Manufacturing organizations scaling globally. You’re dealing with multiple shifts, distributed locations, and frontline leaders who need practical, just-in-time support. The AI tools for practical scenarios, like writing feedback using the STAR model or preparing for difficult conversations, give leaders immediate help when they need it most. The ability to deliver consistent development across multiple facilities in different regions while still customizing to local needs creates the standardization-with-flexibility balance these organizations struggle with. 

Healthcare systems managing complex succession needs. You’re constantly identifying and developing leaders for clinical and operational roles with very different competency requirements. The combination of assessment and development means you can continuously evaluate readiness, not just once a year when it’s too late to close gaps. The faster assessment options make it feasible to check in regularly without pulling clinical leaders away from patient care for hours. 

Financial services firms navigating constant regulatory and strategic change. Your leadership needs shift with every regulatory update or market condition change. The subscription model means you’re not locked into last year’s leadership priorities, and the continuous intelligence approach helps you see where new capability gaps are emerging before they become crises. The professional services team acts as strategic partners who understand your business context rather than just content vendors. 

Retail and hospitality companies with high frontline leadership turnover. You’re constantly developing new store managers and site leaders, often promoting from within and needing to assess readiness quickly. The integrated assessment-to-development pipeline creates clear career pathways, and the just-in-time coaching support helps new leaders succeed faster. The subscription model makes economic sense when you’re developing large cohorts continuously rather than in periodic waves. 

Where Leadership Development Is Heading 

Sitting in that briefing, I kept thinking about the broader pattern I’m seeing: the line between assessment and development is disappearing. Organizations don’t want to assess and then six months later develop. They want to assess, develop, measure progress, reassess, and adjust, all in a continuous cycle. 

This matters because most business strategies are now failing not because they’re bad strategies, but because organizations lack the leadership agility to execute them. DDI’s research shows over 90% of business strategies fail, and while there are always external factors, the internal one they can control is leadership readiness. 

What I find compelling about their approach isn’t that they’re building for the actual pace of business rather than the pace we wish business moved at. DDI’s bet, and I think it’s the right one, is that leadership development needs to become more like other business capabilities: continuous, data-informed and responsive to changing conditions. LeaderLab represents their platform play to make that possible at scale. 

How Providers Can Navigate This Shift 

Brandon Hall Group works with providers through our Solutions Provider services to help them understand and articulate their market positioning as buyer expectations shift.  

DDI’s advantage is their 55 years of leadership data and expertise, which creates a significant moat. You can’t replicate that with better technology alone. But they’re not resting on their heritage. The LeaderLab platform shows they understand that expertise without the right delivery mechanism isn’t enough. 

The provider landscape is consolidating around two models: discrete programs for specific needs, and continuous development infrastructure for ongoing capability building. Both will survive, but the buyers for each are becoming more clearly defined. If your ideal customer operates in a rapidly changing environment with complex leadership needs across multiple levels, you’ll need to demonstrate continuous development capability, not just great content. 

Where This Goes Next 

The leadership development market is splitting into two camps: providers selling discrete programs and providers building continuous development infrastructure. Both have their place, but I expect to see more consolidation toward the continuous model as organizations realize that episodic development can’t keep pace with episodic strategic change. 

For talent leaders evaluating options, the question isn’t whether you need better leadership development (you do). It’s whether you need leadership development that can keep up with how fast your organization is moving. If the answer is yes, DDI’s approach deserves a serious look — particularly if you’re in one of those industries where strategic agility has become a competitive requirement. 

The market reality is becoming clear: organizations are still building leadership development programs for the world as it used to be, not as it is now. DDI has figured out that the future is about having the best system for matching the right development to the right leaders at the right moment, and then proving it actually worked. 

That shift in thinking might be more valuable than any specific feature on their roadmap. 

The post DDI’s LeaderLab Addresses</br> a Critical Leadership Development Need appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Most employee recognition programs launch with enthusiasm. Over time, participation often drops, managers ignore them, and HR teams find themselves managing yet another underutilized platform. The problem is that most solutions treat recognition as a standalone activity rather than embedding it into the cultural fabric of how work gets done. 

I recently connected with Muni Boga, Founder, President & CEO of Kudos, to understand how they’re approaching this challenge. With their platform now supporting organizations from the Calgary Public Library to Engie, they’ve built something that addresses a market increasingly skeptical of recognition programs that exist separately from the daily flow of work. This conversation is part of the ongoing vendor briefings we conduct at Brandon Hall Group to help our Enterprise Institute members understand the evolving technology landscape and make informed decisions. 

Where the Recognition Technology Stands Today 

The employee recognition and rewards market has matured significantly, yet many solutions still struggle with the same core issues: low adoption, shallow engagement and difficulty proving business impact. Through our technology selection consulting work with organizations evaluating recognition platforms, we’ve seen how the competitive landscape breaks down: 

• Bonusly delivers peer-to-peer recognition through a points-based system that integrates with Slack and Microsoft Teams. The platform emphasizes frequent micro-bonuses and makes recognition visible through a social feed.  

• Workhuman operates as an enterprise powerhouse, offering global recognition programs with extensive reward catalogs and integration with performance management systems. The platform serves Fortune 500 companies across multiple countries with strong compliance capabilities.  

• Achievers combines recognition with engagement tools through a social recognition feed and access to over three million reward options across approximately 190 countries.  

• Awardco partners with Amazon Business to provide rewards without markups, giving employees access to millions of products. This approach removes the traditional vendor markup on rewards and simplifies reward fulfillment.  

• Guusto takes a simplified approach with digital gift cards and milestone rewards, particularly effective for frontline and non-desk workers. The no-markup, dollar-for-dollar redemption model appeals to budget-conscious organizations.  

• Motivosity builds recognition around social connection and community, creating what it calls a people-first platform with employee spaces, personality profiles, and interest-based groups. 

Where Kudos Built Something Different 

Kudos approached the recognition problem by focusing on three areas where competitors consistently fall short: values alignment, actionable analytics and administrative efficiency.  

Values-Driven Recognition Architecture 

Unlike platforms where values feel like an afterthought, Kudos structures every recognition message around company values and the specific behaviors that bring those values to life. When an employee sends recognition, they’re required to connect it to a core value and identify the specific behavior being celebrated. This is the foundation of how recognition flows through the system. 

The practical impact shows up in how recognition reinforces culture rather than existing in parallel to it. When finance teams consistently recognize collaboration behaviors tied to your “teamwork” value, that pattern becomes visible. When customer service excels at demonstrating your “customer obsession” value but rarely gets acknowledged for innovation, leaders can see exactly where recognition should be encouraged. 

Analytics That Can Change Behavior 

Most recognition platforms offer basic reporting: total recognitions sent, top users, departmental breakdowns. Kudos built a multi-layered analytics system that reveals the networks and patterns hiding beneath surface-level metrics. The system tracks not just who gets recognized, but which departments collaborate most effectively, where recognition flows break down and which teams might be experiencing engagement challenges before they show up in retention data. 

These analytics surface insights like cross-departmental recognition patterns that indicate collaboration health, identify individuals who consistently recognize others but rarely receive recognition themselves, and highlight managers whose teams show strong recognition activity versus those where recognition remains sparse. HR leaders can use this data to proactively address engagement issues, rather than discovering them through exit interviews. 

Analytics will be a major strategic focus for Kudos in 2026. Boga said the company is planning to reassess our historical approach based on market research that shows a growing need for stronger impact and ROI measurement. 

The Culture Accelerator Framework 

Administrative overhead kills recognition programs as effectively as poor adoption. Kudos addressed this with a set of automated programs and workflows designed to reduce the operational burden on HR teams while increasing program impact. 

The framework includes automated milestone recognition for birthdays, work anniversaries, and onboarding stages that trigger without HR intervention. Organizations can create custom award programs with built-in nomination program workflows, while scheduling capabilities allow HR to plan recognition campaigns for specific dates or events. The system also includes an AI Recognition Assistant that helps employees craft meaningful recognition messages, removing the barrier many people face when trying to articulate appreciation. 

Organizations Where Kudos Makes Strategic Sense 

Kudos fits particularly well in specific contexts: 

• Mid-to-Large Enterprises Struggling with Culture Scale. Organizations with 500+ employees often find that informal recognition practices that worked at smaller sizes stop functioning as teams grow and spread across locations. Kudos provides structure without rigidity, enabling consistent recognition practices while allowing teams to maintain their unique cultures. Benefits include visibility into recognition patterns across business units, consistent values reinforcement regardless of location or department, and the ability to identify and address engagement gaps before they become retention problems. 

• Companies in Values-Driven Industries. Healthcare organizations, financial services, nonprofits, professional services firms and mission-driven companies already invest heavily in articulating and communicating their values. Kudos turns values from wall posters into living elements of daily work. The platform helps these organizations measure how well values are being lived throughout the organization, create recognition moments that reinforce mission-critical behaviors, and demonstrate to stakeholders that stated values translate into recognized behaviors. 

• Organizations with Distributed or Hybrid Workforces. When teams work across multiple locations, time zones or work arrangements, informal recognition breaks down. Remote employees report feeling less recognized than their in-office counterparts, and managers struggle to maintain connection with dispersed teams. Kudos addresses this by creating visibility into achievements that might otherwise go unnoticed, enabling managers to recognize team members regardless of location, and building connection through shared celebration of wins across the organization. 

• HR Teams Drowning in Program Administration. Organizations running multiple recognition initiatives — years of service awards, spot recognition, quarterly awards, team celebrations — often find their HR teams spending excessive time on program logistics rather than strategic work. Kudos automates the operational work while maintaining (or improving) program quality, freeing HR to focus on analysis and strategy. 

Strategic Assessment: Where Kudos Positions in the Market 

The employee recognition market continues evolving from simple rewards platforms toward comprehensive engagement systems. Kudos occupies an interesting middle position: more sophisticated than entry-level platforms like Bonusly or Guusto, but more accessible and focused than enterprise behemoths like Workhuman. 

Their competitive advantage centers on the depth of their analytics and the tightness of their values integration. While other platforms have added values as a feature, Kudos built their entire architecture around values-driven recognition. This architectural decision creates both opportunity and constraint. Organizations that don’t prioritize values alignment may find the platform has more structure than they need, while companies serious about culture find it indispensable. 

The platform faces its primary competitive pressure from two directions. Below, simpler solutions like Bonusly appeal to organizations wanting quick deployment and minimal administrative overhead. Above, Workhuman captures enterprises needing global reach and comprehensive integration with performance management systems. Kudos succeeds when organizations have grown beyond simple peer-to-peer recognition but don’t require (or want to pay for) the full enterprise engagement suite. 

Looking ahead, Kudos seems positioned to benefit from two market trends: 

• As organizations increasingly demand ROI from their culture investments, the platform’s analytics capabilities become more valuable.  

• As hybrid and distributed work becomes permanent, the need for structured recognition systems that create visibility and connection grows stronger.  

The platform’s challenge will be maintaining focus on recognition excellence while resisting the temptation to expand into adjacent spaces where they lack competitive advantage. 

For HR leaders evaluating recognition platforms, Kudos merits serious consideration if your organization has moved beyond recognition as a nice-to-have and views it as strategic culture infrastructure. The platform requires commitment to: 

• Values clarification 

• Manager enablement 

• Using analytics for continuous improvement 

For organizations ready to make those commitments, Kudos provides tools that turn recognition from an HR program into a cultural operating system. 

Organizations looking for additional guidance on recognition strategy and technology selection can explore Brandon Hall Group’s advisory services, which include benchmarking assessments and implementation support. For solution providers interested in participating in our ongoing research and evaluation programs, our solution provider offerings provide opportunities to engage with our analyst team and member community. 

The post Kudos: Recognition Built on Values, Powered by Analytics appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Leadership development programs fail for a predictable reason: They treat behavior change as a one-time event rather than a sustained process. Organizations invest heavily in workshops and sessions that generate enthusiasm but fade within weeks. Leaders return to old patterns. The business impact never materializes.

I recently met with Donna Iacopucci and Maureen Funkhouser, co-owners of Entelechy, a leadership development firm that’s spent three decades solving this exact problem. After purchasing the company in March 2025, they’re building on a foundation of award-winning programs (including 11 Brandon Hall Group Excellence Awards since 2023) with clients like Qualcomm and Thermo Fisher Scientific. These are relationships that have lasted 11 years in some cases precisely because their approach creates lasting behavioral shifts rather than temporary learning moments.

What distinguishes their methodology is the focus on prescriptive tools that build repeatable behaviors into daily workflows. This isn’t about inspiring leaders during a two-day offsite. It’s about changing how they operate when they’re back at their desks facing real decisions. It’s the kind of practical, outcome-focused approach we see resonating in our research on corporate learning strategies and what drives organizations to seek proven solutions through our solution provider advisory services.

The Leadership Development Landscape

The market offers vastly different approaches depending on organizational needs and scale:

• Korn Ferry brings global reach and integrated talent advisory services with strong succession planning integration, though their enterprise positioning and pricing reflects Fortune 500 focus rather than mid-market flexibility.
• FranklinCovey offers brand recognition and scalable content through their All Access Pass subscription model, delivering consistency across large populations though with less customization for unique organizational contexts
• BTS excels at business simulations and strategy execution programs that link leadership development to business outcomes, but their model requires substantial upfront investment and extended timelines
• GP Strategies provides comprehensive workforce transformation services with strong learning technology integration.
• DDI delivers research-backed assessment and development solutions, particularly strong in selection and succession planning and includes a strong subscription program.
• CCL (Center for Creative Leadership) maintains deep research credibility and thought leadership with strong assessment tools.

Entelechy positions itself differently — as a specialist in creating sustainable behavioral change through highly structured, repeatable frameworks that can be deployed at various customization levels.

Three-Level Architecture for Different Organizational Needs

Entelechy has organized their offerings around three core verticals, each addressing distinct client requirements:

Leadership Development Programs with Flexible Deployment Models

The foundation of their business centers on programs targeting specific leader populations:

• Aspiring leaders preparing for first-time leadership roles and needing foundational skills before they’re needed under pressure.
• Frontline and mid-level leaders managing day-to-day operations, strengthening coaching, delegation, and performance management capabilities.
• Leaders of leaders operating at director and VP levels, developing strategic thinking and organizational influence.

What makes their approach distinctive is the tiered delivery structure:

• Off-the-shelf cohort programs provide award-winning methodology in a standardized format for organizations wanting proven frameworks without customization overhead.
• Lightly customized programs adapt core content to specific organizational language, culture, and business context.
• Fully customized engagements create bespoke solutions deeply integrated with business strategy — the approach used with enterprise clients like Qualcomm and Thermo Fisher

The core methodology remains consistent across all tiers: prescriptive tools designed to create repeatable behaviors and sustainable habits. Leaders don’t just learn concepts; they practice specific techniques that become embedded in how they work.

Wiley Assessment Solutions

As an authorized provider for Wiley’s DiSC and Five Behaviors assessments, Entelechy integrates behavioral assessments directly into development programs rather than treating them as standalone diagnostic tools.

The integration creates coherence between insight and action:

• Assessment results inform which prescriptive tools will resonate most with individual leaders.
• Development programs use assessment language as common vocabulary for ongoing coaching.
• Teams use shared assessment frameworks to improve collaboration and reduce friction.

Organizations can order assessments directly through Entelechy’s website, making them accessible for both program participants and broader populations.

Coaching Services for Program Reinforcement

While coaching has historically been an adjunct to their program work, Entelechy is building it into a standalone vertical for 2026. The focus remains on reinforcing program outcomes rather than traditional executive coaching:

• Program-connected coaching helps leaders apply specific tools from development programs to real workplace challenges.
• Transition coaching supports leaders moving into new roles who’ve completed development programs.
• Team coaching extends individual development into collective leadership team effectiveness.

The coaching model aligns with their broader philosophy: behavior change happens through sustained practice with specific tools, not through open-ended conversations about leadership philosophy.

AI-Enabled Reinforcement: Extending Programs Beyond Workshops

One of Entelechy’s strategic priorities for 2026 involves exploring how AI can serve as a reinforcement mechanism between formal program sessions. The concept addresses a fundamental challenge in leadership development: programs create momentum during delivery, but that momentum dissipates when leaders return to daily pressures.

Their AI exploration focuses on two applications:

Ongoing Practice Reinforcement

• Between cohort sessions, AI could prompt leaders to apply specific tools from the program to actual situations they’re facing.
• Rather than generic leadership tips, reinforcement would be contextual to the specific frameworks taught in their programs.
• The goal is keeping program concepts active in leaders’ minds during the weeks between formal sessions.

Scalable Coaching Support

• For organizations that can’t provide one-on-one coaching to all program participants, AI could offer tool-specific guidance.
• Leaders could describe workplace scenarios and receive suggestions on which program tools apply and how to use them.
• Human coaches would focus on complex situations while AI handles straightforward tool application questions.

The approach reflects their core belief: leadership development works when specific, repeatable behaviors become habitual. AI isn’t replacing human facilitation or coaching—it’s extending the reach of proven methodologies into the daily moments when leaders actually need them.

Who Benefits From This Approach

Global Enterprises Requiring Consistent Methodology Across Regions

Organizations with 15,000+ employees spread across multiple countries need leadership development that scales without losing effectiveness. Entelechy’s structured frameworks provide consistency. Leaders in Singapore and Boston learn the same prescriptive tools  while allowing for cultural and business context adaptation.

The value: proven methodology that doesn’t require reinvention for each regional deployment, with track records like their 11-year Thermo Fisher partnership demonstrating sustained impact. These are precisely the kinds of implementation challenges Brandon Hall Group helps enterprises navigate through our strategic advisory services.

Mid-Market Organizations Seeking Enterprise-Quality Development

Companies in the 5,000-15,000 employee range often face a frustrating choice: generic training that doesn’t move the needle, or fully customized programs they can’t afford. Entelechy’s tiered model addresses this gap. Off-the-shelf or lightly customized programs deliver the same behavioral change focus that wins awards for Fortune 500 clients, at price points mid-market budgets can support.

Technology and Life Sciences Companies Managing Rapid Change

While Entelechy works across industries, their anchor relationships in technology (Qualcomm) and life sciences (Thermo Fisher) reveal a natural fit. These sectors face constant change that requires leaders who can adapt quickly while maintaining operational excellence.

Their structured tool approach helps: leaders have specific frameworks for navigating ambiguity rather than relying on general leadership principles that feel too abstract during crises.

Organizations Moving Beyond Training Compliance

Companies frustrated with leadership development that checks boxes but doesn’t change behavior find Entelechy’s approach refreshing. The focus on prescriptive tools and habit formation directly addresses the gap between “leaders attended the program” and “leaders actually operate differently.”

Companies Wanting Assessment-Development Integration

Organizations seeking to weave Wiley assessments into development programs rather than using them as standalone diagnostics benefit from Entelechy’s authorized provider status. The integration ensures assessment insights translate into specific behavioral practices rather than sitting in reports that leaders read once and forget.

Strategic Position: Specialist in Sustainable Change

Entelechy occupies a distinctive position in the leadership development market — they’re not competing on brand recognition or global scale, but on a specific capability: creating behavioral change that lasts beyond the program delivery period.

Their multi-year client relationships demonstrate this focus. Organizations don’t typically maintain 11-year partnerships with leadership development providers unless the programs continue delivering measurable value. That sustained impact comes from their structured methodology — prescriptive tools that become embedded in how leaders actually work.

The tiered delivery model they’re building represents thoughtful market positioning. Rather than choosing between boutique customization and scaled standardization, they’re offering both, meeting mid-market organizations where their budgets are while maintaining the program quality that wins awards at the enterprise level. For solution providers navigating similar strategic transitions, our provider-focused consulting services help translate proven capabilities into scalable market positioning.

Their expansion into AI-enabled reinforcement and coaching verticalization shows strategic thinking about how leadership development needs to evolve. Programs can’t remain isolated events. They need to extend into daily work—the moments when leaders face actual decisions, not hypothetical case studies.

For organizations evaluating leadership development partners, Entelechy presents an interesting alternative to both massive global consultancies and generic training vendors. They bring three decades of proven methodology focused specifically on behavioral change, with delivery models flexible enough to serve organizations at different scales and budget levels.

The post Entelechy Builds Leadership Behavioral Change</br> Into Daily Work appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Corporate training leaders face a persistent dilemma: enterprise-grade learning platforms demand enterprise-level budgets, yet mid-market organizations need the same depth of functionality to compete. This gap forces many companies into uncomfortable compromises, either adopting stripped-down solutions that limit their training capabilities or stretching budgets for features they may never fully utilize.

Brandon Hall Group recently met with the leadership team at Mundrisoft, a business consulting and IT services firm that’s been quietly building learning technology solutions for the past 14 years. What stood out was their positioning as a services-first organization that built SimpliTrain to solve implementation challenges they witnessed while developing custom solutions for clients like Microsoft and 3M. Their value proposition centers on delivering enterprise-grade functionality without requiring enterprise-grade implementation resources.

The Training Technology Buying Paradox

Mid-market companies seeking strong learning platforms face a fragmented market where powerful solutions often come with significant trade-offs. Understanding where established players excel and fall short helps explain why organizations continue searching for alternatives. This complexity is why many L&D leaders turn to Brandon Hall Group’s independent research and advisory support when evaluating technology decisions.

Here are some of the companies Mundrisoft is competing against:

Docebo delivers comprehensive AI-powered learning with impressive automation capabilities and extensive integrations. The platform excels at handling multiple learning audiences across employees, customers and partners from a single instance.

Absorb LMS offers strong reporting capabilities, intuitive course management, and flexible branding options that appeal to compliance-focused organizations.

Cornerstone OnDemand provides enterprise-scale talent management integration, positioning learning within broader HR and performance systems. It’s a comprehensive talent suite that connects learning data with succession planning, performance reviews and skills management.

360Learning emphasizes collaborative learning with strong peer-to-peer knowledge sharing and user-generated content capabilities. Best suited for organizations prioritizing social learning over comprehensive training operations.

LearnWorlds combines course creation with eCommerce functionality, serving both corporate training and course-selling use cases. Strong content authoring tools and sales features appeal to training companies monetizing their content.

What Makes SimpliTrain’s Approach Different

Mundrisoft’s architecture reflects their origin story as custom solution developers who identified recurring patterns across client implementations. Rather than building isolated capabilities, they’ve unified three traditionally separate systems — LMS, LXP, and TMS  — with integrated services.

Unified Platform Architecture

• A single platform combines self-paced learning (LMS), personalized learning experiences (LXP), and instructor-led training management (TMS) without requiring separate integrations.
• Multi-tenant architecture enables unlimited customer or partner portals with personalized branding and contained access controls.
• Organizations manage blended learning scenarios where virtual classes, physical sessions and on-demand content coexist within a single course structure.

Training Operations Built for Complex Delivery

• Instructor workload optimization tools provide real-time visibility into availability, scheduling conflicts and capacity utilization.
• Automated attendance tracking captures participation for virtual sessions while allowing manual entry for physical classrooms.
• Back-office automation handles venue management, session scheduling, and resource allocation for organizations running extensive instructor-led programs.

Flexible Data Architecture and Deployment Options

• The Learning Record Store (LRS) allows training leaders to add custom fields to user data as business requirements evolve, enabling more relevant analytics without technical intervention.
• The platform deploys on Azure, AWS, GCP, or private data centers based on client requirements rather than forcing specific infrastructure choices.
• Activity logging captures detailed learner interactions, creating data foundations for sophisticated reporting and analytics.

Services Integration as Core Differentiator

• Implementation, integration and ongoing support are delivered directly by the platform development team rather than third-party partner networks.
• Engineering resources are available for complex integrations with HRIS, CRM and other enterprise systems.
• Flat-rate pricing up to specified learner brackets removes friction for organizations with growth potential, eliminating concerns about incremental user costs.

Which Organizations Benefit Most

SimpliTrain’s architecture and pricing model create particularly strong fits for specific organizational profiles where training directly impacts revenue or where complex delivery requirements exceed typical LMS capabilities.

Professional training companies and academies. Organizations where training represents their primary revenue stream need both robust learning delivery and operational efficiency.

• E-learning content developers require flexible course structures, assessment capabilities, and seamless content delivery across multiple client organizations.
• Instructor-led training providers benefit from scheduling optimization, automated attendance, and instructor workload management that reduces administrative overhead.
• Certification programs leverage automated credential management, expiration tracking, and renewal workflows.

Extended enterprise training programs. Companies delivering education to customers, partners, or franchisees need branded, segregated learning environments with centralized management.

• SaaS companies providing customer education create dedicated portals with personalized content access and progress tracking.
• Franchise organizations maintain consistent training standards while allowing location-specific customization and reporting.
• Partner certification programs manage tiered access, compliance tracking, and performance analytics across diverse external audiences.

Mid-market organizations with enterprise training complexity. Companies requiring sophisticated training operations without proportional budgets for implementation and ongoing support.

• Manufacturers coordinating compliance training across multiple facilities benefit from location-based content access and automated enrollment by geography.
• Healthcare organizations managing continuing education requirements utilize certification tracking, automated reminders, and detailed compliance reporting.
• Technology companies balancing internal employee development with customer education consolidate previously separate systems.

Association and membership organizations. Member-based organizations monetizing education while maintaining engagement through learning programs.

• Professional associations offering continuing education credits combine eCommerce functionality with credential management.
• Industry groups providing member training leverage a multi-tenant architecture to serve diverse member organizations from a single platform.
• Certification bodies manage exam administration, credential issuance, and renewal cycles.

Organizations seeking services-included solutions. Companies lacking internal LMS expertise or dedicated learning technology teams who need implementation support beyond standard onboarding.

• Growing companies anticipate scaling training programs but lack resources for complex integrations with existing HR and business systems.
• Organizations transitioning from legacy platforms require migration support, data transfer, and configuration assistance.
• Companies with unique requirements need customization capabilities backed by development resources rather than workarounds.

Strategic Positioning for Growth

Mundrisoft occupies an interesting market position; they’ve built enterprise capabilities while maintaining mid-market accessibility through services integration and flexible pricing. Their 14-year history of developing custom solutions for major corporations provides technical credibility, but brand recognition lags behind established LMS vendors. This is where strategic partnerships with research organizations and participation in industry recognition programs like our Excellence in Technology Awards become valuable for emerging providers seeking to build credibility with corporate buyers.

The services-first approach creates genuine differentiation in a market where implementation complexity often determines success more than platform features. Organizations accustomed to multi-vendor implementations where platform providers, integration partners and support resources operate independently may find consolidated accountability appealing. The question becomes whether Mundrisoft can scale this model as they move beyond training academies and professional development companies into broader corporate markets.

The AI roadmap warrants attention. While Mundrisoft has deployed AI-powered assessment creation and is developing content generation capabilities, they’ll need to accelerate agent-based functionality to meet emerging market expectations. Enterprise buyers increasingly expect AI assistants that operate across the platform, automating administrative tasks and providing contextual support for both learners and administrators. Their stated intention to avoid “AI for AI’s sake” demonstrates thoughtful product development, but they can’t let perfectionism slow essential innovation.

For mid-market organizations evaluating learning platforms, SimpliTrain merits consideration alongside more established vendors, particularly for companies with complex training delivery requirements, extended enterprise programs or limited internal LMS expertise. The combined platform-and-services model addresses real pain points, assuming Mundrisoft can maintain service quality while scaling the customer base.

Organizations facing technology selection decisions can benefit from our technology selection and strategy consulting services, which provide benchmarking data and vendor evaluation frameworks based on real-world implementations. For L&D practitioners seeking to build their evaluation expertise, our professional certification programs offer structured learning pathways that cover technology assessment methodologies alongside broader talent development strategies.

The learning technology market has room for providers who solve the mid-market dilemma differently than traditional vendors. Success will depend on whether Mundrisoft can build brand recognition to match their technical capabilities and whether their services model scales without compromising the hands-on support that defines their value proposition. For solution providers navigating similar challenges, our Smartchoice® Preferred Provider Program offers pathways to establish credibility and reach decision-makers evaluating technology investments.

The post How Mundrisoft Built an LMS That Offers Services That Most Enterprise Platforms Don’t appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Almost every sales training company now claims to have AI. Most have added a chatbot interface to their existing platform and called it innovation. The technology might generate decent prospecting emails or summarize recorded calls, but it doesn’t fundamentally change how sellers think, decide or execute in real sales situations. It’s automation dressed up as transformation.

The gap between marketing claims and actual capability has never been wider. Generic large language models can produce plausible-sounding sales advice, but they lack the depth to coach a seller through a complex sales challenge or help them choose the right strategy when a deal stalls. This is precisely the kind of disconnect we help organizations navigate through Brandon Hall Group’s corporate advisory services, separating vendor marketing from architectures that drive capability development.

I recently spoke with Michelle Vazzana, Chief Innovation Officer at Imparta, about their i-Coach AI platform because I wanted to understand how a 28-year-old sales training company was approaching AI differently. I emerged believing Imparta has built something genuinely different: an agentic AI system that orchestrates multiple specialized agents, each trained on specific sales disciplines, working together to provide personalized coaching that adapts to individual sellers’ contexts, deal stages and skill gaps. The company grounds everything in proprietary research, including their 3D Sales Agility Methodology, based on extensive research, including over 4,000 actual deals, and embeds directly into sellers’ existing workflows.

Before diving into what makes Imparta’s approach distinctive, it’s worth examining the broader market and why most AI implementations in sales enablement are missing the mark.

The Sales Enablement AI Problem Nobody’s Solving

Sales organizations face a persistent challenge: training rarely translates into changed behavior, a fact validated by Brandon Hall Group research and case studies from our Excellence Awards program. The AI wave promised to solve this through personalized, in-the-moment coaching. Instead, most implementations have created new problems:

Generic responses that don’t understand selling. General-purpose LLMs like ChatGPT can generate sales emails or answer questions about negotiation tactics, but they lack deep sales methodology frameworks and do not truly understand the nuances of selling.

Reactive tools that wait for sellers to remember to use them. Given that salespeople are notoriously low adopters of technology, building AI that requires sellers to actively choose to engage guarantees minimal adoption.

Fragmented experiences across disconnected platforms. Sales teams now have AI embedded in Teams, Copilot, Salesforce, Seismic, Gong, and half a dozen other tools. Each operates independently, with no shared context. Sellers must remember which AI to use for which task.

Superficial coaching that prioritizes efficiency over effectiveness. Many AI implementations focus on automating content generation or summarizing calls quickly rather than developing seller capabilities.

How Competitors Approach Sales Training

Richardson Sales Performance (including Challenger) talks about sales agility, but hasn’t published the same depth of research that Imparta has on how high performers shift strategies based on buyer context. Richardson has scale and brand recognition, but their methodology does not seem adaptive.

Corporate Visions excels at messaging and value proposition development, with strong research backing. Their focus remains narrower than Imparta’s comprehensive skills library covering sales, customer success and leadership.

Miller Heiman (now part of Korn Ferry) has a well-established but more traditional selling framework, focusing on stakeholder mapping and blue sheets; it’s less integrated with digital platforms and AI-driven coaching.

Gong and Chorus analyze calls and provide insights, but they’re primarily diagnostic tools rather than developmental ones.

Highspot and Seismic embed AI for content recommendations, but their primary value remains content management rather than capability development.

What’s missing across most solutions is the combination of deep sales methodology, proactive agentic architecture, workflow integration and personalized adaptation that changes seller behavior.

What Imparta Built Differently

Imparta’s i-Coach AI^TM distinguishes itself through several architectural choices:

Agentic orchestration rather than monolithic AI. Instead of a single chatbot, i-Coach AI operates through multiple specialized agents, each expert in disciplines like call analysis, deal planning, account strategy, content generation or adaptive coaching. A central orchestrator determines which agent should handle each request, passes context between agents and ensures coherent collaboration. Users interact with one interface while specialized expertise is activated behind the scenes.

Multi-pass RAG system grounded in proprietary research. Rather than relying on generic LLM training, Imparta feeds its AI with a proprietary Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system drawing on 1.5 million words of sales intellectual property, including research from their Sales Agility Code (analysis of 4,000+ deals studying how high performers differ), the 3D Advantage framework (examining insight, influence, and trust), and 180+ skills modules covering C-suite selling to customer success to sales coaching.

Proactive agents that initiate coaching. Imparta built agents that reach out to sellers rather than waiting to be used. The Nudger agent follows up on coaching conversations to drive accountability. The Performance Analyzer connects to CRM data and alerts managers when deals transition to stages warranting coaching. The upcoming Insight Generator will scan feeds for market intelligence relevant to specific sellers.

Embedded workflow integration. i-Coach AI is available through multiple access points: within Imparta’s i-Coach iLXP platform, embedded in Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics 365, accessible through Microsoft Teams, or via a direct web link. Organizations can also embed it into existing tech stacks through an iFrame. Most importantly, though, Imparta’s agents can be orchestrated alongside a company’s other agents to provide a single point of entry for AI across the whole tech stack.

What Makes This Approach Work in Practice

Call analysis that drives development. When a seller uploads a transcript, i-Coach AI identifies where in the buyer journey the conversation occurred, assesses which competencies matter at that stage, rates the seller’s performance with specific evidence, and links directly to learning modules addressing gaps. Managers get actionable insights into capability development needs.

Role-plays grounded in methodology. The role-player agent conducts practice conversations based on real selling frameworks. It adapts based on the seller’s demonstrated skills, provides detailed feedback and simulates different buyer personas at various journey stages.

Coaching conversations that build thinking skills. When a seller brings a challenge to the Adaptive Coach, it doesn’t immediately offer solutions. It asks questions designed to deepen the seller’s own analysis. This approach, grounded in the i-GROW coaching model, develops seller judgment and strategic thinking.

Integration of assessment, learning, application and reinforcement. The system connects competency assessment to personalized learning recommendations, provides application support through deal planning and content generation agents, and drives reinforcement through proactive follow-up. Rather than discrete tools, it’s a continuous development cycle.

Organizations That Benefit Most

Enterprise sales teams selling complex solutions. Companies with 100+ salespeople selling to multiple stakeholders over extended cycles benefit most from Imparta’s methodology depth and comprehensive skills coverage.

Organizations struggling with training transfer. If behaviors don’t change after training programs, Imparta’s continuous reinforcement model and in-workflow coaching address the fundamental problem: learning doesn’t stick without application, feedback, and sustained accountability. Through our work helping corporate clients optimize learning strategies, we consistently see organizations invest heavily in training events but struggle to create sustained reinforcement mechanisms that drive behavior change.

Sales and enablement leaders needing visibility into capability development. Dashboards and analytics give managers insight into team competencies, what learning is consumed, how skills progress, and which interventions drive improvement.

Companies seeking AI consolidation. Organizations struggling with fragmented AI implementations can use Imparta’s orchestration approach to create a unified sales enablement layer coordinating previously disconnected capabilities.

Global organizations requiring multi-language support. Imparta’s platform supports multiple languages for voice capabilities, with broader language support for text interactions, offering 180+ skills modules across different delivery modalities.

Making Sense of the Sales Enablement AI Landscape

For organizations evaluating solutions, the proliferation of AI-labeled products creates genuine selection challenges. Marketing claims outpace capabilities, architectural differences hide beneath similar-sounding features, and proof of effectiveness remains elusive.

This is where independent research becomes valuable. Brandon Hall Group’s vendor research services help solutions providers articulate genuine differentiators and strategic positioning, while our corporate advisory services help organizations understand which architectural approaches align with their specific challenges.

The questions that matter aren’t “does it use AI?” but rather:

• What specific problems does the AI architecture solve, and are those your problems?
• Is the AI grounded in research-based methodology relevant to your sales context?
• Does it integrate into existing workflows or require behavior change?
• Is it proactive in engaging sellers, or dependent on voluntary usage?
• Does it develop capabilities or just automate tasks?
• Can you measure impact on seller behavior and results, or just engagement metrics?

For deeper analysis of the sales training and enablement technology market, including how vendors compare across criteria relevant to your situation, the Brandon Hall Group Institute provides access to our research library, analyst briefings, and strategic advisory support.

The Strategic Bet Imparta Is Making

Having covered sales training and enablement technology for over 25 years, I see Imparta making a contrarian bet: that competitive advantage comes from methodological depth and architectural sophistication rather than being first to market with basic AI features.

While competitors rushed to add chatbot interfaces, Imparta spent two years building agentic architecture, developing RAG systems grounded in proprietary research, and figuring out how to make AI genuinely proactive. While others focused on efficiency, Imparta focused on effectiveness (better strategic thinking, improved competency development, changed seller behavior).

Early results suggest the bet is working. Organizations implementing i-Coach AI are seeing engagement levels far exceeding typical sales training technology adoption rates, driven largely by proactive agent functionality. Call analysis capabilities give managers actionable development insights they’ve never had. Integration into existing workflows (particularly Salesforce) reduces friction to near-zero.

Looking forward, the question isn’t whether AI will transform sales enablement. That’s settled. The question is whether that transformation will be superficial (incremental efficiency gains from generic chatbots) or substantive (fundamental improvement in how sellers develop capabilities and apply them in context). Imparta is betting on the latter.

For organizations serious about capability development rather than training consumption metrics, that distinction matters more than any feature checklist could capture.

The post How Imparta Built an AI Sales Coach</br> That Changes Seller Behavior appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Contact centers have a talent crisis. With attrition rates hovering between 35-45% and replacement costs reaching upward of $15,000 per agent, organizations can’t afford to treat workforce management as an afterthought. Yet many do exactly that, deploying all-in-one platforms that promise everything but excel at little.

I recently met with Lon Koontz, Tina Ghanem, and Alain Mowad from Aspect Software to understand why their customers — including several “boomerang” clients who left for integrated CCaaS platforms — keep returning. What emerged was a story about outcomes that competitors struggle to match.

This analysis reflects our ongoing work with both technology providers seeking to refine their market positioning and corporate members evaluating workforce engagement platforms for their contact centers.

Aspect’s recent history matters. After merging with Noble Systems to form Alvaria in 2021, the company split back out in 2024 to reclaim its brand and focus. Where Aspect previously faced constraints tied to Alvaria’s ecosystem, it can now integrate freely with any contact center platform, including direct competitors like Genesys and NICE.

More critically, the independence unlocked R&D investment. Roughly 43% of Aspect’s team now focuses on research and development. Combined with recent debt restructuring that freed up capital, Aspect is positioning itself as a pure-play Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) specialist while competitors spread resources across broader portfolios.

Where Competitors Stand

Understanding Aspect’s value requires context on the competitive landscape. Through our ongoing technology selection advisory work with contact center leaders, we’ve identified clear patterns in how major WEM platforms deliver — and where they disappoint:

• NICE CXone WEM offers comprehensive tools spanning workforce management, quality assurance, and AI-powered forecasting. Suite breadth comes at the cost of depth in specific areas like complex union scheduling.
• Genesys Cloud WEM features native integration within the Genesys Cloud platform, which simplifies deployment for existing customers. It features AI-powered forecasting with 25+ machine learning models, but has limited flexibility for organizations not using Genesys as their primary CCaaS.
• Verint Workforce Management features high satisfaction scores and is pursuing CX automation with specialized bots. It gets criticized for an outdated user interface and limited customization options.
• Calabrio ONE is a dedicated WEM specialist with unified suite architecture, strong analytics integration and the recent Echo AI acquisition for conversational intelligence. It is primarily focused on the mid-market segment, with less enterprise-scale proven in complex environments.

What Aspect Does Differently

The briefing revealed three technical differentiators that explain why customers return:

Complex Compliance at Scale

Aspect bakes security and compliance into platform architecture rather than layering it on afterward. The system encodes complex labor rules, such as union agreements, working time regulations, overtime thresholds, minor worker protections and meal breaks, and enforces them consistently across deployments. One customer chose Aspect specifically because other platforms couldn’t handle their union requirements. Another financial services organization saved $2.3 million annually through improved compliance and scheduling accuracy.

Real Intelligence vs. AI Theater

While competitors trumpet generative AI and chatbots, Aspect is training machine learning models on decades of workforce data. Their latest release introduces AI-powered call volume forecasting as the first output of this work, with automatic schedule updates scheduled to follow soon.

Director of Product Tina Ghanem explained their approach: “We’re using our data, the wealth of information we have within the years we have been around, and we’re layering through different machine learning models to take our data to help our customers make decisions faster in real time.”

The practical application: Instead of supervisors managing software, the software surfaces the right decision at the right moment based on adherence patterns, volume fluctuations, and historical performance. A forecast dashboard lets planners compare statistical models against machine learning models, with multi-model forecasting rolling out quarterly.

White Glove Implementation That Actually Works

The phrase “white glove service” appears in most vendor presentations. Aspect’s version means something specific: concierge onboarding, continuous enablement, and proactive support that treats implementation as the beginning rather than the end of the relationship.

Customers report results that validate the approach:

• Asurion achieved 62% engagement in mobile scheduling while saving 2,500 administrative hours
• A Fortune 500 company reduced average handle time by 36%, driving $9.5 million in annual savings

Who Should Consider Aspect

Based on the briefing and customer examples, Aspect serves specific organization types well. Our benchmarking assessments with contact center operations reveal these ideal fit profiles:

Enterprise contact centers with complex scheduling needs. Strategic-tier customers in financial services, telecommunications and healthcare benefit from Aspect’s ability to manage multi-site operations, diverse skill requirements and regulatory complexity. If your scheduling rules require a legal team to interpret, Aspect’s encoded compliance matters.

Organizations navigating union environments. Airlines, utilities and public sector organizations with collective bargaining agreements need WEM that understands shift bidding, seniority rules and grievance prevention. Aspect’s specific strength here differentiates it from CCaaS vendors treating union scheduling as an edge case.

Boomerang candidates from all-in-one platforms. Companies that implemented systems believing “integrated is better” often discover that integrated doesn’t mean comprehensive. If your current CCaaS platform’s WEM module delivers surface-level functionality without the depth your planners need, Aspect’s platform-agnostic approach lets you add best-of-breed WEM without replacing your entire infrastructure.

Back-office operations expanding beyond contact centers. Aspect is increasingly serving frontline workers in warehouses, retail operations and other shift-based environments. Organizations looking to unify workforce management across customer-facing and operational teams find value in Aspect’s flexibility beyond traditional contact center applications.

High-attrition environments prioritizing agent experience. Companies implementing Aspect League (gamification) report 60% improvements in employee retention. If your replacement costs justify investment in engagement tools, Aspect’s employee-centric design addresses attrition through technology rather than just policy.

The Positioning Challenge

For all its technical strength, Aspect faces a messaging problem. This is where our work with technology providers becomes valuable. Through our advisory services and Solution Provider Profiles, we help vendors translate technical capabilities into messaging that resonates with buyers facing specific operational challenges.

Aspect’s opportunity lies in articulating more clearly what makes them stand out:

• Making union scheduling manageable instead of a compliance nightmare.
• Enabling boomerang customers to return without ripping out their CCaaS platform.
• Delivering ROI that’s measurable in weeks rather than quarters.
• Training AI models on 50 years of workforce data instead of chasing generative AI trends.

What This Means for the Market

Aspect’s approach represents a bet on specialization. While NICE and Genesys pursue platform consolidation and Verint pivots toward CX automation, Aspect is doubling down on workforce management depth. The strategy works when:

• Organizations value best-of-breed over integrated.
• Workforce complexity requires dedicated expertise.
• Implementation quality matters as much as feature lists.
• Long-term partnership trumps transactional software relationships.

It struggles when:

• Buyers prioritize vendor consolidation over capability.
• Marketing volume outweighs technical differentiation.
• IT preferences favor single-vendor architectures.
• Budget owners don’t distinguish between WEM solutions.

The “boomerang customer” phenomenon — organizations leaving for integrated platforms, discovering limitations and returning to Aspect — suggests the market undervalues WEM specialization until complexity forces recognition. Aspect’s challenge is reaching buyers before they learn this lesson the expensive way.

The post Why Contact Centers Keep Coming Back:</br> Inside Aspect’s Workforce Management Focus appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Organizations spend millions on learning technology, yet frontline turnover remains stubbornly high and skill gaps continue widening. The culprit isn’t lack of content; it’s lack of engagement. Most digital learning platforms still treat training like a compliance checkbox rather than a competitive advantage.

I recently sat down with Huw Newton-Hill, General Manager of Attensi North America, and Jon Fitts, Senior Simulation Designer, to understand how they’re tackling this differently. With 275 enterprise customers and net revenue retention consistently above industry benchmarks, Attensi has built something worth examining: a game-based learning platform that achieves four training repetitions per user on average, a metric virtually unheard of in corporate learning environments.

The Confidence Gap in Corporate Training

The challenge Attensi addresses isn’t about knowledge transfer; it’s about confidence building. When a global restaurant chain reduced staff turnover by 58%, the insight was that they lacked confidence in executing core service behaviors under pressure. When a retailer increased basket size by 5% through till-side recommendation training, it was because they were not confident enough to make recommendations during customer interactions.

This distinction matters because it shifts the conversation from content delivery to behavior change — specifically, the COM-B model of behavior change that requires three elements: capability (knowledge), opportunity (practice) and motivation. Traditional digital learning handles capability reasonably well. Attensi’s differentiation lies in addressing all three through game psychology and simulation.

Through our Excellence Awards program and research on the Brandon Hall Group Institute website, we’ve analyzed hundreds of case studies from organizations implementing learning technology. The submissions that demonstrate measurable business impact consistently share one trait: they solve for behavior change, not just knowledge acquisition. Attensi’s approach aligns with this pattern.

Competitive Landscape: Who Plays in This Space

The learning technology market segments differently depending on workforce type and training objectives. Here’s where Attensi encounters competition:

Axonify focuses on frontline workforce training with microlearning and reinforcement mechanics. Their platform emphasizes daily knowledge reinforcement and manager insights, but they’re increasingly positioning toward holistic workforce management rather than deep training capabilities.

Walkme and Whatfix operate in digital adoption, providing in-app guidance and workflow support. They excel at just-in-time help for software systems rather than complex skill development or behavioral training scenarios.

Mursion and ETU Simulation compete in people skills training through avatar-based simulations. Both offer conversational practice scenarios, particularly for professional services and healthcare. Their models typically require human operators behind avatars (Mursion) or more structured scenario frameworks.

Praxis Labs and Talespin play in VR/immersive learning, targeting soft skills like bias awareness and leadership. They deliver high-fidelity visual experiences that work well for specific use cases. The trade-off comes in deployment complexity, hardware requirements, and narrower applicability compared to platform approaches that span multiple training modalities.

Traditional LMS/LXP Vendors (Cornerstone, Degreed, others) offer game mechanics as features within broader talent platforms, but typically lack the depth of purpose-built simulation engines.

Organizations evaluating providers in this space often benefit from independent analysis of vendor capabilities against specific use cases. Our advisory services help learning leaders assess technology options based on their workforce characteristics and business objectives rather than feature checklists.

What Makes Attensi’s Technology Different

Attensi’s RealTalk product demonstrates its architectural approach to AI-powered simulations. Unlike many conversational simulators that simply re-skin ChatGPT, RealTalk uses multiple AI agents working in parallel:

• Pedagogical layer ensures learning objectives drive the conversation flow, not just natural language processing.
• Guardrail systems keep conversations on track without feeling restrictive, gently steering learners back when they veer off topic.
• Personality and behavior engines give AI characters consistent, realistic responses tuned to specific coaching frameworks or behavioral models.
• Real-time assessment evaluates learner responses against rubrics, providing line-by-line feedback on what worked, what didn’t, and why.

The practical result: learners can have genuinely different conversations each time they practice, with AI characters that surprise them (as Newton-Hill noted, having a simulated employee say “I feel like my team is coming behind my back” during a coaching scenario).

No-Code Platform Architecture

Creator, Attensi’s authoring platform that customers like Starbucks and YMCA use directly, spans a spectrum:

• Quick-build mode generates conversational scenarios in three minutes by selecting characters, coaching frameworks and auto-populating objectives.
• Advanced design mode provides granular control over every design parameter, conversation stage progression, assessment rubrics and feedback mechanisms.
• Modality flexibility supports everything from 3D environment simulations (stores, oil rigs, ships) to desktop workflow simulations (emails, Excel, scheduling tools) to mobile-first game mechanics.

This architecture enables what Attensi calls their “high-impact” and “fast” product suite, using the same underlying platform to serve both immersive, weeks-long design projects and rapid content deployment for product launches or compliance updates.

 Skills Assessment Backend (Coming Q1 2026)

Attensi collects granular behavioral data — every click, every decision, across an average of four training repetitions per user. They’re building a skills assessment layer that validates actual demonstrated skills rather than just completion rates. The system will:

• Track skill improvement across repetitions, showing decision-making evolution.
• Map to customer skills ontologies and frameworks.
• Provide skills validation that plugs into broader talent intelligence systems.

The challenge Newton-Hill identified: most learning organizations don’t yet know how to use this data effectively. They understand ROI studies, but struggle with translating skills data into workforce planning. This gap between data availability and utilization is something we address through our advisory services, helping organizations define what success looks like before implementing new technology.

Who Should Consider Attensi

Frontline-Heavy Organizations (Retail, Hospitality, Leisure)

Companies in these industries use Attensi where confidence-building matters more than knowledge transfer. Key benefits:

• Mobile-first delivery that resonates with younger, part-time workforces.
• Reduced new-hire turnover (particularly in the first 90 days) through confidence-building onboarding.
• Measurable operational metrics (basket size increases, service scores) tied directly to training.

Industry fit: Multi-location retailers, quick-service restaurants, hospitality groups, membership organizations

Professional Services Firms

Organizations with 5,000+ employees with dispersed consultant populations use Attensi for client-facing skills that require nuanced judgment. These organizations need:

• Sophisticated conversation simulations using firm-specific frameworks (like the EPIC coaching model).
• Customizable scenarios reflecting actual client situations.
• Granular control over design parameters to meet internal quality standards.

Manufacturing and Industrial

Companies in industries like energy and consumer appliances, which train on complex equipment or safety-critical processes, benefit from 3D environmental simulations without VR hardware requirements. Specific applications:

• Plant walkthrough simulations for new operators.
• Equipment operation scenarios before hands-on training.
• Safety protocol practice in realistic but risk-free environments.

Organizations With Non-Employee Workforces

Critical factors:

• Intrinsic motivation through game mechanics since compliance isn’t enforceable.
• Quick engagement that respects non-employee time constraints.
• Clear performance impact (sales lift) that justifies continued use.

Companies Requiring Rapid Content Deployment

Organizations needing both high-impact programs and quick-turn content (compliance updates, product launches) benefit from the dual-platform approach:

• Self-service authoring for learning teams to deploy content rapidly
• AI-powered tools to convert PDFs into bite-sized learning in minutes
• LXP integration (Attensi Engage) for unified delivery

Strategic Positioning and Market Outlook

Attensi occupies an interesting position: specialized enough to deliver genuine differentiation in game-based learning, yet platform-oriented enough to serve diverse industries and use cases. Their 70% growth from existing customers suggests strong product-market fit once organizations experience the approach.

The challenge ahead is one Newton-Hill acknowledged directly: helping customers understand how to leverage the behavioral data they’re collecting. As learning organizations face increased pressure to demonstrate business impact, Attensi’s granular data on skill development and decision-making improvement becomes more valuable, but only if customers know how to use it.

The AI-powered simulation space is attracting competition, with numerous vendors offering conversational simulators at low price points. Attensi’s institutional expertise creates a moat that purely technical offerings lack. The question is whether that expertise advantage remains defensible as AI capabilities commoditize.

For solution providers navigating this evolving market, understanding how buyers evaluate these capabilities matters. Our diverse offerings for tech providers help vendors position their offerings effectively by providing market intelligence on what corporate learning organizations actually need versus what they say they need.

For organizations where frontline confidence, behavioral consistency or client-facing skills drive business outcomes, Attensi merits serious evaluation. Their approach works best when training objectives connect directly to measurable business metrics and when organizations value engagement data beyond simple completion rates. The four-repetition average they achieve suggests they’ve solved a problem most learning vendors struggle with: getting people to actually want to train.

The post When Game Mechanics Drive Business Results:</br> Inside Attensi’s Approach to Corporate Learning appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Most recruitment process outsourcing providers talk about partnership. NXTThing RPO actually built software to prove it works. After decades of managing hiring for companies, they’ve taken the unusual step of productizing their internal technology — creating Personegy, a high-volume hiring platform that combines AI automation with what they call “candidate care.”

I recently sat down with CEO Terry Terhark and President Jamie Minier to understand this evolution from pure-play RPO to service-plus-product provider. I was struck by their 45% year-over-year growth (bucking industry trends) and how they’ve structured their offering around a fundamental insight: the best hiring technology emerges from actually doing the hiring.

Why This Matters Now

I’ve spent the past decade watching recruitment technology vendors struggle with a consistent problem: they build what sounds good on a demo, not what survives contact with 10,000 applications in four weeks. NXTThing flipped this equation. NXTThing’s leaders have been managing frontline hiring at scale for 25+ years, which means Personegy was forged in the chaos of real-world, high-velocity recruiting operations.

Their growth trajectory tells the story. While many RPO providers contracted during the recent market turbulence, NXTThing expanded. The differentiator? They’re not just selling hours and headcount; they’re offering configured solutions backed by technology they control.

This pattern aligns with what we’re seeing across our research in talent acquisition — the most successful implementations combine strong technology with human expertise, rather than choosing one over the other.

Reading the Competitive Landscape

The high-volume hiring technology space has become crowded, with vendors approaching the problem from different angles. Understanding where each player excels helps clarify NXTThing’s positioning.

Paradox (Olivia AI Assistant) offers conversational AI that automates candidate screening, scheduling and basic questions via text/chat. It is designed for high-volume hourly hiring with mobile-first experience and enterprise-focused pricing.

Phenom Intelligent Talent Experience is a comprehensive talent CRM with AI-powered candidate matching and personalized career sites. It is strong on talent intelligence and building candidate pipelines over time, with enterprise-only pricing.

Fountain is purpose-built for frontline workforce recruitment with mobile-optimized applications. It excels at managing surges in hiring volume across multiple locations, with limited functionality beyond hiring.

Eightfold AI provides sophisticated talent intelligence, analyzing 1.6+ million career profiles. It is best suited for strategic talent planning rather than tactical high-volume execution.

Shaker Recruitment Marketing is a full-service recruitment marketing agency specializing in employer branding and attraction. It is a service-based model rather than a self-service technology platform.

3 Technology Innovations Worth Understanding

Personegy’s architecture reflects lessons from managing millions of applications. Three capabilities stand out:

Bidirectional ATS integration. Most CRM tools force recruiters to toggle between systems. Personegy maintains two-way data flow with major ATS platforms, letting recruiters stay in their native environment. The practical impact: recruiters using Phenom often complain they “can’t stay in my ATS and do all the things.” NXTThing solved this by ensuring updates flow both directions in real-time.

Dual scoring system: AI match plus weighted pre-screen. Here’s where they balance automation with legal defensibility. The AI match score helps surface candidates from the database (useful for nurturing), but advancement decisions rely on weighted pre-screen scores based on factual qualifications. For example, if a client requires three years of customer experience and a bachelor’s degree in a specific city, that’s an 85% match — no AI interpretation, just Boolean logic. This gives organizations the efficiency of automation with the audit trail compliance teams require.

AI recruiter assistant (launching version 2). Rather than replacing recruiters, this feature guides their daily priorities:

• Flags red requisitions requiring immediate attention.
• Suggests job description improvements based on performance data.
• Identifies bottlenecks (five candidates stuck at interview stage).
• Automates follow-up communications to hiring managers.
• Triggers candidate sourcing when flow drops below threshold.

The assistant operates on workflow intelligence. It analyzes patterns across thousands of requisitions to identify what typically causes delays.

Organizations That Need This Approach

Personegy’s sweet spot reveals itself in specific operational contexts:

Multi-location retail/hospitality operators. Companies managing 50+ locations with constant turnover benefit from the combination of technology and service. The platform handles automated screening and scheduling, while NXTThing’s candidate care team provides human support when applicants get stuck. Regional visibility into hiring pipelines helps operators understand which locations need intervention.

Manufacturing operations with seasonal surges. Organizations that swing from 200 to 2,000 hires quarterly need platforms that scale without breaking. Personegy’s burst capacity, combined with NXTThing’s staffing model, handles volume spikes that would overwhelm purely self-service tools. The automated shift selection and verbal offer features compress time-to-start from weeks to days.

Healthcare systems managing frontline and clinical roles. The ability to configure different hiring workflows within one platform matters when you’re simultaneously hiring certified nursing assistants (high volume, quick decision) and specialized clinicians (longer cycle, more screening). The dual scoring system lets organizations automate the former while maintaining human judgment on the latter.

Companies dissatisfied with pure-play technology vendors. If your current ATS or CRM creates more work than it eliminates, NXTThing’s service-led approach provides a safety net. You’re not just buying software. You are getting a team that’s managed hiring at scale and knows where automation breaks down. Their candidate care offering essentially functions as professional services, built into the platform rather than charged separately.

For organizations evaluating whether this approach fits their needs, Brandon Hall Group’s advisory services can help assess the trade-offs between pure-play technology and service-integrated solutions, taking into account your specific hiring volume, geographic distribution, and internal team capabilities.

Strategic Positioning: Where NXTThing Stands

Three observations about their market position:

• They have made a calculated bet that service-led product beats pure-play technology in high-volume hiring. In our Excellence Awards program, we consistently see that winning organizations credit their success to vendors who provide more than software; they provide partnership. NXTThing bundles both, which helps to explain their retention rates and expansion growth.
• NXThing is building from actual operational requirements rather than market perception. Personegy’s roadmap — moving from bolt-on CRM to standalone ATS with job broadcasting and offer management — follows their clients’ requests to consolidate systems. This organic evolution contrasts with vendors who chase feature parity through acquisition or rushed development.
• Their RPO background creates an interesting go-to-market challenge. Technology buyers often discount RPO providers as software vendors, assuming their product will be secondary to their service business. This is exactly the type of positioning challenge where Brandon Hall Group’s Smartchoice® Preferred Provider Program helps vendors craft messaging that resonates with buyers, establishing credibility beyond traditional category boundaries.

The competitive landscape suggests NXTThing is right to position around configuration flexibility and service integration. Paradox and Fountain win on pure automation efficiency but struggle when organizations need human escalation paths. Phenom offers sophisticated intelligence but at enterprise complexity and cost. Eightfold excels at strategic workforce planning but wasn’t designed for tactical, high-volume execution. Shaker provides marketing expertise but requires ongoing agency engagement rather than owned technology.

NXTThing sits at the intersection — technology capable enough to automate repetitive tasks, service-integrated enough to handle exceptions, and priced for organizations that aren’t Fortune 500 enterprises.

Looking Ahead: The Critical Question

Here’s what I’m watching: Can NXTThing successfully market technology while maintaining their service DNA? Their product roadmap is ambitious (versions 2 and 3 by year-end), which suggests confidence in their technical capabilities. The upcoming features — self-service career site builder, conversational voice apply, advanced AI chat — put them in direct competition with pure-play technology vendors

But they have one advantage those vendors don’t: They’re still doing the work. Every day, they’re managing hundreds of thousands of applications for clients. Every integration challenge, every candidate drop-off point, every recruiter frustration — they see it in real-time across dozens of implementations.

For organizations tired of explaining their hiring reality to vendors who’ve never managed a hiring surge, NXTThing offers something increasingly rare: people who understand your problem because they’re solving it for themselves, just at scale.

For NXTThing, the path forward involves not just building great technology, but telling that story effectively. The case studies they’re building — 15,000 annual hires at one company, expansion with a major insurer, multi-location operations at scale — provide the proof points buyers need. Recognition through programs like Brandon Hall Group’s Excellence in Technology Awards help establish their credibility as a technology vendor.

Want to learn more about how organizations are balancing AI automation with human touch in talent acquisition? Explore Brandon Hall Group’s research on emerging practices in high-volume hiring.

The post When RPO Providers Build Their Own Technology:</br> The NXTThing Story appeared first on Brandon Hall Group.

Every talent acquisition leader I speak with tells me they are working hard to optimize their hiring process. They’ve invested in modern applicant tracking systems, built strong employer brands, and trained their recruiters. Yet when I ask about their agency relationships, I get a different story — one involving scattered contracts, rogue hiring managers working with friends who recruit, mysterious fees, and a general sense that they’re paying too much for too little control.

I recently sat down with Brin McCagg, CEO and founder of RecruitiFi, to understand how they address this challenge. The company has been quietly building something unusual in the talent acquisition technology space: a platform that treats agency recruiting like a marketplace problem rather than a vendor management problem. This briefing comes at an interesting time. RecruitiFi has been expanding its contingent workforce capabilities while pursuing deeper integrations with major ATS platforms, positioning itself as an embedded solution rather than another standalone system.

Why This Problem Exists

For permanent hires from agency recruiters, the core issue is straightforward: most organizations hire 95% of their people through traditional channels such as job boards, career sites and employee referrals. But for that remaining 4-5% of hard-to-fill roles, they turn to contingent agency recruiters. These might be technical roles in hot markets, leadership positions requiring discreet searches, or openings in new geographies where the company lacks presence.

The problem compounds because each agency relationship typically means:

• Separate contracts and terms negotiated individually
• Different fee structures ranging from 15% to 30% of first-year salary
• No visibility into which agencies are actually performing
• Rogue hiring managers engaging recruiters without HR involvement
• Payment chaos for accounts payable teams juggling hundreds of invoices

For contract/temp workers, which companies are increasingly reliant on,  the situation often proves worse — spreadsheet management, workers being billed who aren’t actually working, and no systematic way to evaluate agency performance. In Brandon Hall Group’s advisory work with enterprise members, this consistently ranks among the top three operational pain points that TA leaders cite. But it’s the one they’re least likely to address systematically.

The Current Landscape

Several vendors have attempted to solve pieces of this problem, with varying approaches:

Beeline and Fieldglass (SAP): The enterprise heavyweights in vendor management systems (VMS), both platforms focus primarily on contingent workforce management. They offer robust functionality for large organizations but require significant implementation time and resources.

Workday VNDLY (formerly VNDLY): Following Workday’s acquisition, VNDLY has integrated more tightly with Workday’s core HCM platform. The system handles contingent workforce management effectively for Workday customers but primarily serves the Fortune 500 segment.

Eightfold AI: Approaches the problem from a talent intelligence angle, using AI to match candidates with opportunities. While powerful for internal talent mobility and direct sourcing, it doesn’t solve the specific challenges of managing external agency relationships, fee structures, and payment processes.

Bullhorn: Serves as an ATS specifically built for staffing agencies themselves — not the companies hiring them.

GoCo and similar HRIS platforms: Some provide basic vendor management capabilities as part of broader HR platforms, but lack the depth of functionality needed for sophisticated agency relationship management, particularly around performance tracking and AI-driven agency matching.

The landscape fragmentation we’re seeing here reflects a broader pattern in HR technology: established enterprise platforms handle the high-volume, standardized processes well, but struggle with edge cases that still represent significant cost and risk. When we conduct technology selection advisory projects for clients evaluating TA solutions, agency management capabilities rarely make the requirements list, yet six months post-implementation, it’s inevitably one of the first gaps they want to address.

What Makes RecruitiFi Different

Having reviewed the demo and spoken with their team, three capabilities stand out as genuinely differentiated:

Universal Terms Architecture

RecruitiFi operates on a single contract model similar to how Airbnb standardizes rental agreements. When companies join, they can’t modify the underlying terms; they can only adjust variables like fees and geography. This seems restrictive until you understand the implications:

• Every agency in their network (now over 20,000) has already accepted these terms.
• New agencies can be added to a client’s program in minutes, not months.
• The procurement and legal bottleneck that typically takes 6-12 months simply disappears.
• Companies maintain their existing agency relationships and fee structures.

The system includes a 60-day, 100% money-back guarantee, which is shorter than the industry standard 90-day prorated refund, but actually delivers more money back to clients (their analysis shows companies recover about 53-54% more under this model because they actually get 100% back rather than negotiating partial refunds).

AI-Driven Agency Matching With Community Effects

The platform doesn’t just manage existing relationships. It actively introduces new agencies to relevant openings:

• Agencies build detailed profiles showing their specializations, placement history, and performance ratings.
• Both candidates and companies rate agencies after each interaction.
• For each new job posting, the system automatically suggests 2-3 agencies beyond the client’s existing roster.
• These matched agencies consistently fill more than 50% of roles, typically at lower fees (since they’re earning new business).
• Agencies accept lower fees for matched opportunities because they’re skipping business development entirely.

This creates a network effect: more agencies joining makes the platform more valuable for employers, which attracts more employers, which makes the platform more valuable for agencies.

Dual-Model Economics: Direct Hire + Contingent Workforce

Most VMS platforms handle either permanent placements or contract workers, but none do so effectively in one system.

• For direct hires: RecruitiFi charges 6% of the gross placement fee (deducted from the agency’s commission, not added to the client’s cost).
• For contract workers: The platform takes 3% of the ongoing bill rate.
• Clients pay nothing. The model is 100% vendor-funded.
• Both workflows operate on the same platform with the same agencies.

The contract worker side has become particularly interesting. In one case study McCagg shared, a manufacturing company discovered contractors being billed who weren’t actually working, saving $2.5 million in the first six months simply from having visibility.

Who This Actually Serves

Based on their client base and go-to-market strategy, RecruitiFi fits specific organizational profiles:

Mid-Market Companies

• Need agency support for specialized roles but can’t justify enterprise VMS complexity
• Lack dedicated procurement resources for agency management
• Want professional agency infrastructure without enterprise price tags
• Growing fast enough that ad-hoc agency relationships have become unmanageable

Fortune 500 Companies With Decentralized Hiring:

• Use agencies across multiple business units or geographies
• Struggle with rogue hiring and contract proliferation
• Need to consolidate spending without disrupting existing agency relationships
• Current clients include MasterCard, Goodyear (70+ countries)

Organizations Scaling Contingent Workforce:

• Currently managing contractors through spreadsheets.
• Face compliance risks from inconsistent practices.
• Need time-tracking and billing integration (they integrate with UKG Workforce Management and other time-card systems)
• Want to expand contractor usage but lack infrastructure

Companies Implementing New ATS:

• RecruitiFi white-labels its functionality into several major ATS platforms.
• Agencies submit candidates that flow directly into the ATS workflow.
• Organizations gain agency management capabilities that their ATS lacks natively.
• Zero additional cost to the company (RecruitiFi revenue-shares with the ATS vendor).

Talent Acquisition Teams Under Pressure:

• Reduced headcount but same hiring targets
• Need agency support without admitting they “need agencies”
• Want performance data to justify agency investments
• Seeking cost reduction without sacrificing quality

Strategic Position and What’s Next

RecruitiFi’s real competition isn’t other technology platforms — it’s organizational inertia. Many TA leaders remain reluctant to acknowledge how much they rely on agencies, making this a challenging sale despite strong ROI. McCagg noted that companies often insist they “don’t use agencies” before eventually revealing they often work with many agencies.

The strategic direction centers on embedded partnerships rather than direct sales. By white-labeling their agency portal into major ATS and HRIS systems, RecruitiFI avoids the “we don’t want another system” objection entirely. The ATS gets a functional agency portal (most openly admit their agency portal doesn’t work well or in some cases does not exist), the company gets consolidated agency management at zero cost, and RecruitiFi monetizes the placements.  RecruitiFi shares a portion of its revenue with the ATS partner.

This partnership approach makes sense given market dynamics. Companies consolidating systems won’t readily add standalone platforms, but they will adopt capabilities embedded in tools they already use. The challenge will be execution — navigating partnership sales cycles, integration work, and the leadership turnover at platform vendors that McCagg described as frustrating (mentioning one ATS had three CEOs during their three-year collaboration).

From our perspective at Brandon Hall Group, RecruitiFi represents the type of specialized solution that often gets overlooked in favor of all-in-one platforms, yet solves a genuine pain point that traditional systems handle poorly. Their technology is well-positioned for our Excellence in Technology Awards, which recognize solutions that deliver measurable business impact.

For solution providers navigating similar market positioning challenges,  particularly around partnership strategies and establishing credibility with larger platform vendors, our strategic marketing services help companies articulate differentiated value propositions and reach decision-makers who might otherwise default to familiar enterprise names. The agency recruiting space particularly benefits from third-party validation, given how reluctant many organizations are to admit they need help managing these relationships.

For organizations currently managing agencies through email, spreadsheets, and hope, RecruitiFi offers infrastructure that addresses real operational pain. Whether they access it directly or through an embedded ATS integration, the value proposition centers on making an unavoidable business process — using agencies for specialized hiring needs — actually manageable and measurable.

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