Beyond the Fails: How We Optimise Academies

And Why It Starts with Asking Better Questions

Academies rarely fail spectacularly. They fail quietly: registrations flatten, learners drop out after the second module, and the learning platform bought ten years ago slowly turns into an expensive museum piece. In my OEB session, I will take the entertaining route and collect the most reliable ways to drive an academy into the wall. This article shows the other side of the coin: how we usually optimise academies in our consulting practice – and which questions we ask long before anyone talks about features.

Most organisations come to us with one or more concrete symptoms: low usage, an outdated platform, a business case that no longer adds up. The symptoms are rarely the cause. And the situation is almost always ambiguous: different stakeholders, contradictory expectations, incomplete data.

The temptation is to resolve that ambiguity quickly – usually with a new system. After more than 20 years of working with academies, we have learned to resist it. Instead, we look at the academy from several angles. Six levers have proven particularly effective.

1. See your academy as a business model

Every academy that serves customers or partners has a business model – even if it is non-profit or its courses are free. The first question is therefore not “Which platform?” but “What value does this academy create?”

We distinguish between monetary and non-monetary, direct and indirect value. Direct monetary value means more revenue, higher margins or lower costs, for example through automated registration. Indirect monetary value can be a blended learning offer that does not generate new revenue but keeps existing customers. Non-monetary goals include market share, user numbers and customer loyalty. Indirect non-monetary value covers brand building, content marketing or the use of learning data for other business models.

A simple framework helps to structure this: the magic triangle with its questions What? For whom? How? and What value? The answers only count if they survive a critical review. We ask clients to look at them through the eyes of an investor. One insight we keep seeing: digitising an academy that does not pay off does not fix the business model – it merely scales the losses.

The magic triangle: what is offered, for whom, how – and what value results. Source: own illustration based on Andreas Diehl / dno

2. Know who you are really serving

“Our target group? Everyone!” is one of the most expensive sentences in academy management. Analysing actors and roles may sound trivial, but it is often where the explanation for missing success lies.

Beyond learners, we look at buyers (e.g. HR or line managers in B2B), knowledge holders and content creators, advertisers and sponsors, data users and networked organisations such as associations or public funding bodies. One actor can hold several roles.

Actors and roles of a digital academy

Take a machine manufacturer that trains installers free of charge. The academy earns nothing directly. But certified installers prefer the product they are experts in and can sell additional services. Customer loyalty grows – and so does machine revenue. Personas then make these groups tangible: their motivations, concerns, media habits and digital skills.

3. Design learning experiences around real lives

When we review a portfolio, we compare three learning forms: in-person events (synchronous, low scalability), online events such as webinars and virtual classrooms (synchronous, medium scalability) and self-paced content (asynchronous, high scalability). Most topics benefit from a mix. In a hospital with unpredictable shifts, flexible self-paced learning makes sense; fixed live sessions, in turn, create commitment and anchor learning in everyday routines.

A good learning experience also leads somewhere. Competences often have to be proven – to employers, authorities or customers. Certificates, exam preparation or accredited credits such as CME points for doctors turn a course into a product with clear added value.

Even the best offer fails if learners cannot find or understand it. We check three areas: the platform (clear navigation, little distraction – every extra feature adds complexity), topics and naming, and the content itself. Naming is an underrated lever: one catalogue we reviewed offered “Digital Competences”, “Digital Skills”, “Basics of Digitalisation” and “Introduction to the Digital World” side by side. Fixing internal jargon costs almost nothing technically.

Online shops learned this lesson years ago: every confusing click costs a sale. For more than ten years, we have been transferring e-commerce methods to learning platforms: user tests, eye tracking, task completion rates and time on task. They show precisely where learners get lost – before they quietly drop out.

4. Measure learning success, not just satisfaction

Many academies stop at the feedback form – often with leading or double-barrelled questions. Yet even a long-established framework like the Kirkpatrick model, dating back to the 1950s, shows how much more is possible across its four levels:

1. Reaction: How do learners rate the offer? Satisfaction scores such as NPS and behaviour on the platform show it.
2. Learning: What have they actually learned? Knowledge tests before and after the course or teach-backs make it visible.
3. Behaviour: Do they apply it at work? Follow-up surveys after a few weeks or manager assessments provide answers.
4. Results: What changes for the organisation? Fewer errors, cost savings or higher sales. Be careful, though: external factors such as the economic situation affect these figures as well and can easily mask – or inflate – the effect of learning.
   
   

Web analytics adds a further layer: where do learners come from, why do they leave after a short visit, what do they search for – and not find?

5. Build a technology base that can grow

Many academies still run on spreadsheets and the dedication of individual employees – until that stops working. A modern learning architecture connects LMS, HR system, single sign-on, virtual classroom, and BI analytics. For each interface, we create a short profile to examine it further: which data, which trigger, which systems, who pushes or pulls the data, how often, in which format, and how it is secured.

The real risk lies in the technology decisions behind it: the wrong choice creates dependency on a single vendor. We evaluate lock-in effects along two dimensions: unique benefit and switching costs. A lock-in can be perfectly acceptable if the benefit is unique. Minimising switching costs is not always the most economical choice. Still, a few principles reduce risk: open standards, separating authoring tool and learning platform, separating software vendor and implementation partner, and checking export options before signing the contract. And certainly choose your system based on requirements – not on the friendliest salesperson.

Evaluating lock-in effects: unique benefit versus switching costs

A platform is not a one-off purchase either. Without ongoing development, it reaches its functional limit and, eventually, its technical end of life – while the total cost of ownership keeps rising. We therefore plan development from the outset.

That is why flexibility matters more than any single feature. AI is the best current example: new tools for recommendations, content creation or learning support appear every few months, and a platform must be able to integrate them without a complete migration. The same applies to the business model. When an academy moves from single sales to subscriptions, adds B2B licences or addresses new target groups, the platform has to follow that change – not dictate it.

6. Treat your academy as a brand

“Our target group knows where to find us” – in our experience, it rarely does. Many academies see themselves as knowledge providers, not as something to be marketed. Yet visibility decides whether all the work above pays off.

Brand development starts with an analysis of values and vision, competition and positioning, and the needs of the target groups. From this, we derive the brand core at the centre of the model below. It is translated into a few guiding values – for example practice-oriented, inspiring and supportive – and each value unfolds into concrete facets that shape design, tone and communication. Content marketing is the key lever, because academies already own what it needs: expertise.

From brand core to values and facets

Conclusion: start with the fundamentals – and keep going

The six levers are closely connected. A new platform will not fix an unclear business model, and the best content goes unnoticed without a brand. That is why we rarely start with technology. We start with value creation and the actors – and work outwards from there.

Optimisation is never finished. Markets, target groups and technologies change, and an academy has to change with them. Those who regularly revisit the fundamentals will find new opportunities even in long-established academies.

And if you would like to see what happens when all of this is ignored, join my session “The Pursuit of Failure: How to Fail with Your Academy” at OEB. Sometimes the bad examples are the most instructive ones.

Written for OEB 2026 by Tobias Hauser at Arrabiata Solutions GmbH.