SumTotal Systems, the industry’s largest provider of learning and business performance technologies, services and processes, today announced that Ariba, Inc., the leading provider of Spend Management solutions, has chosen the SumTotal Enterprise Suite to enhance the skills and competencies of its global sales personnel. With SumTotal’s comprehensive learning management system and complementary modules, Ariba will assess and identify required skills for specific job roles within its worldwide sales and consulting organization. From that, the company will develop customized learning plans designed to increase productivity by using targeted training to enhance skills and competencies.

In early February, Ariba is expected to launch the platform to sales personnel worldwide. It will be hosted and managed by SumTotal. Ariba also plans to use the system to train other employees throughout the company and may eventually use it to train its customers. Ariba will also use TotalDashboard, SumTotal’s learning analytics system, to measure results from the program and to correlate them with business results.

“After extensive review, it was clear that SumTotal met not only our critical business needs, but also our IT needs, our project timelines, our budget guidelines, and other system requirements in one centralized Learning Management System,” said Kevin Costello, Ariba’s Chief Commercial Officer.

Ariba selected the SumTotal system because it provides valuable tools to help identify strengths in their commercial organization, as well as areas that require enhanced training. Ariba also required a system that would offer students a combination of instructor-led and online courses for a global audience and then track and report attendance. SumTotal offered a system that met those requirements while allowing 24X7 access to content. The SumTotal platform and hosted services allow rapid rollout for immediate results and have minimal impact on IT resources. The system can scale with customers’ growth, helping them serve a global audience.

“Ariba’s products and services are used by leading companies around the world who want more efficient spend management, and Ariba has become the market leader in that category,” said Andy Eckert, SumTotal CEO. “Market leaders like to work with market leaders. We are thrilled that Ariba selected SumTotal’s platform to help drive its sales productivity. Our products are increasingly being used for mission-critical, revenue improving initiatives, and Ariba’s vision of deploying our platform broadly within its organization for even greater productivity improvements is a testament to its forward-looking strategy.”