Niku and Saba take on intellectual capital management

With the goal of matching the skills of people within an organization to its customers, Niku and Saba Learning will collaborate to deliver an Internet-based solution that integrates learning and professional service delivery. The affiliation, which links Niku’s resource management capabilities with Saba Learning’s targeted delivery of online and offline learning, will allow competency gaps to be filled and professional service workforce capabilities to align with client needs.

Niku offers customers the ability to identify the skills and competencies of the people within their organizations and provides instant access to employees’ profiles including schedules, skills, personal preferences and recent experience. With Saba Learning, customers have the ability to both target and assess the competencies and skills of people and deliver the learning needed to close any critical gaps.

The collaboration stands to be a real benefit for service organizations such as IT consulting firms, which see technology implementation as a key revenue source. Such projects require the managing of resources, projects and knowledge, which are facilitated by Niku’s professional service automation solutions. User education is also a important way for firms to gain the benefits of technology implementation, and Saba’s e-learning infrastructure is designed to enable IT consulting firms to create and deploy global networks over the Internet to ensure that users receive proper training.

For example, in recent years, skill deficiencies--such as in Java programming--have been identified within many companies’ internal IT organizations. When these shortcomings become apparent to a resource manager running the Niku solution, Saba’s e-learning infrastructure will suggest suitable training courses for personnel, register them for the course and ensure that the resulting certification is imported back to the Niku resource profile.