Case Study: Cisco achieves a skills-first, centralized learning strategy and higher employee engagement with Degreed

4 Takeaways from Cisco’s Learning Strategy

Cisco faced a rapidly changing workforce, widening skill gaps, and a fragmented L&D ecosystem that left leaders with limited visibility into employee capabilities — employees were juggling 15–20 different learning platforms. To address this, Cisco partnered with Degreed to adopt an integrated, user-centered learning and skilling platform that aggregates third‑party content (O’Reilly, Pluralsight, LinkedIn Learning, Udemy for Business), supports curator-built learning pathways, and shifts the organization from a competency model to a skills-based approach.

Degreed implemented a centralized platform, curated content strategy, and a skills-mapping framework that condensed roughly 4,000 job titles into ~200 roles and preloaded role-specific skills into employee profiles. The solution gave Cisco clear visibility into platform usage and skills development, simplified learning access, improved efficiency through third‑party curation, and enabled engagement-based measurement tied to retention and performance — delivering measurable role mapping and stronger insights for strategic upskilling.

Cisco

Joshua Clark

Senior Manager, Leadership & Team Intelligence