Could you introduce your role at bioMérieux and the training challenges you oversee?

I work within Global Customer Service, in the Learning & Development function. Together with my colleagues, we are responsible for training and developing the skills of teams that work directly on our systems. This primarily includes Application Specialists, Service Engineers, and IT teams, as well as our distributors, whom we train according to the same standards as our own employees.

Our mission is to ensure that the right training programs, technical content, and learning pathways are available to teams worldwide. The people we support are responsible for installing, maintaining, and troubleshooting our systems directly at customer sites. They must therefore possess a very high level of product and process expertise. In many ways, our approach is close to job qualification or certification.

Why is competency mastery particularly critical in your business?

The employees we train often work independently at customer sites. They must be able to install a system, perform maintenance, or resolve technical issues in sometimes complex environments. Behind every intervention is a laboratory waiting for a solution and relying on the proper functioning of our equipment.

For many years, we operated through training centers located in different regions of the world. Employees traveled to attend training sessions, but this created significant constraints. Between travel costs, administrative challenges in certain countries, and geopolitical issues, we realized that we were not always training all the people who needed it.

We also discovered that some regions had developed their own practices and training systems. In India, for example, local training centers had been established with very high-quality processes, but we did not necessarily have a global view of everything that was being done. Our goal is therefore to harmonize practices, ensure a degree of consistency and fairness across regions, and better identify the development needs of our teams.

You already had an internal LMS. Why was it no longer sufficient?

We have been using Cornerstone for more than fifteen years, and it serves certain training administration needs very well. However, when it comes to accurately assessing knowledge and, more importantly, analyzing the results, we quickly reach its limitations.

We needed to go much further in competency analysis. The assessments already existed, but extracting meaningful insights from the data remained complex and often required manual processing. If you have to export Excel files, rework them, and then rebuild analyses, it becomes difficult to provide managers with a clear and actionable view of their teams.

We also tested other solutions, but we often encountered the same challenges. We were looking for a platform specifically designed for knowledge assessment, with dynamic dashboards, a centralized database, and the ability to immediately leverage assessment results.

What were your selection criteria?

We had several non-negotiable criteria. The first concerned how results would be presented. We did not want employees to receive only a score. Our objective was not to assess people in order to judge them, but to assess them in order to develop their skills.

We also needed highly visual dashboards capable of highlighting both strengths and areas requiring support. Managers had to be able to use the information easily, without having to manipulate the data themselves.

The international dimension was equally essential. Assessments needed to be available in local languages, and the entire process had to remain easy to administer.

Finally, we were looking for a platform capable of integrating with our technical environment and supported by a responsive team able to assist us with a global deployment.

Why did you choose Experquiz?

I had known Experquiz for several years. As our project grew in scope, we launched a formal request for proposals with very detailed requirements. We had particularly strong expectations regarding LMS integration, result analysis, multilingual management, and reporting.

Several vendors were consulted. Some quickly indicated that they could not meet all of our requirements. In the end, only two solutions remained serious contenders.

What made the difference with Experquiz was, first and foremost, their understanding of our needs. We asked vendors to project themselves into our environment and demonstrate concretely how their solution could address our challenges. The demonstrations were highly focused on our use cases, and we had direct access to technical experts, which allowed us to receive immediate answers to complex questions.

We also found that most of the functionalities we needed were already available in the platform. Other solutions offered interesting possibilities but still depended on future developments or additional tools. With Experquiz, we felt we had an immediately mature solution capable of meeting our expectations without adding multiple technical layers or requiring extensive manual processing.

How do you use Experquiz today?

We have developed assessments that evaluate different levels of knowledge depending on the target audience. Some assessments focus on the fundamentals that should be acquired after initial training, while others evaluate more advanced competencies, particularly around troubleshooting and real-life field situations.

The goal is not simply to verify whether someone achieved a good overall score. Rather, we aim to understand precisely where they are confident and where they may need additional support.

Today, these assessments are part of a much broader initiative focused on competency certification. In the future, they will become one of the elements managers use to validate the proficiency level of their teams.

How do managers use the results?

The dashboards enable managers to quickly identify development opportunities within their teams. The objective is not to penalize employees but to support them. Employees receive recommendations tailored to their specific situation, while managers retain responsibility for interpreting the results.

Depending on the context, managers can then implement individual coaching, collective actions, field support, or additional training. We have therefore moved from a model focused on simply providing training to one focused on actively managing competency development.

How did the integration with your technical environment go?

Our objective was to make the experience as seamless as possible for learners. We did not want them to have to use a new platform or remember additional credentials. Everything needed to integrate naturally into the environment they already use.

One of the major challenges was enabling communication between our LMS and Experquiz. We wanted certain HR data to be automatically transferred to the platform and for assessment results to flow back into our training system.

This integration represented a significant technical challenge because we had never implemented this type of connection with such a high level of information exchange. The joint effort between our teams and the Experquiz team resulted in a smooth solution that now gives us much greater autonomy in leveraging our data.

How does Experquiz address your international challenges?

We quickly realized that assessments needed to be conducted in local languages. Employees may work with English documentation, but when it comes to accurately evaluating their knowledge, it is essential that they can do so in their native language.

The translation features offered by Experquiz allowed us to take a major step forward. Content is translated and then reviewed by local experts to ensure quality. This has enabled us to deploy assessments in multiple languages and approach global rollout with much greater confidence.

This ability to manage translations while maintaining centralized administration is a major advantage for an organization like ours.

What did you particularly appreciate about the support provided by the Experquiz teams?

What I appreciated most was the team's proximity and their ability to quickly understand our challenges. Throughout the project, they consistently proposed solutions adapted to our context and guided us toward alternatives whenever certain requests could not be implemented exactly as initially envisioned.

This transparency allowed us to move forward efficiently and build a genuine relationship of trust. Several enhancements were also made to the platform to address our specific needs, demonstrating a true commitment to collaboration.

What benefits are you seeing today, and what are the next steps?

Experquiz allows us to move from an input-focused approach to an outcome-focused approach. Managers now have much clearer visibility into the competencies of their teams and can implement targeted development actions.

Beyond operational gains, this also helps increase employee confidence when working with customers. Better-prepared employees are more confident, more effective, and ultimately deliver higher-quality service.

The project is still far from complete. So far, we have only covered part of the bioMérieux population, and we continue to expand deployment into new regions. The assessments will also become integrated into our future global certification program.

What is particularly exciting is that this is not a static system. We continue to evolve our practices, and we can rely on the Experquiz teams to support us throughout this transformation.