eSkillz Insights | Case Studies

Case Study: Dine Brands Global, Inc. – Docebo Learning Management System Implementation

Completing a new learning management system implementation can be challenging. As an international company with four distinct business units with unique requirements, implementing a new learning management system for Dine Brands Global was unparalleled.

Based in Glendale, California, Dine Brands Global, Inc, through its subsidiaries, franchises restaurants worldwide under the Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar and IHOP brands. As one of the largest, full-service restaurant companies in the world, providing training to its users is no easy task.

Dine Brands quickly realized providing accurate training to its locations meant identifying the unique requirements for each in order to meet the local, state, or international governances and legalities required by the state or country for each facility.

Challenge

Implement a new learning management system internationally across US corporate offices, four business units with over 3,400 restaurants in 16 countries and 340 independent franchisees where each required unique learning requirements.

Solution

Activate and configure their purchased Certifications feature that was not being utilized to create new processes to monitor, track and notify users of required certification renewals and store completions.

No. of Users

150,000+ users | 13,000+ Power Users

Data

3,400 Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar and IHOP restaurants world-wide; 340 independent franchisees; each location required unique learning requirements to meet local, state and international country legalities and ordinances

University of Utah Case Study - eSkillz

Client Challenge

Implement a new learning management system worldwide throughout 16 countries to over 150,000+ users.

Dine Brands presented an exciting challenge for their Docebo implementation. Dine Brands Global, LLC is a global restaurant company known for its Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill & Bar and IHOP brands. It is divided into four different business units: Dine Corporate, Applebee’s Domestic, IHOP Domestic, and International, which consists of all international Applebee’s and IHOP restaurants located outside of the U.S. Since each of these divisions has its own unique requirements, the overall solution needed to extend the specific requirements of each brand while maintaining a central structure and governance which Docebo allowed with their Extended Enterprise module.

While Dine Brands has corporate locations, most sites are franchises. This presented additional unique challenges as each Franchisee is also considered a separate business entity, each with individual needs and systems that needed to be integrated into Docebo. Ensuring each Franchisee could manage their users in the new learning management system was an essential requirement which was supported by utilizing Docebo’ s Power User role.

Finally, the sheer scale of Dine brands was a unique challenge. With over 3,400 locations and 150,000+ users, and 13,000+ Power Users throughout 16 countries, every decision and change needed to be carefully and meticulously thought through to ensure that a decision made for an IHOP in the Philippines did not inadvertently or adversely affect an Applebee’s in Iowa.

eSkillz Solution

eSkillz led in-depth educational after collaboration with the Docebo onboarding team and alignment working sessions that established international collaboration between teams, all the Dine Brands’ business units and franchisees. Employing our best practices established trust proving eSkillz was fully invested in Dine Brands’ success.

Our adept, versatile eSkillz consultants followed our agile methodology processes and best practices to create a comprehensive, over-arching master plan to understand Dine Brands overall structure, their business units, and different needs. Our eSkillz solution began with a series of eSkillz workshops that supported the Docebo Onboarding sessions. eSkillz met with the entire Dine Brands’ team for a group training session, referred to as the “All Brands” meeting. Once our two teams established the preliminary goals for the implementation, eSkillz met with each individual Dine Brands’ business unit by brand to discuss the week’s topic and determine each brand’s unique needs while communicating the overall strategy to ensure each brand’s needs aligned to the overall goals.

As the project progressed, the All-Brands meeting changed from a best practice meeting to an alignment meeting. In the alignment meetings, eSkillz consultants shared updates on requirements and needs we learned about from each brand and discussed how each brand’s needs could impact other brands. For foundational global decisions, eSkillz consultants presented all the pros and cons to the decision in question. We collaborated with the teams from each brand to come to a solution while providing governance best practices. Conducting these in-depth alignment meetings allowed both the eSkillz consultants and Dine Brands teams to ensure the documented needs supported the overall training initiative without adversely affecting the individual locations across the different brands.

An additional complexity to Dine Brands’ overall training solution involved the requirement of their franchisees in their multiple brands being able to manage their own users and systems incorporated into Docebo. – To support and achieve this need, -eSkillz consultants worked with each brand to develop various types of Power User profiles that were brand-specific. This best practice successfully allowed each franchisee in each brand to control administrator access for their locations in Docebo. In addition, eSkillz created 4500+ groups in Docebo which allowed Power Users to gain visibility over the correct subset of users assigned to them. eSkillz also worked closely with the Dine Brands’ IT teams, both internally and the external franchisee teams, to ensure that the system would meet all the unique needs and function as expected.

Finally, the overall enormous scale of this project required special consideration based on so many stakeholders involvement and responsibility to the success of this new system. Each step required meticulous discussion and planning to ensure that the system functioned correctly while providing a strong foundation for the next phase. By collaborating closely and sharing our expertise with Dine Brands to achieve their desired success, eSkillz built a trusting relationship with Dine Brands throughout the project allowing their teams to seriously consider and implement our recommendations. The combined teamwork between Docebo, eSkillz and Dine Brands motivated – many stakeholders to take an active interest in how Docebo works and become SMEs. Projects of this scale with multiple divisions and stakeholders often require extended time to make decisions. Through our partnership, foundation of trust and solid internal knowledge, helped Dine Brands make agile decisions in less than a week that could have taken weeks.

Our agile methodology paired with our collaborative partnership with Docebo and the client, resulted in a successful deployment of Dine Brands new global learning management system implementation months earlier than anticipated.

Results

The expertise eSkillz shared with Dine Brands delivered a new learning management system that met their global business objectives and learning initiatives across all their brands and franchisees.

This project was a massive undertaking by all parties involved. The partnership, sense of trust and collaboration between eSkillz and Dine Brands achieved great success for the Dine Brands team. From the discovery and design process, to configuring the functionality, to training their learning administrators, eSkillz supported the Dine Brands team at every step.

In six months, eSkillz created a Docebo platform containing system with 600+ courses, 4500+ groups, 150,000+ users, and 13,000+ Power users spanning multiple internal and external companies throughout multiple countries. Our configurations ensured that each Dine Brand business unit could achieve their learning objectives without adverse impacts to the other brands, locations, and franchisees. Compliance parameters by state and by country were identified, incorporated, and executed within their new system. Our partnership allowed Dine Brands to deploy their international Docebo solution in record time while preparing their administrators to continue training and developing team members around the globe to provide their guests excellent meals and world class customer service.

We could not have done this without the GREAT partnership of eSkillz! Your knowledge, professionalism, pushing the deadlines, assisting our teams quickly, and the continuous training made this possible.​ We cannot thank you enough.
— Chris McLarne, VP of Learning and Development

Experience the eSkillz Difference for Yourself

Together, let’s make your success your reality.
​Let eSkillz help you realize your goals. Engage our expert, industry-centric consultants to design scalable Learning and Talent Management processes for your employees and managers. We’ll come alongside you to optimize your platform, providing best practices guidance and drawing from years of real-world and client experience. The eSkillz Professional Services team is ready to help you. Start your journey towards success today. Contact us or explore our website to learn the many ways we can get you there, together.

Authors

eSkillz Case Studies feature contributions from our very own team of industry and subject matter experts.

Get to know us:

Categories