Overview Discovery is a leading insurance company based in South Africa with a value of nearly 16.5 billion rand. Discovery provides health insurance, life insurance, wellness programs, investment services, and credit card services. They use Saba to support continuous learning for their growing workforce — while realizing significant ROI and reducing costs by over R 25 million (or 2 million USD). Business Challenge Discovery needed to provide the learning and development needed to a widely distributed workforce; to fully contribute to the company’s success and meet regulatory compliance requirements. Business Benefits -Automate the management and reporting of all learning to save time and meet compliance standards -Reach 18% more learners while reducing the time devoted to training by 98,559 hours in one year -Provide cost savings of R 25.365 million — for an ROI of more than five times the original technology costƒ -Offer a variety of tools for collaboration and contributions to the company’s collective knowledgeƒ -Enable Discovery to easily produce engaging, interactive learning content in-house at a reduced cost

1. ®
• More than pays for itself, with an annual profit of $1
million after deducting for the technology investment
and support expenses to offer students a quality
hybrid learning environment
• Enables up to 85% of the students to playback
recordings of online courses to make up for
absences or to review challenging concepts
Discovery is a leading insurance company based
in South Africa. Beginning as a provider of private
health insurance in 1993, the company has not only
grown into a major player in the South African health
insurance market, but has also diversified into life
insurance, wellness programs, investment services,
and credit card services. In addition, working with
Prudential, Discovery has extended its services
overseas, offering health and life insurance and
wellness programs within the U.K. As of year-end
2008, Discovery had a total company value of nearly
16.5 billion rand.
Case Study
Industry: Financial Services, Insurance
Use Case: Learning Management,
Saba Publisher
We’re able to offer more
courses to more people in
less time. Our Annual Training
Report found we have
already received a return on
our investment in the Saba
technology more than five
times over.
Vinolia Singh
Head of Learning Technologies
Discovery South Africa
Challenge
Provide a widely distributed workforce the learning
and development needed to fully contribute to the
company’s success and meet regulatory
compliance requirements.
Business Benefits
• Handles more than 1,000 enrollments in 91 hybrid
classes, allowing master’s degree candidates to
attend class physically or online in a highly interactive
learning environment
• Serves a large population — one in five of whom say
they wouldn’t be able to take classes at
Bentley otherwise
• Achieves a break-even point for an online course
at just two students — making courses with low
registrations economically viable when offered online
Discovery uses Saba to support continuous learning for its growing workforce — while
reducing costs by over R 25 million.

2. Case Study Discovery South Africa
2
Producing a Strong Return on Investment
Since the Saba platform was rolled out companywide,
its acceptance has grown rapidly. In 2008, 18% more
unique individuals were trained using the Saba LMS
than in 2007. The number of courses handled through
the Saba LMS also increased 25%, with many of these
being custom online courses. In addition, online
learning doubled to account for 56% of all training,
compared to only 28% of Discovery’s training mix
in 2007.
More important, using the Saba LMS and handling so
much learning online reduced the number of employee
hours devoted to training — including travel — by
98,559 hours. Taking into account all the cost savings
— in everything from hardware and software to travel
and the use of office space — Singh estimates the
company has saved 25.6 million rand since the Saba
solution was implemented.
“We’re able to offer more courses to more people
in less time,” Singh remarked. “Our Annual Training
Report found we have already received a return on our
investment in the Saba technology more than five
times over.”
Discovery has built its business on a number of core
values, with two of these being to hire great people
and “liberate” the best in its workforce. To this end,
the company reviewed a number of providers of
learning management solutions and selected Saba.
When Vinolia Singh joined Discovery in mid-2005 as
head of learning technologies, she was tasked with
implementing the Saba Learning Management System
(LMS) and maximizing its value to the company.
“Combining those two core values speaks strongly to
us being able to give people access to vital information
when they need it,” said Singh. “Our goal was to
boldly expand people’s knowledge and help contribute
collectively to the company’s innovation and success.”
Replacing a Manual Process
In recent years, the South African government has
implemented legislation that requires organizations to
invest in and develop employees who were previously
disadvantaged. Discovery had used a manual, paper-
based process to track learning and development
for its approximately 7,500 employees — and this was
creating difficulties with compliance and reporting,
according to Singh.
“With the implementation of the Saba LMS, we were
able to virtually eliminate the spreadsheets,” Singh
stated. “We have positioned Saba as a central
repository for all training and development. Every
course we offer — classroom or online — is managed
in the Saba LMS. This has helped immensely with our
compliance and reporting.”
Achieving Collaboration Among Communities
The Learning Technologies team works closely with
individual business units, which remain responsible for
the functional and technical training of employees. To
date more than 5,500 people in Discovery’s workforce
have used the Saba platform to manage their learning
and collaboration activities. The Saba platform is set
up as a self-service portal where individuals can easily
schedule and keep track of the courses they take.
“The Saba LMS allows people to actively participate
in the learning and development process,” explained
Singh. “Our CEO also believes that innovation is
a result of learning, which best takes place in a
social environment. So we make good use of the
collaboration capabilities built into Saba to get various
communities to share their contributions with others.”
The next communities to be targeted with Saba-
based online learning and collaboration solutions will
be Discovery’s financial consultants and the third-
party doctors who work as part of Discovery Health’s
provider network.

3. Case Study Discovery South Africa
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Getting All People Management Capabilities
in One Solution
Although Singh wasn’t with Discovery when Saba was
originally selected, she has many reasons why she
thinks the Saba platform is superior.
“It’s great to have the learning, talent, and performance
components integrated into a single system,” said
Singh. “Although we haven’t had the chance to
implement the other components yet, there is growing
demand for performance management capabilities, and
I strongly believe the solutions can’t be isolated.”
Singh also rates Saba’s reporting capabilities as
“phenomenal” and describes the solution as easy to
customize to meet the needs of specific business units
or groups. Learning Technologies creates much of
the learning content internally with the help of Saba
Publisher and other tools.
“We’re able to produce some fantastic, interactive, and
highly engaging learning — and the learners love it,”
Singh commented. “We are also excited about online
learning because of its environmental benefits that
not only save time, but also reduce travel and huge
amounts of printing. Online is clearly the way to
go today.”