Nearshoring Success: Pearson's Growth with Integrated Project Delivery

About the Client

Pearson is a global leader in educational publishing and assessment services. With a presence in over 70 countries, Pearson provides a wide range of educational products and services, including digital learning tools, assessments, and certifications.

Challenge

Pearson faced the challenge of scaling its operations within a complex software development landscape. The need to expand the project team from 5 to 62 members highlighted the necessity for a robust and flexible approach to manage this growth. Pearson required a partner who could ensure quality, stability, transparency, and trust while delivering top-tier solutions. Additionally, Pearson sought expertise in business process modelling, infrastructure initiatives, and clinical assessments to support its global digital transformation.

Solution

CREATEQ addressed Pearson's challenges through its Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) approach, which is built on four foundational elements:

1. Stakeholder Alignment: Ensuring all team members and leaders are fully aligned with both our growth objectives and Pearson’s strategic goals.
2. Culture of Adaptability: Embracing change and evolving in response to project needs.
3. Unified Leadership: Driving success through cohesive, strategically driven communication and leadership.
4. Nurturing Relationships: Building strong, trust-based partnerships with Pearson, and the project teams.

Key roles and initiatives undertaken by us included:

• Business Process Modelling and Leadership: Playing a pivotal role in Pearson's digital transformation at a global scale.
• Infrastructure Expertise: Leading and supporting crucial infrastructure initiatives.
• Clinical Assessments: Providing expert guidance and full teams for Pearson’s flagship product, Clinical Assessments.

CREATEQ's innovative tools, such as SquadFit, and a well-defined communication model at the management level ensured clarity and focus throughout the collaboration. Continuous learning was fostered through robust mentoring and assessment mechanisms, maintaining a consistent knowledge base across teams.

Result

Our Integrated Delivery approach was instrumental in Pearson’s success, leading to several notable milestones:

• Agile Squads & Clinical Assessments: Successful go-live in the US in 2019, followed by expansion to Canada, the UK, Australia/New Zealand, and the APAC region by 2022.
• Self-Service & Subscription Initiatives: Completion of key phases, including Self Service Subscription Cancellation and Free Pearson Access.
• AEM Migration & Algolia Integration: Migration of static sites to AEM and integration with the Algolia search engine.
• DevOps Success: our team served as the on-call support for Pearson, managing environment upgrades, migrations, and compliance processes.
• Process Excellence: Establishment of the Automation Testing platform for Global Pearson PMC and efficient business analysis workflows for Pearson’s Global PMC operations.

These results are a true testament to the advantages of nearshoring, driving growth for all stakeholders while upholding a culture of excellence, trust, and transparency.