Unifonic achieved 92% platform activation and turned learning into a strategic growth driver

From checkbox compliance to genuine engagement

Learning at Unifonic had always been reactive—implemented when problems arose, focused on onboarding, treated by employees as something to complete rather than embrace.

"With our old LMS, we missed the engagement part, the sense of community," explains Lulwah Alshehab, Talent Development and Culture Executive.

The old system was traditional HTML-based content with employees clicking through slides rather than engaging with the content. It had served its purpose in taking Unifonic from having no LMS to having one, but the limitations quickly became clear.

The team had a clear vision for what they wanted instead: genuine engagement, community, and peer learning. "We were looking for something for people to learn, but also enjoy the learning experience," says Lulwah. "Learn from each other, share knowledge, and exchange information. We wanted to create a learning community."

Why L&D matters for leading organizations

The move to Sana Learn wasn't just about making training more enjoyable for learners. For Unifonic's leadership, it was about recognizing that organizational capability is the foundation for growth. Expanding into new markets, launching new products, delivering premium customer experiences—all of it depends on continuously developing your people's skills.

"The learning team is responsible for enabling the organization to achieve our strategic goals," Lulwah explains. "That is something I'm really proud to be working on."

This perspective distinguishes leading organizations from those struggling to scale. L&D moved from being an HR function to business infrastructure. When leadership asks the L&D team to implement AI across the company, when learning drives promotion and career development, when knowledge sharing becomes a competitive advantage—that's when you know L&D is playing the right role.

Without effective learning systems, organizations face predictable challenges:

• New employees take months to become productive instead of weeks
• Critical knowledge remains locked in individual people's heads
• Teams can't adapt quickly to market changes
• Customer experience suffers because employees lack updated skills
• Leadership has no visibility into capability gaps

For Unifonic, the need was acute. Every employee needed to continuously upskill, share knowledge across departments, and stay current on products and processes. The old approach couldn't deliver this.

What changes when you switch to AI-first learning

The difference between Unifonic's old LMS and Sana Learn shows what organizations gain by adopting AI into L&D.

Traditional LMS approach:

• Static HTML or video content that employees passively consume
• Solitary learning with no peer interaction
• Inaccurate or disconnected reporting
• Time-consuming content creation and updates
• Transactional vendor relationship (contact only at renewal)
• Learning feels like a chore to complete and forget

AI-first approach with Sana Learn:

• Interactive, dynamic and personalized content for learners
• Social learning where employees engage with each other's thinking
• Accurate, real-time insights into individual and organizational progress
• AI assists in content creation and answers questions from your knowledge base
• Continuous innovation partnership with regular new capabilities
• Learning becomes something employees choose to engage with

The practical impact at Unifonic was immediate. Employees who never touched the old LMS are now actively learning. A pre-sales team member discovered she could use Sana Learn to generate client proposals. Support teams access product information proactively instead of waiting for formal training. The L&D team can see exactly how new joiners are progressing across all departments in real time.

Three capabilities that enabled change

For Unifonic's leadership, three capabilities have proven critical in using Sana Learn to drive business outcomes:

1. Visibility into organizational capability

"Sana saves us so much time when it comes to reporting," Lulwah explains. "With our old LMS, it was very disconnected. I knew we had new joiners, but we didn't know how they were doing. Now with Sana, I can see all of our new joiners, how they are progressing, regardless of their department or role. Everything is visible in one place."

Leadership can now answer critical questions: Are new sales hires ready to engage with customers? Do support teams have the product knowledge for the new launch? Where are the capability gaps?

2. Velocity in responding to business needs

When Unifonic identifies a business challenge, the L&D team moves quickly. They deployed their Unifonic Code course and had it running with 100% completion in weeks. Sana's ease of use and AI capabilities enable faster response times than their old system, which required lengthy processes and vendor dependencies.

This velocity matters when scaling rapidly or entering new markets. The old model was too slow: identify problem → wait months for content owners to create content → deploy training → wait for completion data. Sana's approach enables responsive organizational learning.

3. Validation that learning is actually happening

Perhaps most importantly, Unifonic can now see that learning genuinely changes behavior: "What I'm seeing is people actually developing, not just ticking boxes," says Huda.

There have been multiple examples illustrating this impact: reflection cards demonstrating employees’ critical thinking and insight-sharing; community engagement reflecting knowledge dissemination throughout the organization; and unexpected use cases, such as generating client proposals, highlighting how employees are internalizing and applying their learning.

Building a learning community

"People always come up to us saying, 'We want to learn from each other, we want a place to learn from each other,'" notes Lulwah. "With Sana, we've created this space. I can see what people are talking about and how they're feeling. If I find something interesting, I can talk to them offline."

Unifonic deployed Sana Learn across their entire employee development ecosystem - onboarding, compliance, security, soft skills, leadership development, and internal tools. In their first four months, they created 237 courses and 92% of employees actively engaged with the platform.

The impact was particularly striking among employees who had never engaged with the previous LMS. "We started seeing people who never used the old LMS starting to use Sana Learn," says Huda. "People in support who never learned anything before are now going through the product by themselves. They've seen how it looks now in Sana. They're taking the same information, but with the Sana way."

During the soft launch, that pre-sales team member discovered she could use Sana Learn to build client proposals. She'd input the relevant information, ask the AI to create a proposal, then send the polished result to clients. When she shared this with the L&D team, it clicked—employees were finding their own creative ways to work more effectively with AI.

The shift from cost center to strategic advantage

The cultural shift at Unifonic shows what happens when learning becomes a genuine business enabler. Huda sees the difference clearly—employees are no longer completing courses to tick boxes, they're genuinely developing skills with the goal of career advancement. "I want people to develop and actually get promoted because they're learning and growing," she explains.

Looking ahead, Huda sees even greater potential as they integrate more of Unifonic's knowledge base into Sana. The vision is for employees to get instant answers to questions without tracking down colleagues, use AI to generate proposals and other content, and discover applications no one anticipated. "We're already seeing the impact, and I think we'll have even bigger impacts ahead," she reflects.

What this means for organizations in the region

For organizations across the Middle East and beyond evaluating their L&D strategy, Unifonic's experience offers three clear lessons:

1. L&D is strategic infrastructure

Learning enables employee development, knowledge sharing, and rapid capability building, it directly impacts your ability to compete, grow, and deliver for customers.

2. The gap between traditional and AI-first solutions is notable

Engagement vs. avoidance, accurate insights vs. guesswork, velocity vs. delays, community vs. isolation. These differences compound over time.

3. Partnership matters

"When we worked with the previous LMS, we would not hear from them unless it's renewal time," Huda shares. "It's honestly the complete opposite here. The Sana team is very innovative, constantly thinking of the next big thing."