Customer Stories / Retail & Wholesale

Inclusive, Proactive Learning Culture Makes an Impact at Sainsbury’s
2023

Sainsbury's is a grocery retailer with more than 1,400 supermarkets and convenience stores in the UK. Founded in London in 1869, the business still focuses on its core offering–giving customers great value food and convenient shopping–whether that’s in-store, online, or via their contactless SmartShop Pick & Go store.
Benefits on AWS
- 400+ employees attended 30 AWS classroom trainings
- 700+ people attended informal events
- Increased accessibility design adoption by 50%
- Created a self-initiated, proactive learning culture
Inspiring a Culture of Self-Driven Cloud Learning
As customers seek ever smarter and more intuitive ways to shop, the need for innovation continues to grow. Knowing this, Sainsbury’s embarked on developing a large-scale in-house cloud training program to accelerate digital transformation, and deliver superior online and offline customer experiences. Sainsbury’s Cloud Training Academy was designed to be adaptable, scalable, and drive excitement for proactive learning. A bottom-up framework encouraged colleagues to choose training based on their interests and knowledge gaps, identified through an AWS Learning Needs Analysis and delivered via a mix of formal instructor-led training and informal events, like hackathons and participant-led sessions.


Breaking Data Silos

With full autonomy for employees to run cloud training events, a senior solutions architect organized a Machine Learning Day workshop, with 130 colleagues attending to learn about streamlining data practices between data science, engineering, and analysis teams.

Inclusive Learning


Building on Success

By encouraging colleagues to use professional curiosity and personal responsibility to create their own learning paths, Sainsbury’s Cloud Training Academy has seen positive business impacts. Based on this success, the program will continue to invest in people to propel their digital transformation.

Proactive Culture

Employees are afforded 10% of their time at work to learn new skills, and introduction of the Sainsbury’s Cloud Training Academy has created more opportunities to upskill and explore diverse paths within the business – further enforcing a culture of proactive learning at Sainsbury’s.

Sainsbury’s Offers Inclusive Cloud Learning Opportunities
Sainsbury’s Cloud Training Academy is accelerating its cloud journey and fostering a proactive, self-initiated learning culture with the help of AWS Skills Guild.