How the British Retail Consortium scaled leadership development across UK retail with Thrive
Learners using Thrive
Challenges addressed with Thrive
Integrations used
Completion rate
When great content becomes hard to navigate
The British Retail Consortium's network is vast: from Boots to Burger King, they support thousands of retail businesses across dozens of professions and roles, with one shared need for great development. But as their content library grew, so did the complexity, and members were getting lost in a labyrinth of learning materials as engagement steadily slipped.
The "accidental manager" is a familiar figure in retail: someone brilliant on the shop floor who suddenly finds themselves leading a team without the tools to do it confidently. BRC's mission is to change that, but their old platform couldn't keep pace. Knowledge management became a real challenge, and BRC knew they needed to strip things back and find a partner who could help them do it properly.
Turning learning into a seamless digital experience
Finding the right platform meant finding the right partner, and Thrive delivered both. BRC used the migration as a chance to ruthlessly re-evaluate their content, cutting materials from 112 pieces down to 59. What remained was sharper and structured into clear learning pathways purpose-built around the real needs of retail professionals. The Summer School, running since 1923, brought its entire multimodal programme onto Thrive, transforming it into a seamless hybrid learning experience.
For BRC's team, the impact was immediate. Support queries from learners dropped dramatically, what Kate Vukovanovic, BRC's Digital Capability Manager, calls "the silence being deafening, in the best possible way." Analytics gave the team visibility of what was working and where engagement was dropping off, freeing BRC's team to focus on reviewing content and improving the programme year on year.
From content overload to meaningful engagement
The results speak for themselves. Completion rates climbed from 57% to 78%, a 21% uplift, and unlike the usual pattern of peaks and dips, engagement held consistently throughout the programme. Around 50% of recorded webinars were rewatched by delegates after the fact, proving learners were genuinely invested rather than just ticking boxes. Sarah Hetherington, Head of Learning at Dreams and a Summer School coach, summed it up simply: "Transformational."
BRC's ambitions don't stop there. Thrive now underpins all three of their core leadership programmes, including the newly launched Leadership Essentials, a free offer for entry-level managers already proving the self-paced, community-supported model works. Later this year, they'll be piloting Thrive Mentoring: a cross-sector network of mentors helping retail professionals tackle new challenges and inspire change in their organisations.
“The support is always incredible. Everybody that we’ve worked with has been really, really supportive — from the help function in Thrive right through to the in-person sessions.”
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