About LKQ Corporation
LKQ Corporation is a global leader in providing alternative and specialty parts for the automotive sector. With operations spanning 20 countries and employing over 46,000 individuals across 25 different languages, LKQ is committed to excellence in servicing its diverse customer base. Its expansive network ensures a continuous supply of high-quality parts, making LKQ a trusted name in the automotive industry. The business operates several different lines, ranging from aftermarket parts and salvage to recycling, hard parts, and services across the North America and Europe with additional shared service and supply chain functions in India and Taiwan.
Challenges and Market Transformation
Managing a workforce spread across various nations, languages, and cultures presented LKQ with distinct challenges, particularly in their training and development endeavors. The company faced complexities in consolidating multiple learning solutions into a unified system. Managing multilingual training content was arduous, and there was a pressing need to reduce the time to productivity for new hires. Furthermore, enhancing compliance training and tracking was imperative to meet diverse regulatory requirements.
Their legacy system fostered opportunities for improved employee onboarding and global harmonization of learning practices but struggled with the complexities of LKQ’s growing and evolving needs. With new market challenges and growth, LKQ realized it was time to upgrade to Cornerstone Galaxy. The specific benefits LKQ sought included further unification of training programs and acceleration of time to productivity. Training programs were previously dispersed across localized learning management platforms and needed to align for consistency and efficiency. New hires often faced a steep learning curve, and needed a faster path to productivity. Additionally, the fragmented approach to compliance training management presented significant risks, making it challenging for LKQ to consistently adhere to stringent financial reporting regulations.
Technological advancements, workforce turnover, shifting employee expectations, and heightened global competition created transformative pressures. LKQ had to re-evaluate its learning and development strategy to ensure sustained growth and competitiveness. The modern workforce sought flexibility, purpose-driven work, and career development opportunities, factors LKQ had to consider to remain an employer of choice. These trends compelled LKQ to invest in a new solution to enhance agility, provide superior talent experiences, and drive overall success.
Why Cornerstone?
Recognizing the need to upgrade to Cornerstone Galaxy, LKQ identified key use cases to ensure success without revisiting the basics of learning technology. Essential requirements were identified to align the upgrade with LKQ’s strategy. This assessment facilitated and accelerated the upgrade to Galaxy by helping identify the most relevant modules to support LKQ's immediate needs while laying the groundwork for future improvements.
The implementation was preceded by a thorough needs analysis, involving the mapping of over 130 detailed requirements across user, admin, job, organizational and reporting needs. LKQ conducted exhaustive fit-gap analyses and process reviews, ensuring the new platform would deliver efficiency, data consistency and the ability to easily filter and retrieve necessary management and compliance information.
Cornerstone Galaxy's robust functionalities and user-friendly interface aligned with LKQ's vision for a cohesive, multilingual, and LEAN focused learning platform.During the transition to Cornerstone Galaxy, it was crucial to ensure no discrepancies or loss of data integrity. Addressing multilingual and region-specific training requirements posed significant potential challenges. Comprehensive training and support were necessary to ensure a smooth transition for employees.
Cornerstone's Galaxy Evolve Program provided a structured, supportive framework that eased the migration process, transforming potential roadblocks into milestones. LKQ’s team meticulously prepared for the transition by defining governance rules and restructuring internal operations to streamline new system roles. Support from Cornerstone included access to a trial environment, allowing LKQ to familiarize themselves with the system before full implementation. The transition, from contract signing to go-live, was completed in approximately four months, facilitated by LKQ's proactive approach.
LKQ praised Cornerstone’s transparency and responsiveness. The regular cadence of updates, access to advisory boards, and close customer success management relationship all contributed to LKQ feeling genuinely supported. The migration was further de-risked by LKQ’s disciplined approach: teams across North America and Europe were retrained and restructured, also establishing a dedicated analytics team in India. This clarified accountabilities, improved subject matter expertise, and enabled cross-team skill progression. Luis Alicea, LKQ’s Global E-Learning Strategy Manager adds “that having that disciplined approach and being harmonized made the transition seamless because everyone knew where everyone else stood at all steps of the project.”
Implementing solutions
Key decision drivers for transitioning to Cornerstone Galaxy included:
- Control and governance: Ability to define clear, mandatory guardrails for processes, compliance, reporting and access as required by both business and jurisdictional needs. LKQ implemented a rigorous governance plan and sustainable control mechanisms to reduce admin workload (over 100 slides governing every permission and structural element).
- Reporting and analytics: Transition from hundreds of legacy reports to a handful of core Power BI dashboards, enabling true global scorecards for L&D, sustainability, development, training hours, and compliance.
- Simplicity and consistency: The drive towards a “three-clicks-to-all processes” standard for users globally, eliminating the confusion from many duplicate or irrelevant courses and documentation.
- Scalability, support for growth and futureproofing: The platform now supports up to 47-48,000 global users in more than 25 languages, with readiness to expand and integrate adjacent talent functions (mentoring, internal mobility, skill development) and support for new markets or business transformations.
Results
The transition to Cornerstone Galaxy yielded significant benefits:
- Seamless Migration: Marked as one of the smoothest migrations LKQ had ever experienced.
- Enhanced Efficiency: Galaxy became the central hub connecting four global HRIS platforms, increasing productivity and facilitating data-driven decision-making.
- Improved Training Accessibility: The experience reduced onboarding time by 30%, providing easier access to training materials.
- Better Compliance Tracking: Scorecards given in standardised and stable format to key stakeholders for high risk-based items at a regular cadence.
- Scalability: Expanded user base from 25,000 to 46,000 and introduced the AI-powered Talent Marketplace module.
- Data Integrity: Improved data management ensured higher reliability in compliance and performance analytics.
Additional benefits and outcomes:
LKQ’s new structure allowed local managers to simplify development for employees while maintaining mandatory global compliance, saving significant time and ensuring relevance. The content team simplified course libraries, removing duplicate, re-versioned or outdated materials, and established clear entry criteria for future resources. LKQ can now run a global L&D scorecard, something never before possible, providing line-of-sight into L&D, completions, and engagement at all levels and regions. The reporting structure now delivers a single “source of truth”, eliminating conflicting data and ensuring clarity during audits or compliance checks. Andy Ingleson, the Cornerstone Global Systems Manager, explained “implementing all of the above has been critical to allow the team to move to a strategic partnership opposed to being tactical. We can now work with the business proactively to support their requirements”
LKQ also benefited from increased employee engagement, as accountability and job scope were delineated. Career progression and pathways across LKQ is now possible, further supporting internal talent development. The partnership with Cornerstone remains collaborative, with regular roadmap and strategy discussions, ensuring LKQ remains ahead of upcoming HR and workforce planning challenges, including succession and pre-retiree planning, and further internal mobility.
LKQ plans to further leverage Cornerstone’s skills solutions, aligning internal mobility with future business needs and exploring AI-driven mentorship matching to bolster retention and leadership development.
Lessons learned
Maintaining simplicity in processes and establishing strong governance frameworks were crucial for success. Detailed planning and proactive training and configuration significantly aided in ensuring a smooth transition. The flexibility of the system to align with evolving needs ensured continuous improvement and value realization.
LKQ leaders urge any organization undergoing similar migrations not to be afraid to “leap,” the business ultimately enjoyed lower stress and a dramatic increase in platform trust and adoption. They advise a strong focus on zero-metrics and dashboards, making data issues instantly visible and reducing administrative rework. Above all, governance, both in rules and clear authority, was their greatest learning.
