Arets L&D Business Models

Learning Specialist Order Taker

Short white paper and invitation to co-author · September 2026 · Jos Arets, Tulser

The argument in one page

Learning is judged at the wrong level

Most L&D functions are judged on the wrong evidence. They record that individuals completed a course and call that impact. The outcomes their organizations need, safer care, reliable operations, faster adaptation, are produced by teams and kept by the organization. Learning happens. It does not cross the level where the result should appear.

That is not a training problem. It is a business-model problem. Every L&D function runs a business model, whether it chose one or not: who it serves, what it promises, which activity produces that promise, who pays, and what counts as evidence. Few functions have ever drawn theirs.

The Arets L&D Business Models draw four. The Order Taker takes requests and delivers courses; attendance counts as success. The Learning Specialist designs evidence- informed programs and delivers individual capability. The Performance Partner starts from the cause, not the request, and builds team capability. The Value Creator does the same for the organization. From 02 upward each model contains the one below it. Nothing is lost on the way up; the Order Taker is the model a function leaves behind.

One lever moves a function from one model to the next: the key activity. Change it from evidence-informed individual learning to performance consulting with evidence-informed team learning, and then to organizational learning, and the rest of the model has to follow: partners, customers, channels, revenue, evidence. The four canvases on the next pages show that, cell by cell.

For the board this is the point. The two upper models prove impact in the metrics the business already runs on, not in learning metrics.

Stop counting completions. Start proving conversion.

The L&D Business Model Canvas

Order Taker

Value Creator.

Activity-based. Out of sync with the business process.

Eminence-informed learning · individual capability

Requested training, delivered fast and documented

Ten or more training vendors

Eminence-informed learning ·

Requested training, delivered fast individual capability

and documented

LMS supplier Taking and processing training orders

Certificates on time, audit file complete E-learning libraries Sourcing, scheduling, registering

Minimal effort for the manager Chosen on price and availability Reporting attendance

Evidence: attendance and satisfaction (Kirkpatrick 1 and 2, if at all)

Catalogue and LMS Coordinators and trainers Vendor contracts

Cost-driven: learning efficiency

Cost centre

Base costs of every L&D function: internal staff, facilities and room hire, travel and accommodation,

Training budget per head, measured on utilisation technology, participants' time Drivers: vendor fees, LMS licences, coordination time

The L&D Business Model Canvas

Learning Specialist

Value Creator.

Learning alignment. Competence for the job.

Evidence-informed individual learning · individual capability

Efficient, effective and enjoyable formal learning programs, with an individual licence to operate

Subject matter experts

Evidence-informed individual

Efficient, effective and enjoyable learning · individual capability

formal learning programs, with an

Fewer vendors, selected on quality

individual licence to operate

Learning needs analysis, designing for Accreditation and examination bodies transfer (4C/ID) Licence to operate and the audit passed on measured competence Assessing real competence Transfer designed in, not hoped for Evidence: competence and transfer (LTEM 5 to 8)

Learning designers Curricula and assessments Learning environment, blended

Value-driven at the learning level

Cost centre, defended on competence

Base costs of every L&D function: internal staff, facilities and room hire, travel and accommodation,

Budget tied to programs and learning metrics technology, participants' time Drivers: design and assessment capacity, fewer vendor fees

The L&D Business Model Canvas

Performance Partner

Value Creator.

Business alignment. Team performance, and improving it.

Performance consulting and evidence-informed team learning · team capability · 02 included

Teams that perform measurably better, also under pressure, and keep improving

Line management as co-owner

Performance consulting and

Teams that perform measurably evidence-informed team learning ·

better, also under pressure, and

HR, quality and operations

team capability · 02 included

keep improving

Vendors measured on performance Cause analysis: the cause before the

A team that coordinates and performs solution

reliably Teaming up, making it happen, making it

A team that keeps improving itself stick Evidence: the business case in the Measuring in the team's own metrics,

team's own metrics improving continuously

Performance consultants Performance Consultant AI Team profiles, intervention library, evidence

Value-driven: cost of the gap versus cost of closing it

Business case per team, funded by the line

Base costs of every L&D function: internal staff, facilities and room hire, travel and accommodation,

Savings and gains attributed to the intervention technology, participants' time Drivers: performance consultants, diagnostics and team data, less catalogue spend

The L&D Business Model Canvas

Value Creator

Value Creator.

Business critical. An organization that keeps renewing itself.

Performance consulting and evidence-informed organizational learning · organizational capability · 02 and 03 included

An organization that improves sustainably and renews itself where needed

Executive board and business

Performance consulting and

An organization that improves units

evidence-informed organizational

sustainably and renews itself learning · organizational capability

where needed

Clients, suppliers, science

· 02 and 03 included

Faster adaptation; innovation absorbed The ecosystem the organization learns rather than piloted Closing the retention-and-transfer cycle from across units What one team learns, the organization keeps Exploit and explore: absorbing innovation into the work Evidence: gains that compound in the organization's own KPIs Governing organizational learning

Knowledge architecture: retained, retrieved, kept current Workforce Assistant Learning capacity metrics

Value-driven: investment in learning capacity

L&D as an investment line, tied to KPIs

Base costs of every L&D function: internal staff, facilities and room hire, travel and accommodation,

A share of the value created technology, participants' time Drivers: knowledge architecture, governance, innovation budget

Invitation

Call for prototypes

The four models are archetypes. Every function turns its archetype into a prototype: the model in its own sector, structure and language, with its own partners, metrics and mandate. In spring 2027 a book brings together one hundred of those prototypes, written by the L&D leaders who built them. This is an invitation to write one.

What you write

What you get One chapter of about 1,200 words and one filled-

A named chapter in an internationally published in canvas. Which model your function runs today,

book. The author kit: the blank canvas in this which one it moves to, what changed in the key

design, the four archetypes as worked examples, a activity, and what that delivered, in your own

one-page writing guide. Editorial support from Jos numbers. Sector, size and country do not matter;

Arets. First access to the Scan results across all the shift does.

participating functions.

Where does your function stand?

Value The L&D Business Model Scan: ten statements, three minutes, free. Two voices, L&D management Creator. and the team, and the gap between them made visible. tulser.com/scan

Go deeper

The other white papers, the trilogy, the author

The other short white papers

The Value-Based L&D Trilogy Learning that crosses the levels

sets out the

Three volumes, one argument. Compliance by Learning Conversion Framework, the engine

Design proves that value-based L&D works where beneath the two upper models.

The request is not

it is hardest, in mandatory learning. Arets L&D the problem

covers performance consulting and

Business Models names the four models and the the diagnosis that comes before any training

lever. Learning That Converts sets out the decision. Both free at tulser.com.

architecture beneath them.

The Arets L&D Business Models, the figure and the four canvases are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Use them, share them, build on them; name the source and share your version under the same licence. The canvases are adapted from the Business Model Canvas by Strategyzer AG (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Learning Specialist Order Taker