Babson Executive Education

Transcription

1 CASE STUDY Babson Executive Education Aptean s Pivotal CRM Helps Babson Executive Education Streamline its Operations

2 case study babson executuve Education 2 Executive Education Customer Details Babson is the educator, convener and thought leader for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds. An independent, not-for-profit institution, Babson is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, and the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS). Industry Education Challenges Data fragmentation and redundacy Administrative backlog and lack of confidence in data accuracy Benefits Amalgamated disparate data, reducing redundancy Reduced time to generate reports by 90% Reduced time to ship course packages by more than 90% APTEAN SOLUTION Pivotal CRM Founded in 1919 by successful investment banker and entrepreneur Roger Babson, Babson College has become one of the world s leading business schools, consistently ranked among the likes of Harvard and Wharton. Located in Babson Park, MA, Babson College has three major educational divisions and several departments within each division. Founded in 1919 by successful investment banker and entrepreneur Roger Babson, Babson College has become one of the world s leading business schools, consistently ranked among the likes of Harvard and Wharton. Located in Babson Park, MA, Babson College has three major educational divisions and several departments within each division.

3 case study babson executuve Education 3 Disparate Data Highlights Need for Operational Efficiency The majority of Babson Executive Education s revenue comes from corporate clients seeking custom educational solutions for their senior management, designed to address specific problems the company is facing; these customers include the US Navy and several Fortune 100 companies. The remaining revenue is made up by open enrollment in standard executive education course offerings, research memberships, and the Consortium, a collaboration of non-competing global companies that partner with Babson Executive Education to design and deliver an executive development program that meets the unique management development needs of their organizations. To build relationships with its large customer base and continue to add new customers, Babson Executive Education markets to existing customers and new prospects, targeting senior HR and Learning and Development staff and senior executives. With its large contact base and individually targeted custom courses, Babson s sales cycles tend to be long, typically requiring substantial In order to reach the growth we ve had so far, we would have needed a lot more employees than we have now if we did not have Pivotal CRM. interaction over five to ten months. Therefore, the reliability of contact and customer information including details about enrollment, course evaluation, and where prospects are in the sales cycle is paramount. With enrollment steadily increasing, Babson Executive Education recognized that the disparate customer databases in use would increasingly hinder its ability to grow without adding more and more staff to manage data and operations. The same contact and customer information was often being entered manually into five separate systems the registration (enrollment) system, the sales database, a financial database, and two e-learning systems creating time delays and increasing the chance of error and inconsistency. Most challenging for Babson Executive Education was the fact that the registration system was separate from the database used by sales and marketing staff for opportunity management. Important contact or profile information would be updated in one system but not the other, creating data gaps. Reporting was also arduous because of the disparity between the systems. Babson Executive Education realized it needed a central system and database that could provide one unified view of customers and prospects to serve those clients more effectively and reduce redundancies. Finding the Right CRM Solution Once Babson Executive Education had pinpointed its core needs a system that would provide a centralized customer and prospect database and more streamlined administrative processes the organization commenced its search and evaluation process for a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Having had experience with the complexities and pitfalls of in-house development,, at Babson Executive Education, wanted a packaged CRM solution from a proven vendor. But Budd also wanted a system that would closely fit the needs of Babson s custom solutions. I can t imagine another product out there that would allow me to do the types of customizations we need in order to make our business work. After researching 29 vendors, including a CRM system tailored specifically for the education market, Budd came to the conclusion that a system s flexibility and ease of customization were more

4 case study babson executuve Education 4 important than education-specific features. I looked at a CRM system tailored for executive education centers, but decided against it, says Budd. Any time we needed to change anything with that system, we would have to bring that vendor in and spend all kinds of money having them customize it. Of the 29 systems evaluated, Budd found that only a few of them were truly customizable. Pivotal CRM s flexibility and ease of customization made it the program s choice; Budd recognized that it was scalable and flexible enough to provide an effective solution for other departments in the College in the future, despite varied data and system needs. This school is really striving to integrate its data, says Budd, and I can t imagine another product out there that would allow me to do the types of customizations we need in order to make our business work. Centralizing and Streamlining Brings Many Benefits Implementing Pivotal CRM brought all of Babson Executive Education s customer and prospect information into a single centralized system, creating a common and consistent view. This information is now accessible to the many different users who need it: the sales and marketing groups, operations and administration staff, IT personnel, and management. Even with customizations, Babson Executive Education deployed the system in a very short period of time, quickly achieving a significant increase in operational efficiency and a clearer view of prospect and sales data that improved the planning of their educational calendar. Reports that used to take several days to pull together now take only a few hours. Corporate clients now provide Babson Executive Education with a list of course participants in soft copy, which can be easily imported into Pivotal CRM. In a single step, Pivotal CRM automatically registers all participants to the program they are taking, marvels Budd. Operations staff can easily export registrants to Microsoft Excel for importing into the organization s e-learning system, and invoices for open enrollment are now generated seamlessly in Pivotal CRM, allowing just one group transaction record per course to be entered in the financial system. And with the integration of their shipping system with Pivotal CRM, Babson Executive Education operations staff can simply push a couple of buttons and shipment records are generated directly in the FedEx or UPS system; for sending course information packages, what used to take half a day now takes ten minutes, remarks Budd. With the integration of customer, prospect, sales, and enrollment data, Babson Executive Education is able to manage their calendar of program offerings more effectively. Management has easy access to a comprehensive view of where opportunities are in the sales pipeline, and efficient reporting assists the center with resource planning, such as booking classrooms and equipment. Improved data and data access has greatly increased productivity: The data is a lot more accurate, and the ability to customize and create business logic has been a huge driver of improvements in productivity, affirms Budd. Prior to the implementation of Pivotal CRM, Babson Executive Education spent valuable time, money, and resources marketing to a broad audience. We used to spend a lot of time trying to get in touch with people we weren t sure would need our solutions. Now we re vastly more targeted in terms of those we reach out to, remarks Budd. Pivotal CRM s comprehensive data also helps Babson Executive Education management understand which course topics are garnering the most interest, resulting in enhanced communication with customers and prospects, improved service to participants, and more targeted program design. For all the programs we offer, we have daily evaluations and an overall program evaluation. Participant satisfaction has increased since we implemented Pivotal CRM, notes Budd. Participant satisfaction has increased since we implemented Pivotal CRM. Budd is pleased with the many improvements the implementation of Pivotal CRM has brought to Babson Executive Education, and he maintains that the ability to easily customize the system is its most important feature. Just like for-profit businesses,

5 case study babson executuve Education 5 educational organizations each have their own unique way of running their business as evidenced within the different divisions and departments at Babson. Having a system for education is less important than being able to customize it to your exact requirements, Budd emphasizes. Efficiency Encourages User Adoption and Allows for Scalability Babson Executive Education implemented Pivotal CRM faster than expected, launching in May of Working with Pivotal CRM implementation partner Porter Hill, they were able to roll out the system in a single deployment, building it out with a fully customized registration system right out of the gate. It only took us a couple of months, confirms Budd. Users in operations, sales, and marketing began using the system right away, and Finance started using it within a year, finding value in it as well. I have a program-based benchmark report the Director of Finance uses constantly, notes Budd. With Babson Executive Education s client base and the number of solutions it offers continuing to grow, the scalability and reliability of Pivotal CRM have also proven of benefit. We re up to 30 users now. I don t think we would have been able to grow on the systems we were using before, and the operations group loves it, states Budd. Babson Executive Education believes the operational efficiencies it has realized with the implementation of Pivotal CRM gives it an advantage over other institutions offering executive education programs. Looking ahead, Babson Executive Education s plans include additional customizations to further improve business processes, access for mobile users, and upgrading to Pivotal CRM s nextgeneration 6.0 platform to provide an easy-to-use.net-based smart client and tighter integration with Outlook the latter a particularly important feature for the organization s sales users. Budd has also customized Pivotal CRM for Babson s Center for Women s Leadership. And with Pivotal CRM s flexibility and ease of customization, the entire college could now have the opportunity to benefit from all the system has to offer. It makes sense for us to continue to roll it out to other departments, opines Budd. Pivotal CRM s customizability makes it appealing for testing with other departments on campus. Pivotal implementation, contracts were written and signed in the field, then brought to a central office where staff keyed data into the ERP system. Now, all information is fed automatically through the system, enabling costing staff to complete a budget in 15 to 30 minutes, rather than 1-4 hours. The cost savings are also significant: In order to reach the growth we ve had so far, we would have needed a lot more employees than we have now if we did not have Pivotal CRM, notes Budd. More than 9,000 customers around the world rely on us to give them a competitive edge. By providing innovative, industry-driven enterprise application software, Aptean helps businesses to satisfy their customers, operate most efficiently, and stay at the forefront of their industry. For more information, visit: Copyright Aptean All rights reserved.