study of customer relationship management … of...study of customer relationship management (crm)...

Project Acronym: CRM07 Version: 1.01 Contact: Martin Haywood Date: 6 September 2007

JISC Final Report

Study of

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Issues in UK Higher Education Institutions

August 2007

Prepared by:

Martin Haywood Iain Nixon

Alistair Bowden Robert Bell


Table of Contents

Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................................4

Executive Summary............................................................................................................................5

1. Background............................................................................................................................9

2. Aims and objectives.............................................................................................................10

3. Methodology and implementation........................................................................................11

3.1 CRM workshop............................................................................................................11

3.2 Institutional e-survey ...................................................................................................11

3.3 Institutional visits and investigations...........................................................................12

3.4 Other visits and investigations ....................................................................................13

3.5 Review, analysis and consolidation of data ................................................................13

4. Results .................................................................................................................................15

4.1 Institutional e-survey ...................................................................................................15

4.1.1 Respondents ......................................................................................................15

4.1.2 Institutional approach to CRM............................................................................16

4.1.3 CRM systems in use ..........................................................................................17

4.1.4 Usage of the primary BCE CRM systems ..........................................................19

4.1.5 CRM systems integration ...................................................................................21

4.1.6 Investment..........................................................................................................21

4.1.7 Awareness and engagement..............................................................................21

4.1.8 Issues, impacts, benefits and lessons................................................................23

4.1.9 External support needs ......................................................................................23

4.2 Institutional visits .........................................................................................................24

4.2.1 Case study – Institution A...................................................................................24

4.2.2 Case study – Institution B...................................................................................25

4.2.3 Case study – Institution E...................................................................................25

4.2.4 Case study – Institution G ..................................................................................26

4.2.5 Case study - Institution H ...................................................................................28

4.2.6 Case study - Institution I.....................................................................................28

4.2.7 Case study - Institution K ...................................................................................29

4.2.8 Case study - Institution L....................................................................................30

4.2.9 Case study - Institution M...................................................................................31

4.3 Other Visits..................................................................................................................31

4.4 Workshops ..................................................................................................................32

of 90 Prepared by Document title: Study of CRM issues in UK HEIs The KSA Partnership


5. Analysis................................................................................................................................34

6. Implications and recommendations .....................................................................................42

6.1 Choosing a route to more strategic use of a CRM system .........................................42

6.2 Inputs to defining the level and scope of a BCE strategy ...........................................43

6.3 Forms of customer interaction ....................................................................................44

6.4 Organisational structure..............................................................................................44

6.5 Evaluation of a CRM system.......................................................................................45

6.6 Implementation of a CRM system...............................................................................45

6.7 Where and how JISC can help ...................................................................................45

Appendices .......................................................................................................................................47

Appendix 1: Questions for Institutional e-survey ..............................................................................48

Appendix 2: Institutional e-survey direct mail letter ..........................................................................54

Appendix 3: Charts of results from institutional e-survey ................................................................56

Appendix 4: JISC CRM Institutional Visit Discussion Guide & Framework ......................................74

Appendix 5: JISC sponsored workshop at Coventry Universit 26 June 2007 ...............................85

Appendix 6: CRM Implementation Best Practices (Oracle Corporation)..........................................89



Acknowledgements

This CRM study was funded by JISC under the ‘Enhance Knowledge Management’ stream of its Business and Community Engagement programme framework.

The authors would also like to thank the following for their help and support during the development and implementation of the project:

• JISC and Coventry University for the organisation of the CRM Workshop at Coventry University on 26 June 2007, and to the speakers, discussion group leaders and delegates for their participation and support during and after the workshop

• All respondents to the web-based survey

• The organisations and staff that hosted and participated in the study visits and/or the related telephone interviews

o Coventry University

o Newcastle University

o Salford University

o Swansea Institute of Higher Education

o University College for the Creative Arts at Canterbury, Epsom, Farnham, Maidstone and Rochester

o University of East London

o University of Edinburgh

o University of Hertfordshire

o Lewisham College

o British Library

o i10

o Knowledge House

o Interface

o Salford City Council

• KSA colleagues who helped with the web survey and mailshots

• The JISC Programme Manager, Simon Whittemore, for his support and guidance in conducting the study



Executive summary

Introduction Over the last 10-15 years, the Government has increasingly recognised the critical role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in the development of a modern knowledge-based economy. Increasingly significant levels of public funding have been allocated through the HE funding councils to HEIs to develop their capacity and capability in the area of business and community engagement (BCE). In recognising the challenges involved, the JISC Organisational Support (JOS) committee established a BCE Working Group to oversee a programme of BCE related activities. In order to establish a sound basis of knowledge for this relatively new area of work, JISC commissioned two studies into the awareness, within BCE/knowledge transfer and related communities in HE, of the JISC and its services, and identified the related needs of the community looking forward. Prominent among these needs was the further investigation into Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems for BCE and how JISC might support institutions in this area.

This study, commissioned by the JISC and delivered by The KSA Partnership1, aimed to provide the JISC with knowledge of the UK HE sector’s (and some examples from the FE sector) attitudes towards, and prevalence of, CRM usage – particularly in the context of its leverage to develop, maintain and enhance BCE relationships. It also sought to identify the issues that institutions face around CRM and the related strategic, customer-focus and information management challenges.

Methodology and implementation The methodology and process devised for the study involved the following key elements:

1. Partner workshop – involving representatives from across the HE sector and used as a means by which to explore and gather data on the issues, challenges and sensitivities institutions are facing in deploying CRM systems to support core activity

2. Institutional e-survey – used as a means by which to gather information to provide an appreciation of the overall state of play in relation to how BCE CRM systems are being deployed in higher education

3. Institutional visits and investigations – to build a series of more detailed case studies of stages of deployment and interesting practices and to explore how well the CRM systems had been deployed in managing the customer interface, the issues and challenges involved, and the impact they have had on ways of working

4. Other visits and investigations – to include CRM systems that are being deployed on a regional and sub-regional basis to support collaborative working across HEIs and FECs or where institutions are looking to deploy or integrate with systems used by other partners; these visits would also be used to benchmark HEIs with comparable organisations outside of HE (e.g. local authorities)

5. Review, analysis and consolidation of data - the analysis of the evidence from the above activities was undertaken through a series of ‘think tank’ sessions and then validated at a stakeholder workshop which was also used to help shape a set of recommendations for future action.

The results from the institutional e-survey and the case studies generated from the institutional visits are provided in full in the main body of the final report.

Analysis The analysis of the results would suggest that the deployment of CRM systems to support BCE activity is as yet under-developed in the HE sector. Most HEIs have ‘islands’ of CRM activity with little

1 www.theksapartnership.co.uk


http://www.theksapartnership.co.uk/


connection. To grow their BCE activity will require that these islands are joined up and as this happens BCE activity will steadily require much more strategic consideration.

Two dimensions have been identified as being particularly useful in defining elements of an institution’s overall position in relation to the stage of development in the CRM systems deployment. The two dimensions are:

1. the breadth of the functions (BCE services/activities) managed by the CRM system and the extent to which the system is functionally integrated with other relevant institutional (back-office) systems

2. the level of uptake (or proliferation of use) of the CRM system across the institution’s business units.

The figure below delineates these two dimensions as a basis of a maturity model and integrates the way in which an institution uses, or has the potential to use, the information inputted into the CRM system. The information tends to be used in three-ways – to manage customer contacts (operational), to inform service delivery and improvement (tactical), and to help with planning and making better informed strategic decisions (strategic). The possible routes from operational to tactical to strategic deployment of a BCE related CRM system are also shown.

Deployment of CRM systems to support BCE activity

Functions / functional integration

Upt

ake

acro

ss in

stitu

tion’

s bu

sine

ss u

nits

BCE relationships managed; no/little integration with other institutional systems; multiple instance/record of customer data

BCE relationships managed; integration with some other institutional systems; movement towards a single incidence of customer data

BCE relationships managed; full integration with relevant institutional systems; single instance/record of customer data

BCE unit and/or central team uses

the CRM system on a routine basis

All business units across the institution (academic schools, BCE unit and other

relevant support services) use the

CRM system on a routine basis

BCE unit and some business units

across the university (academic schools and other relevant

support services) use the CRM system on

a routine basis

Strategic

Operational

Tactical

E

B

H

LA

K M

I

G

The applicability of the model has been tested using the institutional case studies generated from the visits and the respective positions of the institutions (A, B, E, G, H, I, K, L and M) reinforces the statement made earlier that this is an ‘under-developed’ area in the HE sector. Predominantly institutions are still at the ‘early stage’ of implementation. In deploying BCE CRM systems institutions have experienced a wide range of organisational, social and technical issues. The deployment of BCE CRM systems should therefore be seen as a journey not a time limited project which requires significant continuing commitment and investment to ensure success and to maximise the value of the system to the institution. As such it is less about the



technology and more about the impact of change on people and processes – this is where the energy needs to be focused.

Implications and recommendations Universities and colleges are pluralistic institutions serving multiple communities with a very wide spread of services. This can lead to sections of an institution operating a narrowed focus and sub-optimising overall institutional objectives in order to best achieve their own sectional goals. In addition any initiatives which are planned to become universal across an institution may need to be interpreted and re-interpreted several times as each sectional environment is encountered.

This investigation has observed a contrast between the situation in many universities and colleges and that observed in other organisations that deploy a CRM system in the operation of a business-to-business service. Generally these latter organisations are able to demonstrate progress in areas which often create difficulties for the higher education sector such as the operation of the system across all of the client-facing staff, the establishment of a single database and the use of the system for multiple purposes. Not only have these organisations been able to establish their selected system so as to be the primary, indeed the only, communications channel with their clients, there is also a level of sophistication in system use which exceeds the current capabilities of most universities and colleges investigated. The investigation team is aware of processes in use such as: management oversight of projected revenues, identification of campaign responses, opportunities for cross-selling, precisely targeted e-marketing communications, electronic feedback on responses to newsletters and service offers, etc. The team has not found evidence that such processes are well-established in higher education sector units dealing with business-to-business activity.

Institutions are, however, looking to extend their CRM deployment and whatever the route followed, an institution will need to reach their desired strategic goal by taking into consideration the organisational, social and technical environments in which they operate. The phases are as follows:

• in the context of the institution’s overall strategic plan, define the level and scope of BCE activity which is desired

• consider the forms of customer interaction appropriate to this desired BCE activity

• formulate or re-formulate organisational structures which can sustain these customer interactions

• evaluate or re-evaluate CRM system products which will serve the defined organisational structures and sustain the BCE activity

• produce an implementation plan which will introduce and embed the selected CRM system into the working practices of all who are engaged in BCE activity.

Of course this apparently linear definition is really a loop and a major review of each complete iteration of these phases (say every five years) is essential.

Institutions may choose to broaden the reach of their chosen strategic CRM system out across the organisation or deepen/integrate the list of services supported from those units who deploy the existing system – mostly it will be a combination of both. In all cases a substantial programme is implied and a robust structure is needed which takes into account:

• alignment between the main institutional strategy and the BCE ambitions

• methods of client interaction

• possible changes to organisational structure

• evaluation and selection of a suitable CRM system and an implementation plan.

In respect to ways in which the JISC could have (in the past) and could yet (in the future) assist each institution with the task of embedding a CRM system to support BCE activity, the study identified a number of interventions that can be encapsulated in four areas of contribution:

• the availability of a team of experienced consultants available to advise institutions on the task of deploying a CRM to enable the operation of significant BCE activity



• a series of workshops and other events covering: BCE opportunities, marketing communications, management of change, CRM selection and CRM implementation

• booklets and website entries with checklists and guidance on marketing communications, management of change, product evaluation, product features analysis and implementation planning

• the facilitation (organised through a lead institution) of learning sets of institutions at similar levels of implementation which encourage the sharing of information and practices.

In conclusion, it is possible to understand the difficult challenge which higher education institutions face in looking to integrate a variety of services and the majority of the client-facing units into a consistent operation. Nevertheless that is the challenge which must be taken up if community, business and employer expectations are to be satisfied. This investigation team, in observing the gap between higher education and other non-HEI business-to-business service organisations are convinced that there is a role for the JISC to play in helping members of the higher education community to mobilise, professionalise and integrate their services.



1. Background Over the last 10-15 years, the Government has increasingly recognised the critical role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in the development of a modern knowledge-based economy. Increasingly significant levels of public funding have been allocated through the HE funding councils to HEIs to develop their capacity and capability in the area variously referred to as Knowledge Transfer, Knowledge Exchange, Third Stream or Business and Community Engagement (BCE)2.

More recent policy developments have recognised higher education as a key contributor to the challenge of ensuring that the UK is a world leader in skills by 2020. These are resulting in an overall drive to upgrade skills and a range of initiatives to encourage the development of dynamic partnerships between HEIs, employers and individuals. This enhances further the potential importance of the BCE agenda in HEI strategies and developments.

The BCE agenda is a relatively new one for the JISC. However, the JISC Organisational Support (JOS) committee has established a BCE Working Group to oversee a programme of activities delivered under the JISC’s support of BCE activities.

In order to establish a sound basis of knowledge for this new area of work, JISC commissioned two User Needs Studies3 which investigated the awareness, within BCE/knowledge transfer and related communities in HE, of the JISC and its services, and identified the related needs of the community looking forward. Prominent among these needs was further investigation into Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems for BCE and how the JISC might support institutions in this area.

The JOS Committee and the BCE Working Group approved the proposal for a study to be conducted into the issues that institutions face around CRM and the related strategic, customer-focus and information management challenges. Behind the proposal was the key question of whether CRM systems and processes might significantly improve the processes and strategic management of education institutions, for example in reporting and knowledge management, particularly for their engagement with business (public and private) and social communities under the knowledge transfer and exchange agenda.

CRM software enables tracking of all the interactions between an institution and its ‘customers’ – be they other organisations or individuals – and is especially useful if different parts of an institution interact with different parts of another body. It is a significant advantage to institutions to be able to manage the entirety of their relationships and identify where multiple interactions are taking place. Some institutions see CRM systems as helping to consolidate and support their relationships with industrial partners and other organisational bodies, enabling them to improve the effectiveness of their interactions through having a coordinated oversight of professional relationships. There is also a suggestion that by networking CRM systems, the combined analysis of a number of institutions’ relationships may help to surface valuable information which could be used to provide rich intelligence across the sector.

It seems that institutions are likely to require assistance in order to deploy and embed such systems – both technically and culturally4. There may be therefore a need for the exchange of knowledge and good practice in the area to help ensure that CRM systems are implemented successfully and cost effectively.

2 The funding bodies in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland aim to increase the impact of the HE knowledge base to enhance economic development and the strength and vitality of society. This is achieved by Knowledge Transfer and Exchange (term used in England and Northern Ireland) through engagement with business and community partners. The work is also called ‘Third Stream’ because it is regarded as supporting the third element of an HEI's mission alongside teaching and research, and therefore has attracted a “Third Stream” of funding. It is described differently in Scotland (usually just as ‘Knowledge Transfer’),in Wales (‘Third Mission’) and in FE (‘Employer and Community Engagement’). For the purposes of this study, the more descriptive term ‘Business and Community Engagement’ is predominantly used – reflecting a wider engagement with private sector, public sector, cultural, and social and civic groups.. See http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/business_community_engagement.aspx for further details of the JISC’s Business and Community Engagement work.

3 See http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/themes/third_stream/bce_user_needs_study_final_14may2007.pdf 4 CRM Event Report, C. Louch, Coventry University, May 2006 (http://www.auril.org.uk/events/past_events/crm)


http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/business_community_engagement.aspx

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/themes/third_stream/bce_user_needs_study_final_14may2007.pdf

http://www.auril.org.uk/events/past_events/crm


2. Aims and objectives The study aimed to provide the JISC, its JOS Committee and BCE Working Group with knowledge of the UK HE sector’s (and some examples from the FE sector) attitudes towards, and prevalence of, CRM usage – particularly in the context of its leverage to develop, maintain and enhance Business and Community Engagement relationships. The Terms of Reference for the study identified the following key objectives:

“i. Strategic intent. Examine the extent to which UK Higher Education institutions are deploying or not deploying CRM-type technologies to support their corporate strategies – particularly with regard to embedding a new business and community engagement/knowledge transfer strategy. Establish the reasons and motivations behind these decisions and examine the level of understanding across institutions about Customer Relationship Management systems, their functions and the associated business costs/benefits.

Establish to what extent such systems are being deployed to simply meet information management needs, whether CRM systems are being deployed at departmental or faculty level or institution-wide, or within specific centres such as Centres for Knowledge Exchange and establish whether in-house or procured solutions are being used. Establish what institutional support is available for those departments/functions that have implemented CRM systems.

ii. Relationships managed. Examine current objectives of CRM system usage in UK Higher Education institutions – i.e. what sort of relationships are being managed and who are the ‘C’s – the types of customer/client/contact – for example business and community partners, regional and other stakeholders or alumni and prospective students.

iii. Effects of CRM adoption. Explore the issues surrounding CRM adoption in institutions and the effects of doing so, through examination of practice within the sector (informed by comparative practice outside HE and FE), across three dimensions: • Cultural issues. Cultural context and change preparedness within HEIs, for example

information management tendencies and accepted notions of partner/customer • Organisational issues. Business process and HR implications • Technical and systems integration issues. How to get best value out of a CRM

implementation through its integration with other institutional systems” In addition, the study was also expected to “identify opportunities to address any deficiencies highlighted by the study, for example (but not limited to):

• capturing and interpreting real user/stakeholder requirements to help institutions make sound procurement and design decisions

• managing access to information in the context of inter-department and inter-institutional collaborative systems, Freedom of Information (FOI) Act compliance and other legal implications

• devising models and producing case studies that help institutions analyse and understand their key business processes in order to develop and share good practices through appropriate routes

• exploring the feasibility of gradual versus ‘big bang’ adoption of CRM approaches and the integration of systems across an institution, and whether there are likely to be easily identifiable candidate contact groups, relationship types, linkable systems, etc. that would lend themselves to early pilots

• establishing templates for technical platforms, software, etc. • investigating how JISC’s current work in areas such as digital repositories and the work of

the JISC Legal service could be exploited to improve understanding of and support the development of interoperable CRM systems

• investigating the scope for shared services and commercial deals if core processes are similar.”



3. Methodology and implementation The KSA Partnership5 was selected to conduct the study on behalf of JISC. KSA has been active in the area of ‘third stream’ developments for many years. It has a strong interest in HE (and HE in FE) and its consultancy work in this area has focused on leadership and management development, employer engagement (including workforce development), work-based learning and innovation, enterprise and creativity. The consultancy team have extensive, direct experience of working in the HE sector at middle and senior levels in the academic, support and management areas, including on the developments at the interface between HEIs and business and the community.

In scoping the work KSA proposed the following high-level key lines of enquiry, and these were used to structure the approach for gathering the intelligence to address the terms of reference:

• To what extent have HEIs deployed CRM-type technologies to realise their strategic priorities?

• How and for whom have HEIs deployed CRM-type technologies to support their core activities?

• What issues, challenges and sensitivities have been faced by HEIs in successfully deploying CRM-type technologies?

• What have been the benefits, impact and effect of deploying CRM type technologies on HEIs and the relationships that they have?

• What have been the lessons learnt about how CRM-type technologies can add value to HEIs and how they deliver on their strategic priorities?

These key lines of enquiry were translated into an evidence gathering process to meet the overall expectations and to minimise the burden on the HE sector within the specified timetable. This was agreed through a project start-up meeting with the JISC Programme Manager.

The process devised involved the following key elements:

3.1 CRM workshop It was proposed to use the already scheduled JISC sponsored CRM good practice workshop at Coventry University on 26 June 2007 as a means by which to support the study objectives. Following discussions with the sponsors and organisers, this workshop was used as a timely opportunity to promote the study and, more specifically, used as a means by which to explore and gather data on the issues, challenges and sensitivities institutions are facing in deploying CRM systems to support core activity. Following a plenary presentation on the study, delegates were allocated to one of six break-out groups to discuss these topics (see Appendix 5) and facilitators were asked to record the discussions and feed these back to the KSA study team, two of whom were present to lead, facilitate, and/or coordinate the discussions and the following plenary session summary.

3.2 Institutional e-survey This was proposed as the best means by which to gather information on which institutions are currently deploying CRM systems either across the institution to support key areas of activity (e.g. employer engagement, student recruitment) or at a business unit level (e.g. business development, careers service).

This was expected to provide an appreciation of the overall state of play (i.e. breadth of understanding). This would then enable the shaping of a typology of the way in which systems are being deployed. The KSA team, in conjunction with the JISC Programme Manager, would then identify a short list of institutions using the typology as a basis for the decision, from which a representative sample of institutions would be targeted for study visits (see below).

5 www.theksapartnership.co.uk


http://www.theksapartnership.co.uk/


However, timetable and timing issues led to modifications of the detailed sequencing and scheduling of activities in order to comply with the fixed deadline of 17 August 2007 for the final report.

A set of questions for a web-based survey was devised6 by the KSA team and refined through a series of iterations with the JISC Programme Manager and a critical review by advisers from JOS members and the Executive (see Appendix 1 for copies of the final set of questions on which the web survey was based). The design of the questionnaire had to balance the breadth and depth of coverage required with the time and load demands on the HEIs in order to secure a good response rate at a difficult time of the year (holidays, financial year boundary, graduation ceremonies etc).

The process of engaging participation in the survey was promoted through a direct mail invitation. Four copies of the invitation letter (see Appendix 2) were sent to all UK HEIs, i.e. to:

• the Vice Chancellor, for information

• the Pro-Vice-Chancellor with responsibility for BCE, for action

• the Senior Manager responsible for BCE, for action

• the Senior Manager responsible for Information Systems (IS), for action.

In addition, the invitation letter was sent to the Principals of 141 Further Education Colleges who were directly funded by HE funding councils.

A total of 805 letters were despatched at the end of the week beginning 2 July 2007, with a deadline of Friday 27 July for responses to the web-based survey. This gave a period of three weeks for responses – this was felt to be the minimum period for securing sufficient responses, especially during July, but would still allow three weeks for completion of the interim and final reports.

During the three week survey period, emails were issued to the following key stakeholder groups in order to promote awareness and the importance of the study and to stimulate engagement in the survey:

• the JISC CRM Coventry workshop delegates (see 3.1 above)

• the AURIL (Association for University Research and Industry Links) mailbase

• the HE Academy PVC Network special interest group on employer engagement.

3.3 Institutional visits and investigations It was proposed to visit eight institutions to build a series of more detailed case studies of stages of deployment and interesting practices and to explore how well the CRM systems had been deployed in managing the customer interface, the issues and challenges involved, and the impact they have had on ways of working. It was proposed that each visit should, where possible and appropriate, involve interviews with the relevant Pro-Vice-Chancellor, the senior manager responsible for business and community engagement, the senior manager responsible for information systems, as well as a senior academic (e.g. head of a school that makes use of the CRM systems). A demonstration of the CRM systems would also be sought, together with discussions with a group of users.

The information generated by this activity would enable the typology to be tested, validated and refined.

The slight delay on the project start together with the period required for the e-survey refinement iterations and the critical review process led to compression of an already very tight timetable for the remaining activities. In particular, this meant that the e-survey and visits had to be run in parallel rather than sequentially with the survey informing the visits. Therefore, the selection of institutions to visit was based on criteria associated with achieving appropriate representation (including type of institution, region, position on the CRM journey) using the knowledge and experience of the KSA team and consultations with the JISC Programme Manager.

6 The survey includes a few questions based on those from a CRM diagnostic tool presented in Walker, K.,

Denvir, P., and Ferguson, C. (2000) Managing Key Clients. Continuum



This also meant that there was a short notice period for institutions to arrange visits and little chance to ‘warm’ them up. The timing of study visits (mid-July to early August) made accessing the key individuals problematic and resulted in scheduling issues and delays. In some instances, telephone interviews with key individuals (if available at all within the study period) had to be deployed after the visit instead of face-to-face interviews during the scheduled visit itself.

However, despite these constraints, a total of nine institutions were visited (compared with the eight proposed), as follows:

• Newcastle University

• University of Edinburgh

• Salford University

• Coventry University

• University of Hertfordshire

• University of East London

• Swansea Institute of Higher Education (by telephone only)

• University College for the Creative Arts

• Lewisham FEC.

The visits used a discussion guide and framework (see Appendix 4) to structure the individual interviews and to record responses. In addition, where appropriate to the visit arrangements and the institution’s position with regard to CRM deployment, discussions with groups of users were also structured and recorded using the second part of the framework.

All visits were completed by 3 August 2007.

3.4 Other visits and investigations It was proposed that these visits would include CRM systems that are being deployed on a regional and sub-regional basis to support collaborative working across HEIs and FECs or where institutions are looking to deploy or integrate with systems used by other partners. Furthermore, it was felt important to benchmark how HEIs are deploying CRM systems with comparable organisations outside of HE (e.g. local authorities).

A total of five other related or comparable organisations were visited (compared with the four proposed):

• i10 (East of England)

• Knowledge House (North East)

• Interface (Scotland)

• Salford City Council

• British Library (by telephone only).

These visits used the same discussion framework as the institutional visits, although it was adapted to suit the different contexts.

All visits were completed by 3 August 2007.

3.5 Review, analysis and consolidation of data The quantitative web-survey data was studied by looking at one variable at a time (univariate analysis), producing bar charts to represent the mass of quantitative data (see section 4.1 and appendix 3). Consideration was given to exploring relationships between variables, but it was felt that the sample size was not large enough to provide robust conclusions.



The qualitative data collected in the various interviews went through a series of stages of analysis. The extensive notes taken in the various interviews where structured against the key lines of enquiry. Then the key emergent themes were listed and prioritised. The final analysis was then undertaken through a series of ‘think tank’ sessions involving the KSA team.

The interim report, in the form of a PowerPoint presentation, was circulated to the JISC Programme Manager for feedback in order to inform the shape of the final report.

In addition it was proposed that, prior to the preparation and publication of the final report, the emerging findings would be presented at a half-day validation workshop to an agreed group of stakeholders to test the credibility and plausibility of the emerging findings and to help shape a set of recommendations for future action.

The compressed timetable reported above also meant that the validation workshop could not be scheduled as proposed, i.e. between the end of data gathering (27 July for the survey and 3 August for the visits), the interim report (3 August) and the final report (17 August). Following discussions with the JISC Programme Manager, the workshop was arranged for members of the BCE Working Group at the end of August 2007.



4. Results In this chapter the key results from the institutional e-survey and case studies generated from the institutional visits are presented as a means by which to begin to explore the extent to which CRM systems are being deployed by HEIs to support their BCE activity.

4.1 Institutional e-survey A full set of the results charts from the survey are presented in Appendix 3. Some of the key results are highlighted and summarised below by each section in the survey.

4.1.1 Respondents

A total of 69 individual responses were received from 61 HEIs. Although more individual responses were anticipated per HEI, the overall response rate for HEIs at nearly 37% was considered a good response, especially in relation to the timing of the survey.

The response rate from FECs was however very disappointing at less than 1% of those invited to participate.

There was a good balance of responses between senior managers of the BCE and IS functions respectively. The number of responses from PVCs was disappointingly low, although perhaps not surprising given the timing of the survey.



4.1.2 Institutional approach to CRM

The responses to these questions indicate that the sector is currently under-developed in its approach to the deployment of CRM systems. The chart of responses to question 1a (Q1a) is presented below and shows that approximately 67% of respondents rated their institution at levels 1, 2 or 3, i.e. only 33% rating their institution at one of the top two levels.

A similar picture emerges for the other rating questions in this section (‘clear commitment to proactive, professional management of clients’ – 56%:44%; and ‘this commitment is consistently promoted by senior management’ – 60%:40%), and only 42% of respondents indicated that their institution did have ‘a documented plan for the adoption and development of CRM systems’.

Where respondents indicated they did have a document plan, they were asked to identify the motivations and objectives of the plan. These are summarised in the box below.

Q2 – Summary of survey responses on key motivations and objectives

for their CRM systems plans over the next two years

• To implement a single, institution-wide system that is fully integrated with other systems, e.g. student records

• To extend student recruitment CRM system to BCE (and vice versa)

• To continue/extend adoption of CRM system in/to all departments

• To support and enhance regional BCE engagement

• To improve client information sharing and understanding, customer focus and professional management of external relationships, especially where multiple overlapping contacts are likely

• To improve enquiry tracking and conversion, life-cycle of interactions with client, management information, reporting to funders, and standardisation/ simplification of processes

• To improve efficiency, effectiveness, service delivery/quality, revenue, new opportunities and other benefits of partnership working

• To develop polices and procedures relating to data quality, access, integration and ownership

• To achieve compliance with direct marketing and DPA regulations.



Where respondents indicated they did not have a documented plan, they were asked to identify the reasons. These are summarised in the box below.

Q2 – Summary of survey responses on the reasons for no documented

CRM plan

• CRM systems not yet considered

• CRM systems considered as unnecessary, too expensive or not geared to particular needs, e.g. for small specialised colleges

• Successful use of CRM system in two BCE departments – but at university level there is an aspiration only at this stage

• Devolved and/or silo approach has resulted in local/personal approaches

• BCE is not an institutional priority

• Pilot implementations or feasibility study in progress

• Institution-wide there is insufficient demand and implementation would be a huge task.

• The anticipated need for different systems or local tailoring/adaptation means cost/benefit hard to justify

• Previous attempts to deploy institution-wide CRM systems have failed

• There is a central CRM system but its use is not mandatory and persuading people to use and share data is culturally difficult and takes time

• Currently there is a lack of agreement and insufficient investment

• Plan currently in development

• CRM is not a high priority, especially with current resource constraints for some institutions

• Plan owned and driven by BCE department

• There are multiple plans and systems but integration is not seen as sufficient value for money.

4.1.3 CRM systems in use

Responses in this section of the survey continue to support the ‘under-developed’ view of the sector in terms of CRM deployment.

Multiple CRM systems tend to be in use across the range of non-BCE activities with 73% (55 institutions) of those answering this question indicating alumni as the area with the highest CRM systems usage, followed by student recruitment (64%), fund-raising (49%), student records (49%), PR/corporate affairs (40%), careers (38%), suppliers/procurement (35%) and student work placements (35%).

There is a similar picture of multiple CRM systems usage for BCE activities, although a higher proportion of those responding to this question reported no CRM systems deployment at all (36% compared with 16% for non-BCE activities – see below).



Those respondents who indicated that there were no CRM systems deployed to support BCE activities (36%) were asked to indicate what systems and processes were in place to support the professional management of clients (Q6). The responses that were provided to this question are summarised in the box below:

Q6 – Summary of survey responses on the systems and processes to

support the professional management of clients where there is no CRM system in use

• The use of basic information systems, such as paper, and MS Office based tools

• Individuals are managing their own contacts

• Departments are using their own systems with informal sharing of contacts/information

• Managed by the BCE department

• Currently looking at or implementing CRM.

Those respondents who indicated that there were one or more CRM systems deployed to support BCE activities were asked to identify the system that was considered to be the primary strategic CRM system (Q7). The responses indicated a wide range of products deployed (see box below) – again supporting the ‘under-developed’ approach in the sector and a related immature market of products and suppliers compared with other HEI information systems.



The responsBCE staff wi

As expectedusage with th2% respectivcategory.

4.1.4 Usa

In terms of thof the responHowever, othcommunity/v

Knowledge T(service typeit seems thatthe respondeconferences

of 9Document tit

Q7 – Summary of survey responses identifying the range of productsin use as the primary strategic CRM system

and the number of HEIs using them In-house systems 7 On-contact 1 Care 4 Goldmine 1 Agresso 3 My-IP 1 Oracle 3 Maximiser 1 Raiser’s Edge 3 Spock 1 Clim8 2 SAP 1 Microsoft CRM 2 Voice/Siebel 1 SITS 1

es also indicate a low routine usage of the CRM systems by staff, even by professional th only 29% of responses indicating usage by more than 60% of professional BCE staff.

, responses for the support and academic staff categories show considerably less routine e comparable figures for usage by more than 60% of the staff category being 9% and ely, with 50% and 78% of responses respectively for the ranges below 20% of staff in the

ge of the primary BCE CRM systems

e type of customer organisations managed by the primary CRM system (Q9), all but one dents to this question (40 responses) reported its use for private sector businesses. er organisation types featured strongly notably the public sector (80%), oluntary (70%), charities/trusts (62.5%) and other funding bodies (52.5%).

ransfer Partnerships dominated the CRM system usage by BCE relationship type ) with 82.5% of respondents using the primary CRM system for this service. In addition, these systems are being used for a range of BCE relationships (Q10a) with over half of nts indicating its use for research (60%), business start-up (60%), consultancy (60%),

and events (52.5%), and industry clubs/networks (50%). In the context of the current

0 Prepared by le: Study of CRM issues in UK HEIs The KSA Partnership


focus on the skills agenda, training and skills development was reported by just less than half (45%) of the respondents.

The primary systems are also being used across a range of transactional activities (Q10b), with the main roles being for logging and reporting activities with clients, including visits (70%), projects (70%), telephone calls and emails (both 67.5%), and events (60%), as well as for storing associated documents (57.5%) and scheduling actions and assigning staff (55%).

Moving from operational support through to tactical and strategic activities in support of BCE delivery (Q11), the primary systems are being used across a range of such activities as presented below.



4.1.5 CRM systems integration

There is generally a low level of integration of CRM with other internal systems (Q12) reported, with the main areas of integration being student records (10 out of 24 respondents reporting CRM system links) and alumni (9 out of 24), or student recruitment (9 out of only 12 respondents reporting CRM system inclusion).

Only one response reported a shared service operating for collaborating institutions (Q13) and none reported operational links with external partner CRM systems (Q14).

4.1.6 Investment

Of those that responded to this set of questions (Q15), most reported an implementation of the CRM system within the last three years (26 out of 34 responses). However, the number of responses to the financial questions was significantly lower, perhaps indicating that the information was not readily known or available.

4.1.7 Awareness and engagement

Responses to the questions asking for ratings of the attitudes of different groups of staff (BCE, support and academic staff) on a 1-5 scale (Q16a-d) tended to follow a very similar pattern for each of the following statements:

16a There is widespread understanding by the following groups of staff of the role that CRM systems can perform

16b There is widespread acknowledgement that CRM systems can make a contribution to institutional aspirations

16c There is a widespread willingness to participate in the institutional use of a CRM system



16d There is a widespread willingness to share contacts and information across individuals, departments and faculties.

The responses to Q16d below are typical, with BCE staff being mostly rated highly (64% at 4 or 5), support staff being mostly rated in the middle ratings (with 31% at 4 or 5), and academic staff being mostly rated at the lower end of the scale (with only 9% at 4 or 5, and with 71% at 1 or 2).

Respondents also indicated that they felt that their institution’s allocation of resources was generally insufficient to manage contacts professionally and to maximise the potential from the deployment and exploitation of the CRM system with only 20% rating at 4 or 5 on Q16e.



4.1.8 Issues, impacts, benefits and lessons

Respondents were asked to identify, and comment on, the key issues, impacts, benefits, and lessons experienced during the adoption and development of the CRM system (Q17). These are summarised in the box below.

Q17 – Summary of survey responses on the key lessons and benefits of CRM system deployment

• Lessons include:

- have clear CRM strategy and agreed implementation plan

- have sufficient and dedicated resources for implementation, including for training and data input/cleaning/extraction

- needs good communication and selling of benefits, including at individual level, to bring people on-board early

- it takes a long time to embed and to realise benefits

- needs to be driven from the bottom but supported from the top

- it is a journey/system not instant solution, with need to maintain and sustain management commitment, momentum and use, especially for data quality

- deal with problems immediately (don’t let them deter, delay or fester)

- it is a people based process involving business process development and change management, not an IT system implementation

- needs to be mandatory and need to turn off old systems

- work closely with the supplier to understand product capability in specific context

- product ease of use/tailoring is important, together with achieving integration with personal and corporate systems and processes

• Benefits include:

- knowing status of projects and enquiries, contacts (single customer view) and outstanding actions, better management information and reporting

- improved marketing and market intelligence, better customer management, increased cross-selling opportunities

- greater awareness across the institution and increased collaborative working

- improved data handling and compliance (e.g. DPA)

- improved use of resources and more efficient client handling.

4.1.9 External support needs

Respondents were asked to identify any needs they have had in the past, or might have in the future (next two years), for external support with regard to the adoption or development of BCE CRM systems (Q18). A summary of the responses is presented in the box below.



Q18 – Summary of survey responses on the external support needs

• Training

• Programming and development support for CRM products

• Business process/system review and change management

• Sharing peer group experiences and advice on defining needs and implementation

• Advice on software packages and training needs

• Advice on best practices

• Easy access to help, advice and support

• Data migration and testing

• Financial support

• Implementation support

• Integration of CRM with processes and systems

• Supplier support – training, help desk, development.

4.2 Institutional visits The results of the face-to-face interviews that took place during the institutional visits are summarised here as case studies. In part this is a means of representing the disparate results of the semi-structured interviews, but in addition these case studies paint a rich picture of the different situations amongst higher education institutions7.

4.2.1 Case study – Institution A

Institution A has recently issued an ‘Invitation to Quote’ for the supply and implementation of an institution-wide CRM system to handle the full range of BCE relationships and to inter-operate with existing MIS (integrated finance, HR, procurement, student relationships from prospect through to alumnus). Currently the central BCE office and related staff in academic departments use an in-house Microsoft-based system developed over the last seven years that has been pushed to the limit, and there are a range of over 20 locally used systems across the institution.

The institution has a very strong BCE focus to its strategy and aims to use the CRM system to support the development of productive and long-term relationships with a wide-range of organisations. The institution-wide system will provide a common platform to support the storage of data and the business processes relating to all BCE interactions. The CRM system will facilitate historical records of interactions to facilitate account management, and support enquiry handling, cross-selling, repeat business, task allocation/sharing, relationship/project monitoring, management and funder reporting, legal compliance, event management, marketing, performance management, and analysis (e.g. of demand and supply).

The main issues and challenges are seen to be associated with change management and staff buy-in; the ownership and sharing of contact data in the development of an appropriately balanced individual/corporate model; data input, import and cleansing; and integration/inter-operability.

The institution has identified a number of levers and enablers to support implementation including: the development of trust through appropriate protocols and procedures for control and access; good

7 A repeated theme identified during the visits was a desire from interviewees to see case studies of the current

CRM deployment situation amongst UK HEIs and hopefully these summaries go some way to fulfilling this need.



internal communications to promote benefits and awareness including through the use of experiences elsewhere; development groups with cross-university representation; providing sufficient support for data entry and transfer; providing staff resources with sufficient time to support local use, embedding and training; and, allowing sufficient time to build trust and understand benefits.

The institution would value independent advisers able to provide experienced guidance on the best practices for implementation in an HE context, together with access to a repository of objective evaluations of CRM products. It would also like support for the development of improved licensing arrangements with suppliers and for facilitating information, forums and events to share practices, experiences, case studies.

4.2.2 Case study – Institution B

Institution B has operated one successful CRM system within the business engagement function for eight years. Building on the experience gained from this system, there are plans currently being discussed to develop one CRM system across three nearby HEIs to join up the business engagement activities to ensure that the needs of local firms are connected to the most appropriate institution.

The original CRM system was developed in response to a large project funded by the regional development agency. This piece of work required the business engagement function to interface with and support a large number of businesses across a wide area.

At the time when a system was required to co-ordinate these many relationships, a member of staff was engaged with a IT training course that required a practical project, so an in house CRM system was built to the particular needs of the project. This meant the functionality of the system was well suited to the specific local needs and also meant that as the project evolved, the system could be developed in line with its needs.

The most significant long term issue has been maintaining the quality of the data on the CRM system. After the project finished, there was little spare resource to dedicate to cleaning the data, so through time the names and positions of the contacts, along with the contacts details of the firms has changed and the CRM system has not kept pace. After some years of this minimal maintenance, the data is now so dirty that the utility of the whole CRM is compromised.

The main enabler of the original database was the large and important project that required the systematic management of contact details. The catalyst to the possible joint CRM across the three local HEIs is more complex: superficially everyone is keen to work together to progress the overall BCE agenda; in detail however, each institution appears to be interested in benefiting in different ways, in particular accessing the more detailed contact databases of the more vocational institutions with well established links to industry.

The benefits of the CRM system when it was clean were clear: it enabled the team to win business, to manage enquiries and to keep in touch with the wide business community.

The key lessons are plan for the long term, not just the initial implementation and maintaining a CRM is expensive and resource needs to be dedicated to this essential process.

Institution B would like support in carrying out the pilot CRM implementation across three HEIs which are very different in their internal focus and external BCE interfaces.

4.2.3 Case study – Institution E

Institution E has a very positive BCE agenda. There is considerable activity to be supported broadly across business consultancy, research, regionally focussed development projects and extensive community work based on the local multi-ethnic, multi-cultural environment and the consequent widening participation challenges presented.

The institution is following a classic route in deploying a CRM system to support its BCE activity. Previously use had been made of simple client tracking systems using Access databases and proprietary systems which were adequate for individual use but were not capable of being networked or providing management information at a sufficiently high level.

All external service work other than that conducted individually by the institution’s Schools is directed from a single external service unit (ES) which incorporates sections undertaking liaison with feeder



colleges and schools, collaboration with local and regional bodies, alumni, EU work and commercial business consultancy and training (CBU). It is in this latter section that work has been progressing to select and implement a full facility, fully networkable CRM system capable of satisfying institutional client relationship needs.

A system selection process was undertaken and following the initial trawl discussions were held with all interested parties – leading to a short list of two options being drawn up. There then followed much more extensive consideration of these two options. One option was to work with a system company on the creation of a bespoke system to precisely fit the needs of Institution E. Ultimately this option was rejected as being too high risk and the other option - a Sales and Marketing package from a world-renowned software supplier was chosen.

The hierarchy of the implementation was as follows:

Principled support for the process by the relevant PVC

Full direction and support for required procedural change from the Director of the ES unit

Day to day management of the project – definition of protocols and procedures and issue resolution by the manager of the CBU.

Customisation, training, support and guidance – the CRM officer in the CBU.

The size and complexity of the implementation project has been greater than expected. Three years on from the beginning of the project the situation is that the system is now stable and established as the necessary, appropriate and effective way of handling CRM issues within the CBU. The project team (Director, Manager, Officer) acknowledge that this achievement has taken longer than expected.

Major issues have been

• customising interfaces to suit individual staff members

• dealing with the need for precise definitions (leads, prospects, proposal…)

• snagging the way users were attempting to use the system

• quarantining old databases and client lists

• the discipline of regular maintenance of details for use by the whole team.

The system itself (commercially operated through a re-seller) has been robust and has not inhibited any business ambitions which the BCU has held. Operationally the software sits on a dedicated server and can be used anywhere in the institution. Support from the re-seller has been acceptable. There is now confidence in the completeness and accuracy of the client/project data entered and maintained by the BCU staff for activities which they undertake themselves. It is possible and desirable to begin extracting information which will provide management with impending revenue assessments, proposal success ratios and intelligence for cross-selling opportunities.

The ES Director is now keen to roll-out the system to other sections within ES and then, with the backing of the relevant PVC, to extend to other University units. Given the experience of the last three years it is acknowledged that this task is considerable and careful planning and resourcing is essential.

Institution E would have welcomed assistance from the JISC three years ago in the selection of a system and the planning of an implementation project. Similarly they would welcome assistance with the next challenging phase in the form of access to a high level consultant to plan and monitor the roll-out more widely across the institution.

4.2.4 Case study – Institution G

Institution G has recently taken in-house a separate instance of a system which is also being operated on behalf of a confederation of universities in a single English region. The original system for use in the confederated environment was created to manage the joint operation of projects mounted from EU-derived funds. These projects were themselves often collaborative in nature and needed to be carefully managed in areas such as the demonstration of matched funding and the existence of employer contributions. So the system grew up with a strong orientation towards project cost control.



The project management entity (PME) managing the collaborative system operates within a joint body of all of the regional universities (JUB). The JUB acts as a clearing house for joint bids, joint regional PR and joint responses to regional bodies, HEFCE etc.

The system itself grew to provide more than project cost control by taking on the additional role of client enquiry brokering. Incoming enquiries addressed to the PME were passed out to all participating universities and controlled with a tracking system which ensured a timely response. The client would see any and all the timely responses provided to the PME and could then choose to negotiate and conclude a project agreement under their own steam. Subsequently the project continued to be managed in cost and delivery terms through the system operated by the PME.

The result of this development is that the PME system contains a wealth of historical data about clients, projects, and academic expertise. One additional element of the system which should be mentioned is that there is a degree of control over data confidentiality so that universities who may be in competition can see their data and collaborative data only. This feature is under further development – along with some other enhancements – by a team of two IT staff who are dedicated to this system in the PME. The PME itself also retains a project finding/management structure based on ‘hub and spoke’ model with a very small project team at the JUB and a single member based at each university..

Institution G has installed a separate and free-standing instance of the PME system and has undertaken a very significant implementation. Technically the system is supported and developed by four staff. The system now contains full details of every institutional project which could be described as BCE – research, contract research, CPD, consultancy, collaborative work, RDA work, NHS work, EU work etc. The system is fully established right across all relevant sections of Institution G. This includes all academic units as well as all external-facing and commercial units. There is even use by units (e.g. Estates) that do not naturally operate in ‘sales’ mode at all. The extent of the data contained is extensive – it covers all revenue-earning activity other than that derived from student grants and fees.

Considerable effort has been applied to the business of agreeing and establishing protocols, procedures and definitions to ensure consistency. Altogether over the implementation of the initial (PME) collaborative system and the more recent separate instance, it has taken about six years to get to this position. Now it is possible to consider much more tactical and strategic use of the system, e.g.

• reports that show areas of weak commercial achievement

• revenue flow estimating

• pipeline evaluation

• cross-selling.

Prior to and partly overlapping with the initial implementation of the PME system, Institution G was going through a demanding project to establish a comprehensive ERP system. It is a thought that this was effective in preparing the ground so that units, when ‘required’ to conform to a project cost input and management system had already been through a similar process.

Institution G has also moved ahead with its ERP which does contain an ‘off-the-shelf’ CRM module – indeed this module has also been developed and is used for the recruitment of students not processed through UCAS.

At DVC level there is clear understanding that a resolution of this split operation may be useful at some point. However, the issue is not as pressing as obtaining additional benefits from the existing systems and extending their deployment to cover large scale ambitions involving local players such as the RDA.

There has been the highest level buy-in to system implementation from the beginning and a firm resolution to use a single system across all units and all project types. By leading with project costs rather than sharing your contacts, only modest resistance was encountered and the prior ERP work had also prepared the ground.

The JUB work was very useful ‘learning set’ activity and this is recommended to other institutions as long as a potential break-away is an agreed option at all stages. University G has one of the most



sophisticated and widely implemented CRM systems amongst English universities and would be happy to assist the JISC by leading learning sets and providing input to workshops and other events.

4.2.5 Case study - Institution H

Institution H has been using a small bespoke system in its BCE office for a number of years for project management and support activities, but this system is limited in application and reducing in usage. There are also many local/individual systems around the institution, e.g. for work placements. The institution has recently begun the implementation of a three year plan involving an externally hosted CRM system for institution-wide student enquiry handling and management and extending this to all student recruitment activities and communications.

Although currently there is no formal BCE CRM strategy in place, the institution has identified CRM as a key risk management issue with a need for more robust systems to improve its management, monitoring and reporting of projects, the tracking, sharing and coordination of client contacts, and the integration with other systems, in order to develop higher levels of professionalism, efficiency and effectiveness.

A number of key challenges are anticipated in any developments towards a corporate CRM deployment including the cultural issue, especially around central versus local control (central need for standard processes, control and consistency versus local need for contact protection and confidentiality) leading to the requirement to help staff develop faith in the product and processes as well as for appropriate protocols, responsibilities and behaviours; data input and transfer; and a relatively high proportion of sessional/part-time staff.

Leadership, management and communication are seen as key to promote top-down commitment. This would involve engagement with senior staff and academics generally, including getting departments to work together and involving them in the design and deployment of any system. Identifying and securing the level of corporate investment needed will be key, but evidence will be important to support and promote that investment.

Good communications across the institution will be required, together with CRM prioritisation and integration with other plans and strategies, in order to promote the benefits and to generate understanding of needs and buy-in to the deployment and use of any system. Selecting a user-friendly system with the ability to tailor to the local context of users and their interests/processes is seen as important to demonstrate and promote the benefits.

The institution would value access to independent advice and guidance from knowledgeable experts, as well as consultancy support on the business processes and integration, and to information on current implementations, experiences, practices and case studies, including through conferences and events with demonstrations of a range of applications and functions. Technical overviews and product evaluations – ‘Which’ guides – would also be valuable alongside support for the development of procurement consortiums.

4.2.6 Case study - Institution I

Institution I has three CRM systems operating in business engagement, research and alumni relations; it is also about to pilot a fourth CRM system for international student recruitment. There is a growing demand for CRM capabilities in different areas across the institution and a growing debate about the need for a single institution wide CRM system.

The institution takes BCE activity very seriously and sees it as critical to its mission and external reputation. Within this context, the first CRM system that was operational within the institution was in the business engagement function. It aimed to improve relationships with customers by helping to provide unique solutions (linking unique needs with unique capabilities) and therefore to win more business.

The business engagement CRM system has developed as a close partnership with a private sector software development company. It was initially purchased at a much reduced price over five years ago, and ever since the product has been developed to suit the particular needs of the HE sector (the quid pro quo being that the software company gained experience of and market entry into the HE sector to sell their products to other institutions). This has provided the institution with a very good value product and a very attentive and supportive development team.



The first issue encountered by Institution I is almost universal – to quote ‘people are the problem’ (in the sense that CRM software only adds value if the people that use it do so consistently and to the same high standards). This second and more interesting issue is particular to experience with business engagement. The issue is that the structure of the CRM system does not easily cope with unique enquiries, nor does it easily cope with the diverse and ever changing capabilities within the institution. Therefore whilst it enables the process to be managed professionally and does without doubt increase the speed of producing solutions; it does not add value to linking the unique needs with unique institutional capabilities. Rather than a ‘normal’ CRM structure built for call centres that assumes high volumes of enquiries about a limited number of topics with a limited number of organisational responses, a non-linear structure would be required to codify the broad and dynamic institutional expertise and to link this to unique enquiries (though it ought to be noted that a traditional linear structure is perfect for some HE functions where there are a high volume of contacts about a limited number of topics e.g. UK student recruitment).

The most important benefit of the CRM has been in winning business. Along with a professional interpersonal approach, the CRM is seen as being critical to the success of the whole business engagement function. Associated with this, the CRM has enabled better standards of data management and much improved reporting.

The main lessons learnt are around gaining value from CRM systems. First of all they cost large sums of money, but more importantly they involve organisation change which is expensive, time consuming and difficult.

The institution would welcome a variety of support. Mainly, it would be useful to better understand the situation across all HEIs – a ‘Which’ guide to CRMs, their functionality and pros/cons, and a guide to best practice in CRM implementation. Additionally, it would be useful if a concise guide was produced for internal use with staff who are considering utilising CRM to outline costs and implications to organisational change.

4.2.7 Case study - Institution K

Institution K has been using an externally hosted CRM service for nearly two years within the central BCE support office. However, they are now beginning a new five year plan with a transition to a CRM module extension to their existing student records system. The aim is to manage multiple contacts and integrate business activities across the institution, going beyond the sales process to deliver efficiency in marketing, and centralisation and standardisation of systems and data, including the tracking of students, employers and finance. The early phases will deploy the CRM system in the central BCE office before expanding and extending its use across the institution in order to provide advanced operational and strategic support. The institution is looking to improve its image and credibility with customers and to support product development and delivery (improved planning, trend analysis, response times and targeting).

BCE is a major part of the institution’s activities and plans. It is high on the senior management agenda and has gained commitment across the senior team. Academic areas are being re-structured to support the engagement with the business activities and support areas are also being given extra resources. A relationship model has been developed involving account management, appropriate behaviours, and performance management.

Although a range of system options had been considered for the previous deployment, it was decided not to look around at the market again for the new deployment – integration with the existing student records system was a key factor, together with cost, the accumulated experience with the existing system’s processes and interfaces, and the good relationships with the existing supplier.

The main issues and challenges are recognised as securing commitment to the concept and system usage, developing appropriate behaviours around contacts, developing effective use, and data (ownership, quality, input and import).

Other institutional changes, including the re-alignment with business engagement, will help with CRM deployment. Understanding the value of contacts will be promoted, including their ownership by the institution not the individual. Data input, although largely an individual responsibility, will require some support resources to enhance quality, consistency and de-duplication.



Key lessons from previous deployments and other experiences are that successful deployment depends on people, planning, commitment from the top and throughout, and on the understanding that it is a major investment in terms of both finance and time, including the time it will take to make it work.

In the past the institution would have valued external support in terms of product reviews and assessments, case studies, understanding other institutional experiences, and consultancy support.

Moving forward, it would value consultancy support (depending on the availability of internal resources for deployment and training), sharing experiences with others, and support for working with suppliers to improve sector focus of products and to develop the possibility of consortium purchasing arrangements.

4.2.8 Case study - Institution L

Institution L is just over one year into a five-year implementation plan of a single CRM system for all customer facing activities for both businesses and students, including the full student life-cycle.

The institution believes good customer relationships are important for developing the BCE agenda and even more important for the student side in terms of increasing student recruitment and student retention. Corporate relationships can involve multiple interactions across the institution and it is important to build the knowledge and understanding of these interactions in order to develop more effective management of the relationships. This should support client retention, more repeat business and increased opportunities for cross-selling. The aim is also to use the CRM to support service improvement, market segmentation and targeting, and planning.

Currently the CRM system is being implemented in the central BCE offices and two other service departments, and is also being piloted in two academic areas, including UCAS applications for one department. The plan is to achieve breadth of coverage across academic and service departments as well as integration with other corporate information systems such as student records and finance. The roll-out is being managed on a department by department basis including training and tailoring to meet local needs.

The implementation is considered successful so far, with many departments eager to join the implementation, but significant issues have been encountered. These include cultural change (winning hearts and minds), user protection and sharing of data (confidentiality, security, trust and access) leading to the need for data and process standards/protocols, the costs of software licensing and maintenance, and the speed of delivery/roll-out (implementation and tailoring for each department can take significant time/resources and staged roll-out over three years means some departments can be waiting a long time).

Important levers and enablers have been the corporate top-down commitment and resourcing, the demonstration of benefits and deliverables to target audiences, the implementation process involving users in the design, inputting/importing critical volumes of data and closing legacy systems.

Although still at an early stage, the implementation is already delivering significant benefits, including improved/transformed business processes, the sharing and accessibility of better quality information on activities and customers, a more professional approach leading to improved credibility with clients and stakeholders, greater cross-departmental working, and greater staff awareness of, and engagement in, the agenda.

Main lessons to date are that senior level buy-in is crucial; the ownership and sharing of data is a key issue; can’t implement all in one go; and significant funding and implementation support resources are required.

The institution would have valued external support during the option consideration and selection phases. This support includes access to professional help and advice in looking for the best option, together with information and statistics on experiences, effectiveness, common functional requirements, practices and case studies on the use of CRM in the HE context. Moving forward from its current position the institution would still value the opportunity to share and learn from other experiences and practices, including access to a good practice guide and benchmarking.



4.2.9 Case study - Institution M

Institution M has had one CRM system in the business engagement function for a number of years and is currently deploying a new CRM which is a better fit for purpose. There is also a CRM system being developed to integrate the student recruitment, student records and alumni relations, but that was not covered by this study.

The initial CRM system was developed in response to internal needs that were not being met by various other back office systems. It was a ‘sticking plaster’, but has been a great learning experience for all staff (strategic staff, IT staff and everyday users) which has enabled the sourcing of the new CRM to be carried out from the position of being ‘intelligent clients’. This new system will operate across the whole function and will become the single system for managing external relationships (rather than the old system which simply filled gaps between existing systems).

The old system was developed in house and evolved slowly to meet emerging needs. The new system is being purchased from one of the leading software suppliers in this sector, and will then interface with existing back office systems where necessary.

The main enabler for the initial development and recent purchase of the CRM systems has been the ever growing importance of the BCE agenda. The institution lays a strong emphasis on knowledge transfer and business development and this top level support has created an environment in which there are ever rising expectations about the interface with business. Behind this sits the requirements of the funding council to provide performance data of the amount and impact of this activity, so systems are required to improve the process and also to report on activity.

The old system has proved the usefulness of CRM systems generally, but the new more appropriate system has yet to prove what benefits it will bring.

The main lessons are the human difficulties with the previous and current deployment of the CRM systems. To quote: ‘there are no technical challenges – predominantly the issues are about getting staff to change and use the new system’.

Institution M would like to see a review of what is happening across al HEIs, as well as case studies of CRM systems and implementation best practice. It would also be useful to have a standard template of the requirements for CRM systems in the HE sector.

4.3 Other Visits Three of these visits involved collaborative organisations and approaches involving all the HEIs in their respective regions, i.e. i10 (East of England), Knowledge House (North East), and Interface (Scotland). In general, their main features that are relevant here are:

• They aim to support their region’s HEIs, individually and collaboratively, in terms of raising the profile of HE offers, generating enquiries, and supporting engagements

• The CRM is crucial (couldn’t operate without it!) for recording, brokering, disseminating and tracking enquiries and contracts through to completion, project management and cost control, and reporting

• The CRM system selection and deployment issues, lessons and support needs are generally very similar to those identified in the individual HEI visits, except for the following:

– There can be particular boundary issues between the central operation and the individual HEIs around the integration/transfer of data and data protection, security, and access

– The development of consortium purchasing arrangements (e.g. CHEST) for CRM systems was identified as a further support need

– Knowledge House in the NE believes it has something to offer JISC and HEIs – a system, developed over many years (10+), tailored to HE environments and capable of supporting individual HEIs or clusters of HEIs and/or FECs

The British Library is now into the second year of implementation of a corporate CRM system and it now has over 90 users. Another CRM is also in use but users will be transferred, along with other



existing systems/users, to the corporate system as BL moves towards one integrated system over the next three years. There are many parallels with the CRM system deployment in HEIs and the associated issues and lessons are again very similar.

Salford Council is one of the leading local authorities in England for its utilisation of CRM technology. It first deployed its CRM system over five years ago and it has been developed constantly since then. It now has a 105 seat contact centre that takes 900,000 calls annually on a wide range of Council services (only social services, which is typically the hardest of council services to integrate due to its sensitive data, remains to be added to the CRM). The challenge is now to interface effectively with a series of external organisations so that not only do enquirers get all their Council queries solved in one contact, but associated health, community safety and fire issues can be dealt with as well.

Salford was one of the first pathfinder councils to deploy a single CRM system across all council services with the aim of ‘answering as many enquiries as possible at the first point of contact’ (to halt the all too common experience of being passed ‘from pillar to post’ when ringing a local council with an enquiry). They then took part in a knowledge sharing exercise to help all other Councils that had to respond to the Implementing e-Government agenda (to have all council services e-enabled by the end of 2005).

The CRM system was developed in house by a dedicated team that continues to work on the improvement of the core system (e.g. usability by customer services staff), as well as major pieces of development related to bringing new services into the system (e.g. developing the appropriate front end functionality, as well as interfacing with back office systems or developing the deep functionality and data storage within the CRM so that old back office systems can be closed).

In comparison to HEIs, Council enquiries are dominated by quite regular and re-occurring enquiries (e.g. my bin has been missed – please come and empty it; I want to report a broken street lamp/pothole; what time does the sports hall open?). The CRM system is therefore set up to enable a generic member of staff to deal with the majority of enquiries, either providing them with the necessary information to answer people’s questions, or prompting them to ask a series of questions, the answers to which are inputted into the CRM, which then enable a back office professional to deal with the problem. Interestingly, these generic customer service staff actually spend 20% of their initial training on learning about the majority of services codified into the CRM, and 80% of their time on learning about how the whole council works, so that staff feel confident in taking responsibility for the small number of unusual enquiries which need a unique tailored solution.

A key to the successful implementation of a single CRM system across the organisation has been the absolute support of the senior councillors and members, in particular the Leader and Chief Executive. Added to this was the early financial support of the then Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to support the pathfinder councils.

The benefits to local people have been huge in the efficient and effective way that their enquiries are now dealt with. From the Institution’s perspective, money has been saved by concentrating the front of house function that used to be part of almost everyone’s job, into a new centralised efficient customer services function.

The main lesson is not to go for a big bang opening on a particular date. The complexity of introducing a CRM system takes a professional, incremental approach that takes all staff along in the process of change.

4.4 Workshops Despite the severe weather conditions on 26 June 2007, especially in the North Midlands and South Yorkshire, nearly 50 people attended the JISC sponsored CRM workshop organised by Coventry University8. As proposed, KSA attended the workshop in order to present to a plenary session on the objectives and activities of this investigation, and organised the delegates into six break-out

8 Copies of the presentations from the workshop can be found at

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2007/06/crmpractice.aspx. It is understood that a full report of the workshop will also be hosted on the JISC website in the near future.


http://www.jisc.ac.uk/events/2007/06/crmpractice.aspx


groups led by facilitators to discuss and feedback on 3 key questions focusing on strategic intent, experiences, and support needs.

Appendix 5 presents the agenda for the workshop together with the format of, and summarised feedback from, the discussion groups. This feedback serves to strongly reinforce the results from the e-survey and institutional visits, and therefore highlights the robustness of the overall findings from the triangulation of these different sources of evidence.



5. Analysis In this chapter the results obtained from the JISC and Coventry University CRM workshop, the institutional e-survey, the in-depth interviews conducted in nine HEIs and five other organisations, the desk research and the experience of the KSA consultancy team are drawn on to provide an analysis of the deployment of CRM systems to support business and community engagement activity in higher education.

The analysis would suggest that the deployment of CRM systems to support BCE activity is as yet under-developed in the HE sector. Most HEIs have ‘islands’ of CRM activity with little connection. To grow their BCE activity will require that these islands are joined up and as this happens BCE activity will steadily require much more strategic consideration.

A useful theoretical consideration is how a CRM system can be used to support increasingly more complex and strategic business (or community) focused relationships. Baaken of University of Applied Sciences Münster identifies how relationships may move from being focused on one project to multiple projects to joint activities to ultimately a strategic relationship9. This ‘stairway’ model10 (see figure 1 below) demonstrates how relationships, as they become more strategic in nature and demand greater levels of commitment from both parties (in this instance, universities and businesses or social communities), require the use of a more highly developed or mature CRM system. Such a system extends well beyond operational and analytical functions to support collaborative functionality and values oriented approaches to optimise a two-way productive relationship.

Figure 1 – Stairway to strategic partnerships

Level 2Some projects

Level 5Partnership

Level 4Joint activities

Level 1Single project

Level 6Strategic partnership

Level 3Time cooperation

Com

mitm

ent

Strategic relevance

Norm strategies

Norm strategies

Source: Baaken (2007)

The movement towards a more highly developed or mature CRM system can be explored on a range of continuums. Figure 2 delineates each of the continuums which help to characterise the stage of

9 Baaken, T. (2007) PRM - Partner Relationship Management - as part of Science to Business Marketing.

Presentation to JISC/Coventry University Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Event, Coventry June 26th 2007.

10 Other similar models are variously known as the ‘value ladder’ (Christopher, M., Payne, A. and Ballantyne, D. (1991) Relationship Marketing Butterworth-Heinemann) and the ‘value staircase’ (Gordon, I (1998) Relationship Marketing. John Wiley).

See also Buttle, F. (2004) Customer Relationship Management- Concepts and Tools. Elsevier, which refers to a seven-stage customer journey – suspect, prospect, first-time customer, repeat customer, majority customer, loyal customer, advocate.



development in the system’s deployment. Typically ‘early stage’ development is characterised by the descriptors on the left-hand side of the diagram and a more mature system by the descriptors on the right-hand side – an institution’s movement between the two extremes from left to right representing a hift from being HEI-centric (supply focussed) to customer-centric (demand focussed).

igure 2 – Dimensions of BCE related CRM systems

s

F

Limited/no integration with other relevant institutional systems

Full integration with other relevant institutional systems

Single business unit uses the system on a routine basis

Multiple business units use the system on a routine basis

Limited/no integration with other HEI function

Full integration with other HEI functions

Provides basic customer needs to support operational activity

Provides client intelligence to inform strategic decision making/planning

Covers a limited range of BCE services

Covers full range of BCE services

Multiple instances of customer

Single instance/record of customer

HEI-centric Customer-centric

Narrow range of transaction types supported

Wide range of transaction types supported

Supports interaction with a narrow range of customer types

Supports interactions with a wide range of customer types

Two dimensions, however, have been identified as being particularly useful in defining elements of aninstitution’s overall position in relation to the

stage of development in the CRM systems deployment.

The

1. nt institutional (back-

2. stem across the institution’s

rvices. A scaling on each axis as been described as a means by which to position an institution.

two dimensions are:

the breadth of the functions (BCE services/activities) managed by the CRM system and theextent to which the system is functionally integrated with other relevaoffice) systems [relates to Q10a and Q12 of the web-based survey]

the level of uptake (or proliferation of use) of the CRM sybusiness units [relates to Q8 of the web-based survey].

Figure 3 outlines these two dimensions to provide the basis of a maturity model similar to the one designed by Shaw et al11 for the implementation of e-government seh

11 Designed by Shaw, D., Kawalek, P., Batista, L. and Cottam, I. Reported in Batista, L. (2007) CRM in the

Government Context - Strategies, operational challenges and current environment. . Presentation to JISC/Coventry University Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Event, Coventry June 26th 2007.



Figure 3 – Maturity model


Upt

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a routine basis

Related to an institution’s position on the graph is the level of sophistication with which an institution uses, or has the potential to use, the information associated with the CRM system [relates to Q10b and Q11]. The information tends to be used in three-ways – to manage customer contacts (operational), to inform service delivery and improvement (tactical), and to help with planning and making better informed strategic decisions (strategic). The three levels also point towards the sophistication of the data analysis – ranging from inputting the data to provide customer information to interrogating the data to enable market analysis, product/service appraisal etc. (see figure 4 below).

Figure 4 – Levels of CRM system use in the HE sector

Operational Tactical Strategic

Using the informationto manage contacts

Logging ofrelationship

transactions (e.g.projects, visits,

telephone calls, events,customer needs,

customer satisfaction)

Using the informationto inform service

delivery andImprovement

Interrogating thedata to enable

customer segmentation,targeted marketing,

key account management,

market analysis, cross-selling etc.

Using the informationto make better

informed strategicdecision on an

institutional widebasis

Interrogating thedata to enable market

analysis, product/serviceappraisal, informationmanagement/reporting

(internally/externally) etc.



When aspiring to be a more strategic BCE operator, an HEI can choose to extend their CRM deployment horizontally or vertically, or more likely, through a blend of both. So, in the case of an institution with a primary CRM system implemented to support the BCE unit or central team in managing a (limited) set of BCE related services/activities, the route chosen in response to an aspiration for a more strategic BCE performance could entail:

• incorporating more BCE services/activities into the CRM system and integrating the system with other relevant institutional systems (e.g. student recruitment, students records, alumni, financial ledgers, supplier management/procurement) before attempting to increase the level of uptake across an increased number of academic schools and/or support services

• extending the use of the CRM system in supporting BCE services/activities to more and more business units (academic schools and/or support services) before moving to add to the system’s functionality and the level of integration with other relevant institutional systems

• setting out to achieve a combination of the two as part of a progressive development process.

Figure 5 delineates the possible routes from operational to tactical to strategic deployment of a BCE related CRM system.

Figure 5 – Deployment of CRM systems to support BCE activity


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Strategic

Operational

Tactical




a routine basis

The applicability of the model is illustrated using the institutional case studies generated from the visits (see section 4.2). The position and direction of travel of each institution in relation to the deployment of their BCE CRM system has been plotted in figure 6 below – the orange arrows delineating the expected journey and position after three years. This graphical representation of the respective institutional positions reinforces the statement made earlier that this is an under-developed area in the HE sector as shown by the grey shaded area. Predominantly institutions are still at the ‘early stage’ of implementation (Institutions A, E and K) or are considering how best to implement a CRM system to support their BCE activity (Institutions B and H). Where institutions have deployed a BCE related CRM system they are primarily deploying them operationally, although there is evidence



of use on a more tactical basis (Institutions I, L and M). One institution (G) has achieved very widespread use across the institution and is dealing with a very substantial proportion of its client activity. Figure 6 – Positions of institutions in deploying CRM systems to support BCE activity


Upt

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Strategic

Operational

Tactical




a routine basis

G

E

B

H

LA

K M

I

In the main, irrespective of their relative positions, the institutions surveyed have intentions to move towards an increasingly tactical (Institutions A, I, K, and M) if not strategic deployment (Institutions G and L) of the system over the next three years. These institutions are all typified by having a clear institutional level commitment to proactively managing their (BCE) customer relationships, senior management (e.g. PVC, DVC level) buy-in to the deployment of CRM system(s) to support their BCE activity, an institutional wide plan for CRM development and deployment, and prioritised investment/dedicated budgets to support the development and implementation process. In some cases there is also a clear identification and articulation of values and priorities relating to customers and investment is being made in evaluating the benefits/impact of CRM system usage.

Institutions have, however, experienced a wide range of organisational, social and technical issues in deploying BCE CRM systems. These include:

Organisational

• Culture – resistance to change and trust

• Need/opportunity for change/consistency in business processes and procedures

• Control and authority – central v local/individual

• Insufficient resources to support effective deployment

• Speed of deployment – staged roll-out over long period means some are waiting and the full benefits are not realised immediately

• Costs of licences and maintenance.



Social

• Resistance to change

• Getting user buy-in to routine use and data entry/capture

• Users need/want access at all times/locations which would demand a web-based service.

Technical

• Tailoring to individual department/business unit’s needs

• Developing definitions, standards, protocols and procedures

• Contacts – sharing, sensitivity, confidentiality, security, access, trust

• Closing down, and data migration from, existing databases/systems

• Integrating/interoperating systems.

Those institutions that have implemented a CRM system to support their BCE activity and are tackling the issues and challenges noted above are beginning to realise significant benefits. The deployment of CRM systems is positively impacting at all levels – operational, tactical and strategic – and one institution and two regional collaborations specifically stressed that they couldn’t operate without it!

Operational – leading to improvements in the way in which customers are managed and relationships developed:

• Improved customer data – consistency and compliance, accessibility and availability

• Reduced risk of multiple approaches damaging client relations.

Tactical – leading to an improved and more ‘customer’ focused service delivery:

• Increased staff information exchange and sharing / interaction and collaboration across institution

• Positive changes in staff attitudes and better response times to enquiries, aligned to improved confidence internally and externally with stakeholders/sponsors

• Better management, control and reporting of projects including risk management and appraisal

• Ability to analyse customer data by range of criteria

• Ability to identify, analyse and support weak performance.

Strategic – leading to better improved forecasting, planning and decision-making:

• Reduction in costs and improvement in efficiency and effectiveness

• Increased visibility of business activity, internally and externally

• Improved development of the ‘business pipeline’ including the implementation of new/transformed business processes.



In relation to how best an institution can go about implementing a CRM system to support their BCE activity, the analysis identified some clear lessons that institutions can learn from. These lessons learnt could arguably be defined as critical factors in the successful deployment of a CRM system12.

• Strategic leadership:

o Ensure the highest level sponsorship and continuing commitment – lead by example

o Establish strategic intent and framework, set the direction and measures of success

o Identify key sponsors and supporters, resources required

o Reinforce the messages (continually!) through good internal PR and communications to promote awareness and to sell/demonstrate the benefits

• Planned implementation supported by (adequate) resources:

– Build understanding of how the business works – its information architecture

– Develop a robust implementation plan that links into other corporate plans

– Don’t try to do everything in one go – instead adopt a staged approach and start with the unarguable necessities which will indirectly help to build the database, e.g. financial/project control

– Allocate sufficient resources to solve problems and niggles quickly, provide customisation help wherever possible and promote new processes and protocols as the need becomes obvious

– Make use of a project/change manager and identify/support champions

• Engage key stakeholders throughout the process:

– Go with the grain by using appropriate terminology and keeping it simple

– Use internal and external early adopters as case studies to encourage uptake by others

– Manage expectations by keeping everyone informed and reinforcing the positive

– Develop trust, ownership and responsibility by establishing appropriate management, controls and protocols

• Provide incentives and support

– Use intrinsic and extrinsic incentives and/or make demands of staff that require use of the system

– Provide (timely!) staff development

• Define the HE offer and benefits to be gained to customers

• Engage with suppliers early to understand functions and features

– Work closely with suppliers before purchase to understand clearly what products can do and how they relate to the needs

– Ensure the product is user friendly and flexible enough to be tailored for range of interests and users

• Getting as much quality data as possible into the system

– Provide data input/cleaning support resources

– Force legacy systems out

– Work towards integration with the institution’s core business and other systems.

12 See also Appendix 6 for best implementation practices as identified and reported by Oracle Corporation



The deployment of BCE CRM systems should therefore be seen as a journey not a time limited project which requires significant continuing commitment and investment to ensure success and to maximise the value of the system to the institution. As such it is less about the technology and more about the impact of change on people and processes13 – this is where the energy needs to be focused.

13 See Buttle, F. (2004) Customer Relationship Management- Concepts and Tools. Elsevier, who identifies four

supporting conditions that facilitate successful implementation – leadership and culture, data and technology, people and processes.



6. Implications and recommendations Universities and colleges are pluralistic institutions serving multiple communities with a very wide spread of services. This can lead to sections of an institution operating a narrowed focus and sub-optimising overall institutional objectives in order to best achieve their own sectional goals. In addition any initiatives which are planned to become universal across an institution may need to be interpreted and re-interpreted several times as each sectional environment is encountered.

This investigation has observed a contrast between the situation in many universities and colleges and that observed in other organisations that deploy a CRM system in the operation of a business-to-business service (B2B). Generally these latter organisations are able to demonstrate progress in areas which often create difficulties for the higher education sector such as the operation of the system across all of the client-facing staff, the establishment of a single database and the use of the system for multiple purposes. Not only have these organisations been able to establish their selected system so as to be the primary, indeed the only, communications channel with their clients, there is also a level of sophistication in system use which exceeds the current capabilities of most universities and colleges investigated. The investigation team is aware of processes in use such as: management oversight of projected revenues, identification of campaign responses, opportunities for cross-selling, precisely targeted e-marketing communications, electronic feedback on responses to newsletters and service offers, etc. The team has not found evidence that such processes are well-established in higher education sector units dealing with B2B activity.

It has been shown that some institutions have not yet selected a strategic institution-wide CRM system tool, some have made that selection but have not yet deployed it widely in terms of client service requirements and some have not yet deployed it widely in sectional terms. Very few have an agreed strategic system choice which is operating across all sections and is supporting a wide range of client service requirements. It is the view of this investigation team that this situation is in contrast to many private organisations who are offering sophisticated high-end services and are therefore in competition with higher education B2B sections. Such organisations differ from higher educational institutions in ways which simplify the challenge of establishing a broadly implemented CRM system - not least their tighter institutional focus and narrower range of communities served. Also these organisations have a more managed ethos and decisions made at Board or high management levels will have, at least superficially, a smoother implementation path. In order to compete with the non-HEI B2B service sector, to respond to employer-engagement initiatives and to satisfy an increasingly collaboration-minded set of agencies and communities, higher education institutions must up-skill their staff and upgrade systems so as to provide professional services and to confidently manage their delivery.

In order to compete with independent and private professional consultancy services to provide research, training and development, consultancy etc., a university or college needs to make strategic choices about the kinds of markets in which it can reasonably expect to operate and then address those markets with an effective marketing and service strategy. It is not the job of this study or this section of the report to comment on ways in which this should be achieved. Clearly there are many options for strategic choice including focussing on in-house centres of excellence, seeking collaboration inside and outside the public sector, and creating separate legal entities. In all cases, the act of making a strategic selection of markets in which to operate will then be followed by the need to address those markets professionally and consistently. This need can often only be satisfied by the selection and implementation of a CRM system across all the services and sections identified by the strategic market selection. Some organisations are not convinced that this step is necessary and have resolved to allow a pluralistic approach to client services rather than to homogenise methods. However the majority of institutions identified in this investigation recognise that full benefit can only be achieved using a common system providing sophisticated analysis of consistently collected data.

6.1 Choosing a route to more strategic use of a CRM system The analysis presented in chapter 5 identified a number of generic or sample positions in which institutions could find themselves using two measures:

• the extent of uptake across an institution’s business units of a strategically chosen CRM system



• the functions being offered and managed by the chosen system and the level of functional integration being achieved between that system and others.

Institutions can choose to extend their CRM deployment in either direction or, most likely, according to a blend of both. So, in the case of an organisation with a key CRM system implemented in a single unit deploying a limited set of services, the route chosen in response to BCE strategic planning could entail:

• gradually incorporating and integrating more services into the CRM system to be operated within that unit

• extending the existing limited service out to more and more units

• setting out to achieve a combination of the above two.

Whatever the route followed, an institution will need to reach their desired strategic goal by taking into consideration the organisational, social and technical environments in which they operate. The phases are as follows:

• in the context of the institution’s overall strategic plan, define the level and scope of BCE activity which is desired

• consider the forms of customer interaction appropriate to this desired BCE activity

• formulate or re-formulate organisational structures which can sustain these customer interactions

• evaluate or re-evaluate CRM system products which will serve the defined organisational structures and sustain the BCE activity

• produce an implementation plan which will introduce and embed the selected CRM system into the working practices of all who are engaged in BCE activity.

Each of these five phases is considered below and some of the relevant considerations are detailed.

Of course this apparently linear definition is really a loop and a major review of each complete iteration of these phases (say every five years) is essential.

6.2 Inputs to defining the level and scope of a BCE strategy The drivers to be more strategic about BCE and to move towards a CRM system as part of the BCE strategy were identified by this investigation to be:

• policy changes, e.g. higher level skills/employer engagement agenda

• institutional strategies, e.g. increasing focus on business markets, better risk management

• better monitoring and control of projects including finances and reporting

• more professional approach to managing client relationships, including key account management

• higher reputation, profile and credibility with clients and stakeholders

• cost control (and reduction of costs), e.g. reducing staff resource on enquiry lines

• greater consistency of data across institution

• central accessible resource to promote and support greater awareness and understanding across institution

• wider knowledge and better coordination of multiple contacts across range of functions with same client

• increase business, repeat business and cross-selling – and prevent ‘starting again’ with new initiatives/projects

• increase efficiency, effectiveness and support for marketing, planning and decisions



• integration/interoperability with other institutional systems.

Those institutions already advanced in their use of CRM added the:

• ability to identify very effective and less effective individual units, products and services

• ability to assess the size of impending revenue streams

• ability to evaluate individual customer and aggregate sales pipeline data

• ability to extend system support to external partners collaborating on individual or systematic ventures.

A review of the relevance of these factors to an institution will help focus their BCE strategy and establish their priorities.

6.3 Forms of customer interaction The decisions made about a BCE strategy is likely to lead to some new thinking about an appropriate organisation structure. Before that is concluded, some thought needs to be given about communications from a client perspective.

• making client communication as consistent and as professional as possible

• avoiding repeated, contradictory or mixed messages

• establishing and rationalising multiple points of entry between the institution and the client using an allocated account management structure

• establishing a broad and consistent institutional understanding about the responses which are obtained from the client in respect of all the services offered

• using and tuning multiple communication formats including personal sales approaches, business event invitations, circulation of standard marketing items, use of e-marketing, hospitality offers etc.

These are crucial areas to consider and decisions on these items will inform the consideration of organisational adjustments implied by the BCE strategy.

6.4 Organisational structure The need for a re-think of organisational structure will be stimulated by the challenges which a re-energised BCE strategy will impose. The issues promoting such a re-think include:

• the level of senior level commitment to establish a consistent and professionally managed service for all clients

• maintaining an effective functional relationship between a central client-responding unit and the institutional units who possess and deliver the desired expertise

• developing and establishing consistent definitions, standards, protocols and procedures for responding to all client communications

• closing down and migrating data from existing databases

• the nature of institutional culture – the history of resistance to change

• attitudes to control and authority – central versus local or individual

• choosing to integrate and or interoperate IT systems

• making the best use of human resources to support effective service deployment.

Together with the issues from the previous section on customer interaction these thoughts will inform the extent to which an organisation faces BCE with an integrated centrally managed structure or uses a confederation of approaches from multiple units with some degree of autonomy.



6.5 Evaluation of a CRM system Once the scope of the institutional approach to the BCE challenge is established and the organisation structure issues are clear then it is possible to undertake an informed evaluation or re-evaluation of the kind of CRM system needed:

• a range of technical issues will need to be considered depending on the institutional IT standards and the degree of integration or inter-operation being planned

• all of the strategic, communication and organisational issues considered above need to form part of the system’s functional requirements

• in addition there is a range of commercial issues to be considered regarding the system vendor and the nature of the offer being made

• system performance and service level agreements need to be negotiated.

6.6 Implementation of a CRM system The project to implement or extend the selected CRM system needs to be conceived, resourced, communicated and managed:

• constructing a change management plan

• consideration of the speed of roll-out

• negotiating and agreeing the institutional resources needed to achieve the project

• creating a communications plan to be used internally and, where relevant, with clients

• undertaking technical trials and achieving a viable system configuration

• undertaking training and familiarisation at all appropriate levels of system involvement

• migrating the data from multiple sources, cleansing and supplementing as appropriate

• customising the system visual interfaces and reports and adapting to user requirements

• creating any required interfaces to other corporate systems (e.g. finance, HRM etc.)

• performing the system transition

• providing responsive support to the snagging process during early system use

• keeping objectives under constant review and maintaining project focus

• managing the project for cost, time and quality.

6.7 Where and how JISC can help Institutions may choose to broaden the reach of their chosen strategic CRM system out across the organisation or deepen/integrate the list of services supported from those units who deploy the existing system – mostly it will be a combination of both. In all cases a substantial programme is implied and a robust structure is needed with the following phases:

• alignment between the main institutional strategy and the BCE ambitions

• consideration of client interaction

• possible changes to organisational structure

• evaluation and selection of a suitable CRM system and an implementation plan.

This investigation has collected the views of institutions regarding ways in which the JISC could have (in the past) and could yet (in the future) assist each institution with the task of deploying and embedding a CRM system to support BCE activity. Setting these responses into the phases of implementation previously discussed creates the following suggested JISC interventions.



CRM Project phase Potential intervention by JISC

Alignment between institutional strategy and BCE ambitions

Assistance of experienced consultants available on an on-demand basis

Workshops on specific aspects of BCE opportunities, e.g. government initiatives

Consideration of customer interactions

Marketing workshops.

Written guides/websites on communications formats and their implementation

Changes to organisation structure Assistance of experienced consultants available on an on-demand basis

Workshops on Management of Change towards greater engagement in commercial activity

Evaluation and selection of a CRM system

Checklists and guidance on the selection process

Workshops on evaluation with vendors present

Lists of products with a features analysis

CHEST agreements for popular CRM products

Implementation planning Assistance of experienced consultants available on an on-demand basis

Workshops on implementation planning

Guides and checklists on implementation planning

Learning sets which share pitfalls and good practice

In summary the JISC interventions could be encapsulated through four areas of contribution:

• the availability of a team of experienced consultants available to advise institutions on the task of deploying a CRM to enable the operation of significant BCE activity

• a series of workshops and other events covering: BCE opportunities, marketing communications, management of change, CRM selection and CRM implementation

• booklets and website entries with checklists and guidance on marketing communications, management of change, product evaluation, product features analysis and implementation planning

• the facilitation (organised through a lead institution) of learning sets of institutions at similar levels of implementation which encourage the sharing of information and practices.

It is possible to understand the difficult challenge which higher education institutions face in looking to integrate a variety of services and the majority of the client-facing units into a consistent operation. Nevertheless that is the challenge which must be taken up if community, business and employer expectations are to be satisfied. This investigation team, in observing the gap between higher education and other non-HEI B2B service organisations are convinced that there is a role for the JISC to play in helping members of the higher education community to mobilise, professionalise and integrate their services.



Appendices 1. Institutional e-survey questions 2 Institutional e-survey direct mail letter 3. Charts of results from institutional e-survey 4. Institutional visit discussion guide and framework 5. JISC sponsored CRM workshop at Coventry University 26 June 2007 – workshop agenda

and discussion group format, questions, and feedback summary 6 CRM implementation best practices (Oracle Corporation)


Appendix 1: Questions for institutional e-survey Introduction This survey is part of a Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) funded study of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system usage and related issues across the UK Higher Education (HE) sector, with reference to examples from the Further Education (FE) sector, with particular regard to their support of Business and Community Engagement (BCE) strategies. The KSA Partnership has been contracted by JISC to undertake the study. Definitions In the context of this study: Business and Community Engagement (BCE) is the term used to cover the range of engagements that an institution has with organisations in the private, public, cultural, social, civic and voluntary sectors in order to increase the impact of the HE knowledge base to enhance economic development and the strength and vitality of society. BCE covers engagements that are part of activities often labelled as Knowledge Transfer (KT), Knowledge Exchange (KE), or Third Stream. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) involves the use of software that enables tracking of the interactions between an organisation and its ‘customers’ – be they other organisations or individuals within those organisations - and is especially useful if different parts of an organisation interact with different parts of another organisation. CRM systems enable organisations to manage the entirety of their relationships and identify where multiple interactions are taking place. They also help to consolidate and support their relationships with customers enabling them to improve the effectiveness of their interactions through having a coordinated and professional approach. In addition to the software implementation however, the adoption of a CRM system also encompasses significant strategic, cultural and organisational issues. In asking questions about your use of CRM systems we are therefore referring to systems with a level of sophistication above that of the manual management of email lists and other spreadsheet based or ‘Outlook-type systems. Responses It is important for the study to obtain different perspectives on the issues and therefore we are seeking responses from the following institutional staff: - the Pro-Vice Chancellor/Vice Principal responsible for BCE activities - the Senior Manager responsible for institutional information systems - the Senior Manager responsible for institutional BCE activities (or Senior Managers where these activities are managed through more than one central support function) We expect the survey to take approximately 20-30 mins to complete. Unless specified otherwise, all responses will be treated as confidential - any analysis, presentation or reporting of the responses will be in an anonymised or aggregated form. The analysis of the responses will contribute to a detailed report of the study findings and recommendations that will be submitted to JISC in August 2007. The report will be made public in due course. At the end of this questionnaire there is also an opportunity for you to provide more information on the implementation of the CRM system at your institution in the form of a case study __________________________________________________________________ Please provide the following details:


Institution Name Institution type (university, college of HE, FE college) Name Job title Job role (PVC or Vice Principal responsible for BCE / Senior Manager responsible for BCE/ Senior Manager responsible for Information Systems/ other – please specify) Email address Tel no __________________________________________________________________ 1. Please score the following statements for your institution as a whole on the following scale: 1

(not like us at all) – 5 (just like us) a. Institutional priorities and values relating to the management of clients/customers are

clearly identified and articulated 1—2—3—4—5

b. There is a clear commitment to proactive, professional management of (key) clients across all areas of institution (departments and processes)

1—2—3—4—5

c. This commitment is consistently promoted by directorate and senior management

1—2—3—4—5 2. Does your institution have a documented plan for the adoption and development of CRM

systems, and for BCE CRM systems in particular? If so, please indicate the key motivations and the key objectives over the next 2 years. If not, why not?

Questions concerning non-BCE related CRM systems 3. How many CRM systems are deployed across the institution to support non-BCE activities?

(Select one of 0;1; 2-3; 4-5; 6-9; 10+, don’t know) 4. Please indicate which area(s) of non-BCE activity are supported by these CRM systems: - student recruitment - student records - student work placements - careers - alumni - fund raising - suppliers/procurement - PR/Corporate Affairs - other (please specify)) Questions concerning BCE related CRM systems 5. How many CRM systems are deployed across the institution to support BCE activities?

(Select one of 0;1; 2-3; 4-5; 6-9; 10+, don’t know) If none then go to Q6 else go to Q7



6. As there are no CRM systems deployed across the institution to support BCE activities, what systems and processes are in place to ensure BCE relationships are managed productively and sustainably, including the storage of information relating to client profiles, market intelligence, and institutional engagements and activities?

……..then go to Q18 at end about external support needs 7. Which one of these CRM systems, if any, do you consider or do you plan to be the primary

strategic institutional CRM system for BCE activities? (provide name and source of system supplier/in-house)

(If there is none in this category, please indicate the CRM system with the largest user base

and use this for the following questions) 8. Which staff use this CRM system on a routine basis? (for each category of staff please

indicate the appropriate percentage range (give 20% ranges eg 0-20%, + ‘don’t know’) of staff using the system now))

- professional BCE staff (eg business development staff whether based centrally or at faculty/dept/business unit levels)

- other support staff (across central/faculty/dept/business unit levels) - academic staff 9. What type of organisations do you manage relationships with by the use of this CRM system? - private sector businesses (large, medium and small) - public sector organisations (eg RDAs, local authorities, health service) - community/voluntary sector organisations - charities/trusts - funding bodies (eg research councils) - other (please specify) 10. Which BCE relationships are managed by this CRM system? a) by service/activity type - contract and collaborative research - intellectual property (eg patenting, licensing) - start-up support for new ventures (inc spin-outs, incubators, science parks, mentors,

advisers) - facilities/equipment related services (eg design, testing) - Knowledge Transfer Partnerships - consultancy - training and skills development (inc short courses and CPD) - part-time degrees (inc work-based learning) - industry clubs/networks - regional regeneration/development - conferences and events - sandwich course and other industrial placements - other work experience (eg live projects, case studies) - volunteering opportunities - other (please specify) b) by relationship transaction type - event management - visit logging/reporting - telephone call logging/reporting - email logging/reporting - action scheduling/staff assignment - document logging/storage (tenders, proposals, reports, letters etc) - logging of customer needs diagnosis data



- logging of customer market intelligence - project logging/status reporting - customer satisfaction data (eg post-project quality review/evaluation) - other (please specify) 11. How is the data in the CRM system used to inform and improve BCE service delivery,

development and decision making (beyond the transactional processes identified above in 10b)?

- newsletter/brochure circulation - marketing (service/event mailshots, telemarketing) - email marketing management

- sms and mms marketing management - electronic traffic analysis

- information management/reporting (internally & externally) - product/service appraisal - cross-selling - customer segmentation/targeting - key client/account management - market analysis - other (please specify) 12. Which other institutional systems does this CRM system include or interact/link with?

(indicate whether included within or linked to the primary CRM system) - student recruitment - student records - virtual learning environment(s) (e.g. WebCT, Blackboard) - student work placements - careers information, advice and guidance records - alumni - fund raising - financial accounts (ledgers) - supplier management/procurement - inbound/outbound telephony - PR/Corporate Affairs - other (please specify) 13. Is this CRM system used as part of a shared service operated by or on behalf of a group of

collaborating institutions? Yes/No (if yes - please describe nature of service and other institutions involved)

14. Does this CRM system have any operational links with the CRM systems of partners (eg

Business Link)? Yes/No (if yes – please identify partner(s) and describe the nature/function of the link)

15. What institutional support is provided for this CRM system? Please provide estimates of - investment to date? Total £K + approx year first implemented / don’t know - current annual budget? - £K / don’t know - internal staff training and development? - £K/pa/ don’t know 16. Please score the following statements for your institution as a whole on the following scale: 1

(not like us at all) – 5 (just like us) a. There is widespread understanding by the following groups of staff of the role that

CRM systems can perform - the institution’s professional BCE staff 1—2—3—4—5 - the institution’s support staff 1—2—3—4—5



- the institution’s academic staff 1—2—3—4—5

b. There is widespread acknowledgement that CRM systems can make a contribution to institutional aspirations

- the institution’s professional BCE staff 1—2—3—4—5 - the institution’s support staff 1—2—3—4—5 - the institution’s academic staff 1—2—3—4—5

c. There is a widespread willingness to participate in the institutional use of a CRM system


d. There is a widespread willingness to share contacts and information across individuals, departments and faculties


e. There are sufficient resources provided by the institution to support the use of the CRM system to manage contacts professionally and to maximise the potential of relationships with those contacts.

1—2—3—4—5 17. Please identify and comment on the key issues/impacts/benefits/lessons experienced during

the adoption and development of the CRM system. 18 Please identify any needs for external support with regard to the adoption or development of

BCE CRM systems that your institution: - had in the past - has currently or is likely to have in the next 2 years. 19. Would you & your institution be prepared to host a visit by the study consultants as a follow-

up to this survey? (We will select 8 institutions to visit, mainly on the basis of the survey analysis, and hope to undertake these visits during July/August)

Yes/No Further Details about the CRM systems Please provide as much of the following information as possible where it is known or readily to hand – please do not delay the completion and return of your survey response in order to investigate the details 21 Please provide details about each of the non-BCE CRM systems in use (included in Q1)

(table + space for comments/explanation) - name of system - source of system (name of supplier/in-house)



- level of deployment (institution wide or at the level of a faculty, department, or research/business/service unit)

- area(s) of non-BCE activity supported (eg student recruitment, student records, student work placements, careers, alumni, fund raising, suppliers, PR/Corporate Affairs, other (please specify))

22. Please provide details about each of the BCE CRM systems in use (included in Q3) (table +

space for comments/explanation) - name of system - source of system (name of supplier/in-house) - level of deployment (institution wide or at the level of a faculty, department, or

research/business/service unit) Thank you for completing the survey questionnaire. Any enquiries about this survey or the study in general should be made to Martin Haywood ([email protected]) If you would like to submit the implementation of the CRM system at your institution as a case study of practice (eg objectives, process, critical success factors, outcomes and lessons learnt) then please use the downloadable case study template to complete and then send to Martin Haywood ([email protected])


mailto:[email protected]



Appendix 2: Institutional e-survey direct mail letter

4 July 2007 To: Vice Chancellors - for information

Pro Vice Chancellors responsible for Business & Community Engagement (inc. Knowledge Transfer / Third Stream) – for action Directors responsible for Business & Community Engagement (inc. Knowledge Transfer/Third Stream) – for action

Directors of Information Systems (inc. IT strategies) – for action

JISC Business & Community Engagement programme: Study of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) issues in UK Higher Education institutions As part of its Business and Community Engagement programme, the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) is funding a study of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) practices, system usage and related issues in the UK Higher Education (HE) sector. Whilst the scope of the study covers the application of CRM to support a range of HE institutions’ business processes, it gives particular emphasis to the use of CRM to support Business and Community Engagement (BCE). The KSA Partnership has been contracted by JISC to undertake the study.

Business and Community Engagement (BCE) is the term used to cover the range of engagements that an institution has with organisations in the private, public, cultural, social, civic and voluntary sectors in order to increase the impact of the HE knowledge and expertise base to enhance economic development and the strength and vitality of society. BCE activities are often labelled as Knowledge Transfer (KT), Knowledge Exchange (KE) or Third Stream. See www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/business_community_engagement

This study is informed by a user needs study14, which found that the BCE community would welcome advice and guidance on CRM issues and related good practice, both pre- and post-implementation. It will be an important step in providing JISC with knowledge of the UK HE sector’s attitudes towards, and prevalence of, CRM usage, particularly within BCE activities. The study will form the basis for investment decisions by JISC on future development and potential services in this area.

Your institution’s participation in the survey is therefore very important.

In order to gather a different perspectives on the key issues in CRM we would wish to obtain responses from a range of senior managers responsible for BCE activities (for example, relevant Pro-Vice Chancellors / Vice Principals, Heads of Information Systems, etc).

To participate in the survey, these staff should use the following website & username

Website: www.theksapartnership.co.uk/surveys/JISCUsername: XXXXX

We expect the survey to take approximately 20-30 minutes to complete. The deadline for completing the survey is 27 July 2007 – however we would ask you to complete the survey as soon as possible.

At the end of the survey there is also an opportunity to provide more information on the CRM considerations and experiences at your institution in the form of a case study. The study consultants may wish to visit your institution and you are invited to indicate whether your institution would be willing to participate in such a visit if approached (a maximum of one day).

We would like to thank you in advance for participating in this study. Yours sincerely Sarah Porter Head of Development, JISC

14 See www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/themes/third_stream/bce_user_needs_study_final_14may2007.pdf

http://www.theksapartnership.co.uk/surveys/JISC


Appendix 3: Charts of results from institutional e-survey

Notes about the data

The base number of respondents for questions one to five is 69. Questions from eight onwards are based on 45 (the number of respondents who reported that CRM systems were deployed in their institution), except where otherwise specified.

Where applicable, “N/R” values are shown, representing the proportion that did not respond to a specific question.

Respondents



Institutional approach



CRM systems in use



Usage of the primary BCE CRM system



CRM systems integration



Investment



Awareness and engagement



Appendix 4: JISC CRM institutional visit discussion guide & framework Introduction The institutional study visits are part of a Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) funded study of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system usage and related issues across the UK Higher Education (HE) sector, with reference to examples from the Further Education (FE) sector, with particular regard to their support of Business and Community Engagement (BCE) strategies. The KSA Partnership has been contracted by JISC to undertake the study. The visits consist of two key elements

• A – a series of one-to-one discussions with senior managers • B – a focus group session involving a cross-section of CRM system users

Definitions In the context of this study:

Business and Community Engagement (BCE) is the term used to cover the range of engagements that an institution has with organisations in the private, public, cultural, social, civic and voluntary sectors in order to increase the impact of the HE knowledge base to enhance economic development and the strength and vitality of society. BCE activities are often labelled as Knowledge Transfer (KT), Knowledge Exchange (KE), or Third Stream. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) involves the use of software that enables tracking of the interactions between an organisation and its ‘customers’ – be they other organisations or individuals within those organisations - and is especially useful if different parts of an organisation interact with different parts of another organisation. CRM systems enable organisations to manage the entirety of their relationships and identify where multiple interactions are taking place. They also help to consolidate and support their relationships with customers enabling them to improve the effectiveness of their interactions through having a coordinated and professional approach. In addition to the software implementation however, the adoption of a CRM system also encompasses significant strategic, cultural and organisational issues.

In asking questions about your use of CRM systems we are therefore referring to systems with a level of sophistication above that of the manual management of email lists and other spreadsheet based or ‘Outlook-type systems. A – One-to-one discussions The discussion agenda will be used to inform a series of one-to-one, semi-structured interviews as part of an institutional visit. We are seeking interviews with the following institutional staff:

• Pro-Vice-Chancellor/Vice Principal responsible for BCE activities • Senior Manager responsible for institutional information systems • Senior Manager responsible for institutional BCE activities (or Senior Managers where these

activities are managed through more than one central support function) • Dean of a faculty/school.

The discussion agenda will be rearticulated for the different individuals interviewed. All responses will be treated as confidential. Any analysis, presentation or reporting of the responses will be in an anonymised or aggregated form. The analysis of the responses will contribute to a detailed report of the study findings and recommendations that will be submitted to JISC in August 2007. The report will be made public in due course.



of 90 Prepared by

Discussion agenda Section A: Thinking about your involvement in the deployment and uptake of the CRM system(s) in your institution… 1. What has been your role and contribution in the deployment of CRM systems in general and in particular to support BCE activity?

2. What experience do you have in using the CRM system(s) and in particular those to support BCE activity?

Section B: Thinking about the context in your institution… 1. What are the institution’s priorities in relation to business and community engagement (now and in the future)?

2. How is your institution’s BCE activity currently being supported? Consider: - Staff infrastructure - Roles and contribution of different

categories of staff (e.g. senior managers, professional BCE staff, other support staff, academics)

Document title: Study of CRM issues in UK HEIs The KSA Partnership


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Section C: Thinking about the strategy behind the deployment of the CRM system(s) in your institution… 1. What motivated your institution/faculty/department to deploy the CRM system(s) in general, and particularly those to support BCE activity?

2. What was your institution/faculty/department trying to achieve in deploying the CRM system(s) in general and particularly those to support BCE activity? And, over what period?

3. What are your institution/faculty/department’s priorities/plans for the future in relation to the ongoing development of the CRM system(s) and their application to BCE activity? Consider: - Developing the CRM system to

better support core BCE and related activities

- Extending the reach and uptake of

system - Using the data to inform strategic

and operational decision (e.g. service improvement, market segmentation/targeting)

- Shared services and commercial

exploitation

4. Who has the responsibility for driving forward the deployment of the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity? And, who else is involved?



of 90 Prepared by

Section D: Thinking about the process of deploying the CRM system(s) in your institution… 1. What options were considered in securing the supply of the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity? And, who was involved in the decision-making process? Consider - In-house/software supply/service

outsourcing - Including non-BCE areas (eg

student recruitment, alumni)

2. Which was the preferred option? And, why?

3. What progress has been made in relation to the deployment of the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity?

4. How has the process of deploying the CRM system(s) been supported? And, who by? Consider: - Project implementation - Staff development - Technical support and

development



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5. How successful has the implementation of the CRM system(s) to support your institution’s BCE activity been? Consider: - Extent to which the initial

aspirations have been met?

6. What issues, challenges and sensitivities have been faced in deploying the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity? And, how have these been overcome? Consider: - Cultural (e.g. contextual issues,

preparedness for change, attitudes and perceptions of staff)

- Organisational (e.g. business

processes, HR procedures) - Technical (e.g. systems

integration)

7. What levers and enablers have helped to facilitate the process of effectively deploying the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity?

8. What have been the critical success factors in the successful deployment of the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity?



of 90 Prepared by

Section E: Thinking about the benefits and impact to your institution having deployed the CRM system(s)… 1. What benefits have been realised through the deployment of the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity? Consider: - Business processes

2. What has been the impact of the CRM system(s) on: (a) Staff (senior management,

professional BCE staff, other support staff, academics)

(b) Services/business units (e.g.

business development, IT/information services)?

(c) Customers’ experience?

3. What have you learnt about the effective deployment of CRM systems to support BCE activity?



of 90 Prepared by

Section F: Thinking about your institution’s support needs and future deployment of CRM systems to support BCE activity… 1. What plans/priorities does your institution have? Consider a 1-2 year and 3-5 year planning horizon

2. What support would have been valued in the past?

3. What support would be valued now and over the next two years?

3. How could JISC better support your institution in realising the full potential of CRM systems to support BCE activity in the future?



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B – Focus group The focus group activity will consist of a group discussion with a cross-section (in terms of level/department/type of use) of users of the BCE CRM system. The group should involve of 6-10 users and be scheduled to last approximately 90 mins. The agenda for the group will be as follows: Introductions/Context (keep brief):

1. What is your role in relation to supporting BCE activity? 2. What experience do you have in using the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity? 3. How successful has the implementation of the CRM system(s) been?

Experience in use: 4. What benefits/impact have been realised through using the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity? 5. What issues have you faced or are you facing in using the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity? 6. What action needs to be taken and by whom to improve how the CRM system(s) are used in practice?

The following pro-formas should be used to capture individual responses for questions 4-6 as follows: For each question,

• the facilitator asks the group to work independently to write down in box (2) as many as possible of their own ideas in response to the question in box (1)

• In box (3), individuals should rank their ideas in box (b) in terms of 1, 2, 3, 4 – with 1 being the idea which each feels is the best/most important idea - and so on until you have ranked your ideas (at least the top 5). They should draw a line under their own list. (approx 5-10 mins for boxes 1 & 2).

• The facilitator then goes around the group collecting the top two ideas from each person and records them on the flipchart. The remaining ranked ideas can serve as replacements for duplicated ideas, so that if someone has already presented the same idea before they were required to declare their top two rankings then they would move onto their 3rd and 4th ideas etc. This should be done without any judgmental comments being made. The facilitator then goes round the group to collecting any remaining ideas. Individuals should also add any ideas not already on their own list to that list below the line.

• Discuss and clarify the list of ideas (15-20 mins). • After this discussion, each group member then ranks all of the group’s ideas in Box

(4). At the end of the session collect the sheets from all participants.



Proforma A

A1 Question

What benefits/impact have been realised through using the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity?

A2 List of Individual & Group Ideas/Responses

A3 Rank of Individual

Ideas

A4 Rank of All Group

Ideas



Proforma B

B1 Question

What issues have you faced or are you facing in using the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity?

B2 List of Individual & Group Ideas/Responses

B3 Rank of Individual

Ideas

B4 Rank of All Group

Ideas



Proforma C

C1 Question

What action needs to be taken and by whom to improve how the CRM system(s) are used in practice?

C2 List of Individual & Group Ideas/Responses

C3 Rank of Individual

Ideas

C4 Rank of All Group

Ideas



Appendix 5: JISC sponsored workshop at Coventry University 26 June 2007

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Event Tuesday June 26th 2007

Agenda

1000 Registration & Refreshments Technology Park Restaurant 1015 Welcome by chair

Richard Riley, Director, Contact Knowledge Exchange 1020 Introduction

Sarah Porter, Head of Development, JISC 1035 Presentations on strategic issues and drivers of CRM implementation

John Latham, Pro-Vice Chancellor Business Development, Coventry University Professor Chris Birch,Executive Director of Research & Enterprise, Staffordshire University Martin Penny, Principal, Stratford-upon-Avon College Simon Whittemore, Programme Manager, Business and Community Engagement, JISC Executive

1105 Q & A Session for above session 1130 Coffee break and networking opportunity 1150 Dr Luciano Batista, University of Exeter CRM in the public sector and business process management 1205 Thomas Baaken, Muenster University of Applied Sciences, Germany

Partnership Relationship Management (PRM) 1225 Christoper Binns, Oracle Education Initiatives UK CRM in the private sector 1240 Q & A Session 1250 Iain Nixon & Martin Haywood, The KSA Partnership JISC CRM Study and Introduction to Parallel Discussion Groups 1300 Lunch and networking opportunity 1345 Parallel discussion groups 1530 Plenary - feedback from discussion groups - discussion/Q&A

1600 Finish



Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Event Tuesday June 26th 2007

JISC CRM Study and Parallel Discussion Groups

Introduction JISC has commissioned a study to explore the extent to which customer relationship management (CRM) systems have been deployed by HEIs to support their business and community engagement activity. In the context of this study:

Business and community engagement (BCE) is the term used to cover the range of engagements that an institution has with organisations in the private, public, cultural, social, civic and voluntary sectors in order to increase the impact of the HE knowledge base to enhance economic development and the strength and vitality of society. BCE covers engagements that are part of activities often labelled as Knowledge Transfer (KT), Knowledge Exchange (KE), or Third Stream.

Customer relationship management (CRM) involves the use of software that enables tracking of the interactions between an institution and its ‘customers’. CRM systems enable institutions to manage the entirety of their BCE relationships and identify where multiple interactions are taking place.

The study is being delivered by The KSA Partnership between June and the end of Sept 2007. Parallel discussion groups The workshop’s parallel discussion groups will provide you with an opportunity to share your practice and experiences in deploying CRM systems and to learn from others. The outcomes from the discussions will be used to inform the JISC CRM study. To inform the process you will be asked to briefly introduce yourself and in doing so it would be helpful if you could say who you are, where you are from, what role you have and provide some background on the extent to which your organisation has deployed CRM systems to support its BCE activity. Key questions for consideration:

• What has been your institution’s strategic intent in relation to deploying CRM systems to support BCE activity?

– Which customers/clients/contacts have benefited? – Which relationships are being managed?

• Drawing on your experience of the deployment of CRM systems to support BCE activity: – What barriers and constraints have been faced? And, how did your institution overcome these? – What levers and enablers have helped to facilitate the process? – What have been the critical success factors?

• Thinking about your institution’s support needs with regard to the adoption or development of BCE CRM:

– What support would have been valued in the past? – What support would be valued now and over the next two years?

Further information If you would like further information on, or would like to contribute to the study, please contact Martin Haywood of The KSA Partnership (tel. 01388 528505, email [email protected]).




The feedback from the break-out groups on these questions is summarised below.

Summary of CRM Workshop Discussion Group Feedback:

Nature and extent of deployment

• Strategic drive/transformation to bottom up action

- Progress is piecemeal, go-stop, ad hoc and slow

• Ranges from just starting out to (well) integrated and mature

• Testing the waters

- Iterative process, poor understanding, learning from experience

- Making it up as we go!

• Single to multiple systems

- Potential for scalability and integration

• Local to global


Strategic Drivers

• Increasingly there is a strategic drive… yet ‘drivers’ are not well articulated in terms of

- Benefits and impacts

- Measures of success and return on investment

• Prestige, reputation, profile

• Joining up the organisation and the range of needs/potential benefits

- Towards one integrated system

- Improve communications and information sharing

- Prevent ‘starting again’ with new projects/initiatives

• Building, strengthening and sustaining relationships/ partnerships

- Diversifying income streams

- Better intelligence to inform strategic/operational decisions

- Business process improvement

- Facilitate multi-functional/trans-disciplinary working

- Promote cross-selling




Critical Success Factors

• Strategic leadership

- Identify strategic framework, key sponsors and supporters, resources

- Establish intent, set the direction and measures of success

- Reinforce the messages (continually!)

• Planned implementation supported by (adequate) resources

- Understanding how the business works – its information architecture

- Work towards integration with core business, deal with legacy issues

- Employ full-time Project/Change Manager & identify/support champions

• Engage key stakeholders throughout the process

- Going with the grain, use appropriate terminology, keep it simple

- Managing expectations, keeping everyone positive

- agreements/protocols on data ownership/use

• Staff development

• Provide incentives and support, and sell the benefits

- Intrinsic and extrinsic

• Defining the HE offer and benefits to be gained

• Engage with suppliers early to understand functions and features

• Getting in as much data as possible

- provide data input/cleaning support resources


Support Needs

• Raising profile, priority and understanding of CRM in HE

• Best practice guidelines – Frameworks, tools

• Case studies of practice - Transferable, lessons learnt

• Information on products and suppliers

• Best practice groups/events - Networking, sharing, mentoring

• Independent advisers - Influence intent and direction, processes

• Establishing full costs - Cost vs benefit, cost of not doing it!

• Funding - Development, implementation, support

• Evaluation - Identifying benefits, return on investment, frameworks



Appendix 6: CRM implementation best practices15 (Oracle Corporation)

Best Practice Comments

Executive User Sponsorship

• High-level focus and visibility is essential to ensure success.

Clear Definition of Business Benefits

• Clearly defined business benefits (qualitative and quantitative) enables project success to be determined. In addition assists in defining project scope, quick wins and the related definition of project phasing.

Top-down, Bottom-up Approach

• It is recommended that Analytics is adopted by focusing on identifiable Quick Wins that address a high priority business need, e.g. Campaign Management effectiveness or Service reporting. This approach helps ensure the delivery of short-term, tangible results.

Integrated CRM Architecture

• In the longer term to be effective, the Analytics architecture must bring together all of the relevant information about a single customer. Typically, this involves information from the Sales Force/Call Centre (Siebel Transactional System), ERP, Billing, as well as external information such as customer demographics.

Balanced Approach • It is critical to take a balanced approach which combines technology, process

and organization. When any of these areas are not adequately addressed, it significantly decreases the chances for success.

Skill Sets

• It is not realistic to expect that all of the staff you currently have in customer-facing and IT roles possess the skill sets necessary to implement and use the new functionality or the new way of thinking that is required. There are two basic options to address this internal skill shortage:

Hire individuals with the requisite skills, Train or re-tool your in-house staff. Integrated IT, Analytics and Marketing Teams

Active User Involvement

• Business Requirements need to drive the required functional and data requirements. Often Analytics projects seek to replace existing reports via a new technology, rather than defining the real business needs. As a result, an in-depth Discovery/Analysis phase is required to ensure that business requirements are captured. In addition these should be compared against Best In Class/World Class reporting/analytics processes.

Technical Performance

• Again, this may sound incredibly obvious, but it is a challenge particularly relevant where the Siebel eBusiness data warehouse is extended with data from Billing, ERP and other legacy systems. By its very nature, when a large retail bank, insurance company, airline, Telecommunications Company, retailer, etc., contemplates storing information at a customer level, the volumes tend to be large

Preparation for Post Implementation

• Whether this is a project that is being undertaken entirely in house or you are using external resources, you should be well prepared for the implementation phase. Once the core system has been rolled out, some of the project team is likely to be redeployed into other roles as the system functionality is transitioned to the end users.

A Solid Implementation Approach

• Although you may expect any major project to include requirements analysis as the logical first phase, it is often overlooked in Analytics because the organization believes that they already know what they want and that everyone has a common understanding of these priorities. The priorities are typically based on the current understanding of the reporting and data requests currently delivered by the IT to the various business teams. However, this is often not the case.

15 Binns, C. (2007) From Make & Sell To Sense & Respond - Building the Customer Centric Enterprise Presentation to JISC/Coventry University Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Event, Coventry June

26th 2007.


study of customer relationship management … of...study of customer relationship management (crm)...

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