Uni uses Salesforce.com to keep tabs on students, business

Cardiff University has begun using Salesforce.com customer relationship management systems, specially configured by Fujitsu, to deal with businesses and existing and potential students.

The university has announced the roll-out of the solutions to two departments which constantly engage with the public – the Centre for Lifelong Learning and the Knowledge Transfer Centre – where there was a need to improve response times and create a central point from which contact with customers could be tracked.

The news came as Salesforce.com this week announced early access to the first in a series of Cloud Extend products for Software-as-a-Service applications, Cloud Extend for Salesforce.com, which is designed to enable sales organizations to capture sales knowledge, replicate successful sales patterns and enforce data consistency.

The university had previously tracked customer engagement and managed courses using an offline spreadsheet-based system, which made it difficult to quickly access and share information, resulting in missed revenue-generating opportunities.

Director of the Knowledge Transfer Centre, Simon Parker said the Salesforce.com CRM, with Fujitsu’s enhancements, we’re now used on a daily basis.

“(It) has since become invaluable in managing multiple simultaneous projects, ensuring we optimise our time in talking to companies and following leads,” he said.

Fujitsu UK senior consultant Mark Peplow said Salesforce.com was the “ideal package” for universities and many other educational institutions could benefit from similar deployments.