CRM, BCE & the Importance of Impact
Business and Community Engagement (BCE) is a diverse landscape covering many activities that involve engagement between higher/further education institutions and external organisations/individuals. The wide range of roles and activities within BCE can sometimes make it hard to appreciate the full extent of this increasingly important aspect of institutions’ missions.
The JISC Advance BCE Team have developed a set of videos and podcasts that highlight specific activities, issues and opportunities across a range of learning providers that relate specifically to BCE.
The second in this range of videos and podcasts provides an overview of BCE from Oisin MacNamara (now Director of Research Business & Innovation at Northumbria University) focusing on: the role of Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRMs); the need to embed BCE across the whole of the organisation; and the importance of impact.
Based upon those areas outlined in the video, you may be interested to know of the following resources:
- Customer Relationship Management: A ’self analysis framework’ for those at the very early stages of CRM implementation is available. A range of pilots are also currently under way to apply and extend the framework: http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Funded_RM_Projects
- Highlighting Impact: Oisin highlights case studies as the most appropriate way of describing and accounting for any impact made. Resources available from JISC Digital Media can help you to provide this information in a variety of formats. You may also find accessibility advice from JISC TechDis extremely helpful.
- Stakeholder Management: The Project Management infoKit provides guidance on who should be involved with any project.
- Embedding BCE: The Embedding BCE infoKit is now available online, providing further and higher education with advice and guidance on BCE and how to support it. It demonstrates the benefits for the institution and promotes enhanced internal engagement and better integrated BCE.
To see more videos from the JISC BCE Programme please visit our YouTube channel. A full transcript of this video is available here: BCE at Northumbria University - Transcript.
Driving Transformational Change for Employer Engagement
The University of Salford recently held a conference to showcase their work in Employer Engagement. The University has produced a model by identifying barriers to employer engagement which they have developed into enablers. These include Communications and Marketing, Costing, Quality Assurance and Staff Development.
In addition to these, as part of an enabler ‘IT Systems and CRM’, the University has recently implemented a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. Prior to implementation their CRM processes often resulted in fragmented engagement, and there were no standard processes which led to a large number of standalone spreadsheets and databases. To overcome these issues, the University chose Agresso as their software solution. The university looked initially to use their own in-house IT department to implement the CRM system, but decided that they did not have the resources to do so and took the decision to use technical expertise from Agresso in the form of a full-time secondment of an Agresso consultant to the University.
This approach has resulted in a two way process of sharing knowledge. The university has learned a great deal about the system from Agresso while the Agresso Consultant seconded, as an employee of the University, has learned a lot about how the institution operates.
The scope for the system was to manage business relationships, record and progress leads and opportunities, administer non credit-bearing CPD courses and to integrate the CRM system with their Agresso Business World finance system. The commitment of the Vice Chancellor has been an important driver for the success of the system and has resulted in buy in across faculties. The system also includes scope for capturing impact statements for use in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) and will be used for funding bids, KTPs and essentially everything other than credit bearing students.
There are currently 80 cross faculty users, with the intention to increase this to 120 by Spring 2010. In recognition of the work carried out so far, the JISC Business and Community Engagement programme has recently funded a project to allow the University to carry out further development of their CRM system and processes and to undertake dissemination of their activities.
Find out more about Employer Engagement at the University of Salford
Enhancing Knowledge Management
Supporting institutions in developing sustainable systems and ICT strategies for management and exploitation of their knowledge assets.
March 2009 saw the CRM-SLRM call go public, from which the JISC BCE programme funded 20 projects across UK Further and Higher Education. You can keep up-to-date with current activity via the JISC CETIS RMSAS (Relationship Management Support, Analysis and Synthesis) project page, with regular news updates and background information.
A brief overview and further links on each project can be found on the JISC CETIS website. The following video provides a brief introduction to one of those funded projects, taken at the start-up event earlier this year. View the full playlist via the BCE YouTube channel.
BCE at the University of Glasgow
Business and Community Engagement (BCE) is a diverse landscape covering many activities that involve engagement between higher/further education institutions and external partners. The wide range of roles and activities within BCE can sometimes make it hard to appreciate the full extent of this increasingly important aspect of institutions’ missions.
The JISC Advance BCE Team have developed a set of videos and podcasts due for release over the coming months that highlight specific activities, issues and opportunities across a range of learning providers that relate specifically to BCE.
The first in this range provides an overview from the University of Glasgow focusing on the roles of Laura Tyler and Dr. Kevin Cullen. Together they highlight: a change of focus in recent times from ‘knowledge transfer’ to ‘knowledge exchange’; the importance of knowledge transfer impact plans; institutions being accessible; effective communication techniques; the potential for web 2.0 and social media; and the civic responsibility of learning providers.
Based upon those areas outlined in the video, you may be interested to know of the following resources available from JISC Advance:
- Change Management: an online resource which provides guidance on change management.
- Communication and Collaboration: a range of training material available from JISC Netskills.
- Writing for the Web: useful for those frequently involved in online communication.
To see more videos from the JISC BCE Programme please visit our YouTube channel. A full transcript of this video is available here: Transcript - BCE at the University of Glasgow
Engaging Employers for the Learning Sector
The national Engaging Employers for the Learning Sector conference took place in Birmingham on 24 September, and was attended by representatives from JISC and the JISC Advance BCE Team.
The conference provided an opportunity to learn about a number of initiatives which exist to support Employer Engagement, and to find out about the changes to support provision which are now in place as a result of the Business Support Simplification Programme, which has reduced the number of products and services to support business from 300 to 30 and utilises Business Link as the primary access point for businesses to access the new package of support.
Representatives from a number of support iniatives presented at the conference, including Train to Gain, the National Apprenticeship Service and the Learning and Skills improvement service who presented the World Class Skills Programme which aims to improve employer responsiveness by offering a range of support through events and online resources, including e-learning modules, multimedia resources to capture the experiences of pathfinder projects, and an electronic market information tool.
Representatives from the education sector also presented some of their experiences in employer engagement, including the use of CRM and to highlight the importance of account management.
Slides from the event are available.