Manchester Business School (MBS) has chosen Cloud-based Salesforce CRM to help strengthen its client relationships and drive new customer acquisitions.
MBS, part of the University of Manchester, runs management and leadership programmes for more than 60 clients through its Executive Education team. The Education team was looking for a Cloud CRM solution that would provide greater insight into its customer portfolio and make it easy to update new information, helping it reach its target of 10% year-on-year income growth.
Over the last decade, MBS had already implemented two CRM systems, but neither had provided the function or ease of use it required.
Jane Crombleholme, head of executive education at MBS admitted: “The CRM in our team had always come with an apology before it.”
Eager to make it third time lucky, the School enlisted the aid of system integrator Fujitsu, which suggested that Salesforce.com would be able to meet its requirements for flexibility and ease of use.
Crombleholme said: ”We wanted something we could redesign frequently. With some systems, you design your reports and that’s it, they’re stuck in time. It’s one of the things you can change easily in Salesforce.”
The fact that Salesforce was a Cloud-based system added to its appeal, because it eliminated both the need for infrastructure changes and staff to support the software. That meant the project could be up and running fast.
Crombleholme pointed out: “The more you have to work out infrastructure, the more projects can get complicated.”
One of Fujistu’s main roles was change management, ensuring that people quickly made the transition to the new system.
Crombleholme explained: “We’re a small team of 30 people, but we all do things differently. We needed Fujitsu to help unravel the way we do things. You need someone to help you tease out what you do and help you decide whether you need to change your processes to fit Salesforce or change Salesforce to fit your processes.”
The CRM system was up and running for early adopters in September. It’s now easy to track communications with clients, as all business data is in one place. Using Salesforce had made staff more effective and efficient and enabled the department as a whole to make better use of resources, believed Crombleholme.
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I don't find that surprising especially when we talk about an education institution. Cloud technologies have been available for a good while now and it was just a matter of time until we started using them. As a student for a business management degree I would very much prefer to have the chance to use the cloud, it would make everything so much easier.
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