INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY'S ALUMNI CONNECTS ONLINE

In 2011, Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) created an alumni group called Wintec Circle.  In order to effectively manage the data for the group, Wintec needed a system that was easy to manage, would allow users to update their information online and was flexible enough to grow and change with this dynamic organisation.  Lisa Pemberton, Chief Executive of Wintec Circle, worked with Business Mechanix to implement a portal on Microsoft Windows Azure and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.  In less than three months Wintec had a working solution with a live website and a fully functioning CRM system populated with Wintec's historic Alumni data.

Situation
Waikato Institute of Technology (Wintec) is one of New Zealand's larger Institutes of Technology servicing more than 25 000 students, providing high quality vocational and professional education in the Waikato region.

To provide further opportunities for the Alumni of Wintec, the Wintec Circle was formed. It's purpose was to build a community that would provide a way for Wintec to keep track of graduates and share their successes and to enable communication with graduates by sending regular updates about future courses as well as helping alumni keep in touch with each other and further develop their careers.

To manage the database of this newly established alumni group Wintec required a flexible and efficient Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.  The alumni group inherited a database of historical information but since the information held was outdated and the system was not designed to hold or update the type of information needed there was no easy way to keep track of the alumni or to communicate with them.

"The Wintec Circle was established with only one full time staff member, it was not a practical option for us to manually input data from forms.  We needed a system that would allow customers to enter their own details online and update that information as and when necessary," says Lisa Pemberton, Chief Executive for Wintec Circle.

The system also needed to provide the tools necessary to allow independent data entry and automatically update the database.  IT was also important that the system was both easy to manage and flexible enough to grow and change with the organisation.

Solution
Due to the existing relationship with Wintec, the Wintec circle chose to work with Business Mechanix and implement Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and the Alumni Portal running on Windows Azure, all hosted in the cloud.

"Business Mechanix was already doing some great work at Wintec and it was a natural extension of the relationship for them to design a solution for the alumni group"says Lisa.

Lisa prepared a brief and worked with the team to design the new solution.  With an extremely tight timeframe to launch, they sought to launch the new CRM portal in the Microsoft Azure platform, removing the need to procure, provision and manage its own separate servers. "It was a very basic brief, a two page word document and a manual sketch, but they worked out what we needed and built a workable solution for us," says Lisa.

A solution based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM , complete with an online portal, was designed and delivered in less than three months, hosted on Microsoft Windows Azure cloud computing platform using Business Mechanix's own bespoke B-Agile implementation methodology to implement the new system.  The project was initiated in July 2011 and went live at the end of September 2011.

"It was really fast - the system was ready for us to test in less than nine weeks, and they did a really great job of capturing our needs in the agile process".

The final design included a multi acess portal where alumni can enter and update the information online and the data automatically populates the Microsoft Dynamics CRM system to trigger relevant actions.  The Dynamics CRM system has been set up with multiple workflows, triggered automatically by the customer completing certain fields in the online form through the portal.

"For example, if a customer indicates that they are willing to participate in our mentoring program in the online form, then the workflow is in place to creat a series of tasks to make sure that we act on this straight away".

Benefits
The Wintec Circle realised the benefits of the new solution as soon as they began using the system.  The main benefits of the solution are; increased productivity, automatic task allocations in workflow, reduced harware costs, highly visible data, flexible, scalable solution, complete record of customer interaction, facilitates effective relationship management.

The ability for alumni members to update their own information online saves the Wintec Circle hours every week in data entry and reduces error rates and double handling of data.

The capability to design and create workflow and task dependencies means the organisation can ensure that the system operates around pre-defined business processes.  Once a particular field in the online form is filled in, the system can automatically initiate a sequence of tasks.  Wrokflow can then be updated and extended as the needs of the business change in the future.

Being hosted in the cloud means that there are no physical servers to maintain or upgrade, and there was no initital hardware investment for this organisation which considerable reduced set-up costs.  The solution is made up of a combination of public, private and social media clouds located in multiple locations from Hamilton to Hong Kong.

Digital dashboards created around user specific criteria allow for complete visibility of the data.  "I can see how many new members have joined this month at a glance and I have reminders prompts and workflow emails direct to my in-box to prompt me to complete tasks" says Lisa.

The system is very flexible and functionally rich, the use of which can be extended as the business grows.  New processes can be incorporated as and when necessary.

This system give Wintec Circle a competitive edge.  Microsoft Dynamics CRM has provided a flexible solution that meets the current and existing needs of the organisation.

"We started off with a fairly simple implementation of the system which workd well for us at the moment, but it's really exciting to know that there are so many other tools that we can incorporate as our business grows in the future" says Lisa.

"There is so much that we plan to do with it.  One of the next projects is to utilise the event calendar, and have people RSVP to events online".

Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been extended to other groups at Wintec, a relationship management project is also underway using the system.

The system records all interaction with the alumni and holds their history which is then available for future analysis.  This creates a complete picture of the customer relationship which then allows the organisation to manage the relationship in the correct context and at the appropriate level.

Wintec Circle now has a sophisticated cloud-hosted portal on the Microsoft Windows Azure platform and a CRM system which facilitates effective customer management and will accommodate future organisational growth.