Sold on Salesforce
Like many higher education institutions, this University admits that they were a little slow in fully appreciating the benefits of Salesforce. Perhaps unsurprisingly, CRM first took off at the business school, although its adoption was initially seen as a mark against the software used in other departments.
In higher ed, they don’t think of themselves as being involved in sales. The association of Salesforce with executive education and professional learning made Salesforce itself seem niche. However, innovators within the university recognized the software as a potential replacement for older technologies, such as FileMaker, Excel, and Microsoft Access. Eventually, others noticed the benefits Salesforce could provide, and adoption increased.
Until a few years ago, each school ran Salesforce independently with assistance from a centralized community enablement center where users could ask questions and share tips. But then this team began to investigate the potential need for direct support from the central IT team. They conducted analysis and interviews around topics like:
- The main use cases Salesforce served
- Which third-party tools were in place
- What people wanted to see from central IT
The research revealed that, while a decentralized approach worked well for schools that had the resources to hire Salesforce specialists, smaller orgs needed more support.
This led them to create the CRM consulting service. Schools within the University can turn to them for help navigating and optimizing Salesforce, including getting advice on third-party tools like Own. Members of the consulting service help the university’s smaller teams select third-party software that will best serve their business needs and walk them through the implementation process. They listen to what teams are trying to do and leverage what exists in the portfolio before they buy something new.
Teams can also pay the consulting service to maintain and administer Salesforce on their behalf. This is especially useful for those that don’t have their own Salesforce specialists, as they gain access to both expertise and collective leveraging power.
Introducing Own to the orgs
Many schools within this University were already using Own when IT created the CRM consulting service. The positive reviews they heard from these teams convinced the Director of Administrative Systems Consulting to include Own as an integration for those that paid the team to maintain Salesforce on their behalf.
“Own is the first third-party offering we have on our menu for backup and recovery. It gives us peace of mind that they’re backing up, they don’t have to worry about it, and it’s a cost-effective way for a small group with, say, two users to engage [Own’s] services.”
The team wasn't just sold on Own because the product already existed within the University’s Salesforce ecosystem. Specific favorite features include:
- Permission controls: The central IT team controls the data each team sees, so they can have a big-picture view while also being able to scale Own across multiple groups without running into data-sharing issues.
- Specific data deletion: Although a concern that applies to many industries, data deletion is a critical requirement for higher ed. When an applicant is either not admitted or decides not to attend, and they request to be forgotten, there needs to be a clear and efficient process in place for them to exercise this option. Unlike some backup systems where you would have to delete this data completely, this University can go in with a fine-tooth comb and remove or anonymize information.
- Sandbox backups: They like the fact that Own allows them to protect and test their experiments and easily restore previous settings. Being able to compare, roll back, and restore that kind of data is very useful and they appreciate the ability to back up sandboxes—especially forward-looking ones—to ensure that work done there doesn’t get lost.
- Instant backups: Another feature that is especially useful during tests is the ability to do on-demand backups. You can run the backup really quickly before doing any work in the sandbox.
The future of community and collaboration
They are now seeing more groups within the University take an interest in cloud services—a trend across many industries. This has made Salesforce implementation and optimization efforts even more crucial. They offer support to those groups as they think about how to move forward, and then make connections when they’re ready, either with strategic partners, implementation partners, or third-party vendors, if that’s something they’re interested in.
The consulting service has also helped strengthen connections among Salesforce users, which they hope will lead to more collaboration when it comes to functionality within the software.
“We’re seeing groups discover shared needs for common functionality that may not be an out-of-the-box Salesforce solution. People are starting to recognize that it doesn’t make sense for every department to build the same thing over and over, so I hope we’re starting to move toward packaged solutions or multi-tenant orgs.”
The team already supports two enterprise multi-tenant Salesforce orgs and hopes to add more. Eventually, they want to offer a “best of breed” set of tools to the orgs the consulting service supports. With a robust data governance platform (Recover, Accelerate/Sandbox Seeding, Archive and Secure for Salesforce), that can support them as their Salesforce offerings expand, Own will likely be on that list.
.jpeg)
