IIM Ahmedabad Partnered With SimpleCRM For Managing B-School Programs

 

Overview

Led by space scientist Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and an eminent industrialist and philanthropist Shri Kasturbhai Lalbhai, and proactively supported by the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Dr. Jivraj Mehta, a group of enlightened individuals set up IIMA in 1961. IIM, Ahmedabad is a premier management school, governed by IIMA Society and awarded with EQUIS & accreditation by the EFMD. IIMA has been consistently ranked as the premier management school in the country by several national agencies. IIMA programs are also ranked highly in several international rankings. IIMA has produced over 33,000 leaders in different areas of life. With the goal to optimize end-to-end management of processes from lead capture to on-boarding to administration to counseling, IIM allied with SimpleWorks.
 

Client:IIM,Ahmedabad
Industry:Education
 

Challenges

Aim of the organization was to provide end users with seamless, integrated customer experience related to Programs management, Sponsor and Participant management, Logistics, Enquiry management, and Accounting management. Also, they wanted to provide an interface for the participants to manage their enrolled programs.
 
Main challenges faced by IIMA:
 
Lead/Enquiry Management-IIMA was unable to gather leads/enquires from various sources and there was no consistent way of following up with the leads. The data related to all enquiries was not in a centralized location and an overall view of the lead was not available restricted to specific departments.
 
Campaign Management– IIMA was unable to track/handle campaign progress and schedule campaigns for digital marketing team. There was no process defined for follow-up with the leads generated from the campaigns and accurate statistics of ROI. Customer feedback was not accurately consolidated as it was coming from various sources.
 
Programs Management-IIMA was unable to track the progress of management programs related to logistics, accounts, accommodation, travel of participants, budgeting, and nomination details. As the data was residing with individual departments, complete view of a program was not available, reports related to programs were not tracked, delay in taking appropriate action in terms of new request was not possible.
 
Participant Portal Management – IIMA was unable to handle requests from Sponsors and participants since there was no interface available for them to send requests. Also, participants were not able to get complete summary of the programs they have opted, upcoming programs, and details related to payments, course material and documents.
 
Management issues-Administrative staff was not flexible to cater to its customers round the clock across all channels that rendered queries unheard and unresolved. Inter- and intra-departmental communication gap and discrepancies pertaining to events, schedule, deadlines or any sudden modification in regulatory notices. No reminder or alert system against any minor change caused discrepancy in approvals process. Lack of dashboards and holistic view of individual’s performance of management and non-management staff.
 

Solutions

Lead management System-SimpleCRM’s Lead Management System automated entire enquiry lifecycle from initial prospect engagement to conversion into nomination establishing a stable Multi-Channel Enquiry and Nomination Management framework. IIMA was able to convert the nomination into potential participants and get a complete view of the lifecycle of the enquiry. Also related modules structure helped IIMA in generating reports related to nomination conversions. Follow-up on nominations improved which resulted in larger participation in programs.
 
Campaign/Social media Management System -This system helped IIMA target the right audience in various organizations based on the program domain. They were able to streamline the digital marketing activity aiding in complete control over development, execution, and monitoring of campaigns across multiple channels. IIMA was able to target larger audience for its programs, and follow-up with the leads generated from those campaigns. Social media integration with Facebook helped IIMA to run campaigns and target relevant audience over the social media platform. Also, the leads generated from Social media were able to flow directly into the CRM system enhancing the reach of IIMA digital marketing team.
 
The process transparency in SimpleCRM provided more control to the user in comparing best performing campaigns, best platforms the campaign responses were good. Helping the team keep track of the ROI from these campaigns.
 
Programs/Logistics Management System– IIMA was able to get a 360-degree view of the entire program related module, such as Sessions, Budget, Schedule, Participants, Faculty, etc ensured better supervision over processes and regulated management. SimpleCRM also allowed users to create PDF versions of program booklet, letters, case studies, certificates, Invoices, etc. with the facility to send across mass emails and reminders. SimpleWorks’ provided a comprehensive solution with inbuilt accommodation and travel modules, documents repository for archived programs, calendar sync and flexible program slot bookings. It helped increase process efficiencies through integrated payment gateways, website, online feedback, workflows, robust reports, printable templates and approvals mechanism.
 
Participant Portal Management– SimpleCRM’s Participant Portal kept a record of participants personal details, program booking status, upcoming programs, history of programs attended, book tickets, download documents, and other information. With the portal acting as an extension to the CRM system, real time data flow from the portal to the CRM was possible. Sponsors can submit nominations, make payments via the portal. Also, case study material was now available for participants to prepare before the sessions. The portal gave the management time to prepare for each program is advance and prepare for any adhoc requests.
 
Chatbot– A robust virtual assistant linked to SimpleCRM and IIMA website was developed and implemented to cater to any enquires coming from the IIMA Website. This assistant was able to interact with the enquiry and answer any related questions on programs, general questions on IIMA which enabled reduction in support costs, human intervention, turnaround time and errors.
 
Reports-With the help of SimpleCRM robust reporting system, IIMA was able to create graphical and data reports for programs, participants, logistics related to current status, historical status, upcoming status and overall yearly progress.