Fujitsu has worked with Cardiff University to implement Salesforce.com rollouts for two of the university’s customer-facing departments – the Centre for Lifelong Learning and the Knowledge Transfer Centre.
These implementations enable significantly increased response times to potential customers for both departments, as well as a much-needed central point in which to track customer engagement.
Centre for Lifelong Learning
The university’s Centre for Lifelong Learning sells professional certifications and part-time training courses to postgraduates, businesses and the public. The University had previously employed a spreadsheet-based, offline system to manage courses, making it difficult to quickly access and share information and providing staff with a limited view of the status of courses. This offline approach resulting in missed revenue generating opportunities.
To address these issues, Cardiff University identified a need for an integrated customer relationship management (CRM) system, enlisting Fujitsu’s help in configuring and supporting a Salesforce.com deployment.
For the Centre, Salesforce.com provides an integrated system for sharing data regarding course booking sales, delegates and trainers, ensuring all staff have online access to the same constantly evolving information. The system also facilitates comprehensive analysis of courses, helping to quickly identify course popularity.
Knowledge Transfer Centre
The university’s Knowledge Transfer Centre (KTC) aims to enable businesses of Wales to gain access to the unique facilities and expertise that exist within the Cardiff School of Engineering, a subsidiary of Cardiff University.
The school required a robust way to capture and manage contact with businesses and government departments that may be interested in the research and innovation within the department. With no prior way to track conversations, business opportunities were being lost and multiple contact with the same companies occurring.
The Salesforce.com system offers comprehensive tracking and management of customer and client engagement, enabling the KTC to maintain company and contact records and attach records of specific engagement with each contact. By tracking conversations, the KTC could better measure the needs and outcomes of contact with target organisations from a single online hub that can be accessed by all staff.
Simon Parker, director, Knowledge Transfer Centre and Cardiff University, said:
“Fujitsu’s advisors quickly understood our needs, converting these into simple enhancements to Salesforce.com, which we now use on a daily basis. Salesforce.com has since become invaluable in managing multiple simultaneous projects, ensuring we optimise our time in talking to companies and following leads.”
Mark Peplow, senior consultant at Fujitsu UK and Ireland, said: “Fujitsu prides itself on recognising and deploying the most effective and flexible solution in improving organisations’ efficiency, and quickly identified Salesforce.com as an ideal package for the University’s various requirements. We believe that many other higher education establishments can benefit from similar deployments.”
Fujitsu offers a range of services for business-critical applications. As well as CRM and cloud products such as Salesforce.com, Fujitsu also offers information management and application outsourcing services and works with leading providers such as Microsoft, Oracle and SAP.
