Reference:
Project Title:
Using CRM and Collaborative Tools with Business and Community Enterprise
New College, Swindon Using CRM and Collaborative Tools with Business and Community Enterprise Author(s):
Stephanie Warren/Bryan Davis
Main Contact:
Stephanie Warren
Department:
eLearning
Revision History Date
Version
Description
Changed by
16/07/2010
V1
Initial draft prepared for comment by BD
18/07/2010
V2
updated
BD
20/07/2010
Final Draft v3
First submission to JISC
SW
04/08/2010
Final v4 Final submission
SW
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Using CRM and Collaborative Tools with Business and Community Enterprise
Contents CONTENTS ......................................................................................................................................2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................................3 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ....................................................................................................................3 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................4 BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................................4 AIMS & OBJECTIVES ........................................................................................................................5 METHODOLOGY..............................................................................................................................5 IMPLEMENTATION..........................................................................................................................6 OUTPUTS ........................................................................................................................................7 SUSTAINABILITY..............................................................................................................................8 OUTCOMES.....................................................................................................................................8 LESSONS LEARNED ..........................................................................................................................9 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................9 IMPLICATIONS .............................................................................................................................. 10 RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................... 10 REFERENCES..................................................................................................................................10 APPENDICES..................................................................................................................................11 DISSEMINATION SUMMARY.......................................................................................................... 11
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Using CRM and Collaborative Tools with Business and Community Enterprise
Acknowledgements The ‘Using CRM and Collaborative Tools with Business and Community Enterprise’ trial was a project funded by JISC under the ‘Facilitating Collaboration’1 stream of the BCE programme2 as part of the ‘Trialling Collaborative Online Tools for BCE’ project3. JISC infoNet4 led the delivery of outputs with support from other JISC Advance Services5. The trial project team would like to thank the following for their hard work and contribution to this trial project as well as the wider BCE agenda: Bryan Davis – Director of Curriculum
Stephanie Warren – Project Management Valerie Bateman – CRM Business Services Anita Baldock – CRM Business Services Nicky Sutton – LetMEbeFrank coordinator Ian Taylor-‐ Website/Wordpress creator Merv Carswell – AV Technician and creator of Podcasts Brian Smithies – Managing Director of Ulltra
Executive Summary •
For aims and objectives see section below.
•
Three separate project teams were set up to address the aims and objectives of the three strands of the project. The teams were each given specific aims and objectives for the strand of either: o
Using collaborative tools/podcasting to enhance sales/marketing opportunities for a small business
o
Using collaborative tools to host on a dedicated website (Content Management System (CMS)) to capture and store the blogs, podcasts etc of clients to the Drugs and Homeless initiative to record their experiences of rehabilitation
o
How do training providers use a Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) system and what training would they require to enhance their current usage?
•
Advertising through a short video podcast showing a product or products was a quick and easy way to engage clients on a website.
•
Recording personal experiences by clients at the DHI and creating diaries either on video or voice anywhere or at anytime.
•
The creation of a CMS website using templates and standardised pages from an open source package gave a user-‐friendly interface
•
Sensitive and competitive data used in a CRM system for any company would not be available for project focus
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/bce/stream2.aspx http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/bce.aspx 3 http://collaborativetools4bce.jiscinvolve.org/ 4 http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk 5 http://www.jiscadvance.ac.uk 1 2
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Using CRM and Collaborative Tools with Business and Community Enterprise
Conclusions General A flexible and subsequently realistic approach to the updating and adaptation of the aims and objectives of the project are vital to reflect the disruption caused by constant staffing changes. The following conclusions have been separated to reflect each project strand separately: Small business project •
For an FE College to gain a response from small businesses was challenging and it proved difficult to find a small business to support this project.
•
Using video podcasting for product promotion has proved successful with a 45% increase on sales measuring pull through from clients who have clicked on the video and gone on to purchase the goods .
•
The value of using marketing through video has been received positively.
Community project •
Contributions from the support agencies to the website were a weaker area and members of the staff from the DHI intend to revisit this to encourage more activity and contributions.
•
Fewer DHI clients were aware of Web 2.0 technology than was expected and therefore more training was required
•
Video and audio diary recordings were preferred by clients than blogs
•
A CMS system (Wordpress) was best for designing and uploading clients contributions
Training Providers •
Although a majority of Training Providers were using a CRM system and would have attended appropriate training, they were not prepared to create a community of practice to share good practice within a forum.
Background New College, Swindon is a medium sized College of Further Education situated in Swindon, Wiltshire, and was one of two FE colleges involved in the BCE Trials project. The college has identified a requirement to be more responsive in identifying and meeting employer needs and wanted to improve and expand its links to businesses within the Swindon area. A particular growth area for New College at the time of starting the project was Employer Responsiveness (ER) and full cost provision. The Business Services Division at New College was extensively restructured during this project timeline and use of the CRM and other collaborative tools from this project played an important role in configuring both the new business model and business processes for the new team. The project focused on one business, one community group and one training provider to provide evidence arising from the research. This meant that the project was managed across three separate project teams with very different aims and objectives for each of focus areas of the projects. The training provider selected for this project has a franchise contract with New College to deliver funded training to local businesses. Normally this training is in the form of NVQ’ s or the vocationally relevant qualifications (VRQ) and they are responsible for the delivery of all training information, advice and guidance (IAG) together with assessment. The training provider sourced all the learners and assessors and the contract they have with the College allowed them to process the qualifications through the college’s exams centre.
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Using CRM and Collaborative Tools with Business and Community Enterprise
A variety of Web 2.0 tools were recommended for use across the three strands of the project. These included: online conferencing tools, social networking (Facebook), podcasting and vodcasting, and use of blogs and wikis.
Aims & Objectives Investigate, identify • and install an • appropriate CRM • system • Identify project stakeholders /partners and • members of project • teams • Develop a training programme to meet common • requirements and • themes • Use of a collaborative environment for • use with partners •
Create evaluation criteria on requirements of the CRM system evaluate 3 alternative CRM systems Implement and populate CRM from existing database Identify project focus groups as defined by Project Guidelines - 1 community group, 1 training provider and 1 small business. Determine any common business and training needs Establish project aims for each stakeholder and outline the project teams Develop appropriate training programme in using CRM and/or collaborative Web 2.0 tools. Identify any additional training required amongst partners Develop any additional training for partners eg Podcasts, e-learning etc Create a training programme for businesses to learn how to collaborate using Web 2.0 tools and use of CRM and offer appropriate training Establish trial blogs and podcasts as required by stakeholders Gather feedback from stakeholders on use of blogs and podcasts
The aims and objectives have had to be adjusted as the project has progressed to fit with the limited staffing and to adjust to the constant staff turnover.
Methodology The project required collaboration between relevant participants supported by using Web 2.0 tools and researching the use of a CRM to improve business processes and information exchange. The CRM systems that were considered for the project were: Sugar CRM, the EBS module to fit with the current student record system and MS Touchstone which was currently used by the college. See Appendix I for the outcome of this evaluation. For the three different project strands, there were three separate project teams with the required expertise to implement the separate requirements. These project teams were broken down as follows: Small Business Project – Ulltra Shaving Cream (Ulltra Skincare Limited) The aim for this strand of the project was to trial Web 2.0 tools to work with small/medium enterprises to determine which of the Web 2.0 tools would enhance their business processes. A number of Web 2.0 tools were considered but they were limited to fit each of the strands of the project. The small business that was supported for the project was Ulltra Skincare which is owned by RAWPOINT (Beauty) Limited. The project team for this particular focus included specialist staff as the college and company explored the potential of Web 2.0 technology to improve the Ulltra products visibility in the market. (www.ulltra.com). The college’s production expertise as well as video editing skills was required to support this project. A dedicated project team met with the MD of Ulltra to storyboard the requirements and establish the production schedule. The aim of the video and some of the long term plans of the company to use video promotions for their product were considered as part of the planning for this project.
Community Project – LetMEbeFrank Two project teams worked together to implement the Community Project strand of this research project. Yet again, this was another full project team separate from the other strands. A new project plan was written for this strand because many of the aims required a new set of skills from the teams.
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Research was carried out at the local DHI using a one page tick sheet survey to gather information from the clients to determine what they would and would not use given a number of different Web 2.0 tools. (See Appendix II). Various presentations and other training materials had to be produced to give the clients the information they needed to make a decision on what they could use. A Content Management System was created using Word press with blogs, podcasts and wikis to host output from clients from the local Drugs and Homeless Initiative (DHI). The DHI wanted to create the website and encourage clients to record their experiences of rehabilitation and homelessness. The clients were also encouraged to contribute to the website with positive experiences after rehabilitation. Training Providers - CRM Research A number of Business Services and Marketing staff from New College researched 3 different CRM systems and a recommendation from the team was made to the senior staff. The CRM system chosen was not the one recommended by the team but was most appropriate at the time. The recommendation was not accepted because the college management wanted to keep costs low and maintain as much of the data processing on one central system. The EBS student data management information system that New College has used for the past three years supplies a module for a CRM system which is quite simplistic but would suffice for the project aims. The criteria and evaluation results can be found in Appendix III. A questionnaire was created including both open and closed questions to research how our training providers used their CRM systems; whether they would be prepared to share good practice and if they required any training from New College on how to enhance the use of the CRM system they use. Results of this questionnaire can be seen in Appendix IV.
Implementation The implementation of each of the strands of the project required a separate project team for each one. It was very time consuming to set up separate project teams but necessary for the diversity of the focus of each strand. Each of the strands had hard outputs which are detailed below: Small Business Project – Ulltra skincare Podcasting, vodcasting and other Web 2.0 tools were researched both by the project team for this strand and by the company themselves. Google Analytics and other web-based internet marketing tools were being researched by the company to improve their marketing and to focus more on their client base. Web 2.0 technology and web analytical tools have given ecommerce many more opportunities to scrutinise the potential customers that visit their website. The following extract from the Google Analytics website explains its purpose. http://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/analytics/
“Google Analytics is the enterprise-class web analytics solution that gives you rich insights into your website traffic and marketing effectiveness. Powerful, flexible and easy-to-use features now let you see and analyze your traffic data in an entirely new way. With Google Analytics, you're more prepared to write better-targeted ads, strengthen your marketing initiatives and create higher converting websites.” The aim of this strand was to support the expansion of the market share of the skincare products of Ulltra and to create advertising and training materials to assist with the growth of sales and expansion of market share. The project team for this strand of the project created a video to promote just one of the range of products. The original intention was to create similar videos for the company to cover all the products but time constraints have not allowed this to happen. The business has recognised the benefits of having both promotional video for its products and to extend this to using video to train its sales staff.
Community Project – LetMEbeFrank As part of a joint project team, this strand required some expertise to produce a website that integrated Web 2.0 technologies. This was a very large project and would not have been suitable unless a separate project team to push the main aims was already established. As a support to this project there were 3 representatives from Web 2.0 experts seconded to design, create, build and present the website/content management system to host podcasts, vodcasts, and still photography with blogs and wikis. The teams met on several occasions to determine the design and structure of the website required. A
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number of storyboards were created to reflect the “Big Issue” magazine as this is produced to support homeless people. To avoid considerable costs it was decided to create the website using Wordpress which is ideal with CMS facilities for hosting the outputs from the clients. To reflect the nature of the focus of the project clients, the name of the project was considered to be a very important element. The teams looked very closely at a variety of options and came up with LetMEbeFrank. Many of the clients wanted to express their true experiences and the impact that being drug addicts and being homeless had on them. They also felt that the government website called Ask Frank did not give a true reflection of their own experiences and hence the play on words was used by creating LetMEbeFrank. Training the clients to use the digital media proved to be a very positive experience for the clients. The continuation of the programme was seeking further funding in order to continue supporting the staffing for this element of the project. Training Providers - CRM Research There are a number of training providers which have been founded during the boom of the Train 2 Gain programme set up by the government. Many of them have been severely affected by the changes in government funding and this has increased competition amongst local and national training providers. The aim of this particular strand of the project was to determine how training providers used their CRM system to record their business processes and client information. The training providers that have contracts with New College have clients in many diverse companies but the increased competition has meant that their client base has diminished considerably. The questionnaire was set up to include both open and closed questions to collect information on their current practice with using CRM. We also wanted to enquire whether the training providers would be prepared to share good practice and to receive any training on how to use a CRM system effectively. The questionnaire can be found at Appendix III with a report on the results from this questionnaire. Rather than focus on one training provider as set by the project scope for this strand, a questionnaire was created and sent to all training providers asking a number of questions about the use of a CRM system.
Outputs Small Business Project – Ulltra skincare - http://www.ulltra.com/news_list.asp? The short podcast/advert that has been produced for Ulltra skincare has been placed on the website under the “news” link. The podcast has generated an increase of sales and feedback from the MD of Ulltra has been very positive. Using statistics from the analytics programme that has tracked activity on the website, when customers have watch the video, the “click through” sales have increased to 45% - a staggering increase in click through sales.
Community Project – LetMEbeFrank - http://www.letmebefrank.co.uk/ The “letmebefrank” domain was purchased specifically for this project. The requirements of the project meant that a Content Management System (CMS) was the most appropriate style of website to host all of the information from the clients of the DHI. As Wordpress was an open source option and is very user friendly, the site was built using this system. Contributions from staff, clients and other support agencies have been uploaded.
Training Providers - CRM Research The results of the research into the use of the CRM can be found in Appendix III and IV. The initial report covers the evaluation of three CRM systems Appendix I which were studied against a set of criteria appropriate for use in education and for business requirements. The questionnaire that was compiled for the training providers was to collect data on the type of use and whether they had any good experience with the system that they were prepared to share.
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Sustainability Small Business Project – Ulltra skincare Ulltra have a full range of skin products for both men and women. The project team for this strand of the project created a video to promote just one out of the range of products. The original intention was to create similar videos for the company to cover all the products but time constraints have not allowed this to happen. The business has recognised the benefits of having both promotional video for its products and to extend this to using video to train its sales staff. Ulltra have now engaged to work with a media company to continue producing these videos to enhance their sales and have a visual marketing tool for their customers to learn more about their products. This of course is outside the scope of this project but it has shown that the value of using marketing through video has been received positively.
Community Project – LetMEbeFrank The community project has had the website brought into the New College network and it will now be served from our internal servers. The cost of sustaining it outside was not feasible for the community group. The responsibility of keeping the website up-to-date has also been transferred to the New College webmaster. A charity event has been organised by the other project team to raise more funds to sustain this project in the community. Staffing costs are the main issue for the community and funds from the charity event will be used to sustain the staffing to train and support the clients in the community. A number of staffing changes at the DHI have had an impact on this project but it will continue to be sustained by non-specialist staff and the clients in the future.
Training Providers – CRM Research This strand of the project has naturally progressed because of the restructuring of our Business Services Department. There are no requirements from this project team to implement any strategies for sustainability as this will continue to be an expanding need for the college to grow with more sophisticated information systems as the business team expand their client base. The CRM that was used for the project is now being re-evaluated and there is a strong indication that the team will be implementing a more complex and business-style CRM shortly. The training providers that have served New College have been considerably reduced, which are inevitable in the current climate of cutbacks and funding changes.
Outcomes Small Business Project – Ulltra skincare Ulltra skincare have monitored the activity on their website and in particular the statistics of traffic through the video promotion of their product produced through the project. The video was not linked to the main website but has been viewed through the news link. The website activity and statistics are monitored by Google Analytics and the website activity has increased. Ulltra skincare are now using Facebook to advertise using the profiling information that is required on set up. The advertising on Facebook is also being monitored and sales as a result of direct advertising on Facebook is being analysed. The “extreme shaving” concept has also stimulated new markets for the product, principally within the UK Armed Forces and outdoor/adventurous pursuits community.
Community Project – LetMEbeFrank Given the background and difficulties for the clients that this project aimed at, the outcomes were very positive. From 30 clients who contributed or had some involvement in the project, 10 of these continued onto further study programmes in formal education. The scope of the website was extended to include the contribution from other agencies that support similar causes and input from these agencies offering alternative sources of support are continuing to be uploaded to the website. The DHI has been funded to set up a small network of PCs for their clients to use to continue creating their blogs, wikis and podcasts and these facilities are also being used for access to the internet to find work and other support for them.
Training Providers - CRM Research The results of the questionnaires from the training providers showed a strong reluctance from the TPs to share any details of their client base or to share any good practice of use. As part of the questionnaire the TPs were asked if they wanted to create a community of practice with their
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competitors and share good practice and detail any benefits of the system to their business. The fierce competition amongst TPs in the current climate was very apparent and a strong negativity to share any corporate information was shown.
Lessons Learned There were a number of staffing changes that affected this project and which placed a lot of pressure on the Project Manager. The original Business Services team that formed a major part of the project team changed within 6 months of the project starting and the responsibilities of those team members were spread across an already stretched remaining workforce. The level of priority given to the project was reduced because of workload for these staff and it took a lot of energy for the project to be brought back into line to avoid it losing momentum. The risks and impact of the staff changing to such an extent were not fully considered and in such a volatile environment, it is imperative to establish staffing and back up staffing to avoid time loss on project timelines. Because of the changes in staff, some of the project details were not completed or concluded. The outcome of this was to revisit the project aims to ensure that the main aims were met and to conclude some of the minor aims as well as possible. For the project to be reflected upon positively it is imperative to be flexible with original aims and these must be reconsidered and realistic output adjusted to respond to these extreme changes to avoid failure. External environmental changes, such as a major change in Government and policy, have had a direct impact on the funding for the training providers. These institutions have been directly affected and many have ceased trading or have been merged. It was not predicted that such extreme reforms in Government policy could affect the aims of this project over a 2 year period to such an extent.
Conclusions Small Business Project – Ulltra skincare There is a measurable success of the use of podcast advertising on this website through recording the increased activity and increase in sales from the podcast. The statistics which are monitored by Google Analytics showed that the website activity has increased and a 45% increment in sales has been directly attributable from the podcast. The company have sought to support this with further development of this innovative approach to advertising as it has proven to be such a success. Other aims of the project were to develop podcasts to show training sessions for the products sold by this small business and this is a recommended focus which will be pursued by the company. Use of podcasting in the business community for advertising a specific product is relatively new and would be a recommended area for further study. Consideration should also be given to using podcasts for business training sessions integrating this with eLearning.
Community Project – LetMEbeFrank Complementing a larger project team with specialists with required expertise to support them was very successful. One of the objectives for this strand of the project was to engage the clients from the DHI and train them to use the technology to produce podcasts, blogs and wikis. These are skills that allowed 10 of the clients to gain confidence in their abilities and to continue with further study. The DHI provided a voice for these clients to support other clients who had not progressed as far with their rehabilitation. The uniqueness of this contribution from personal accounts and experiences will remain for others to study. The contribution from other support agencies onto the website was a weaker area and members of the staff from the DHI intend to revisit this to encourage more activity and contributions. Given more time the analytical software to monitor the activity on the commercial website could have been used to track usage on this CMS.
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Training Providers - CRM Research This proved to be the most challenging strand of the project and where the outcomes were difficult to establish. Priorities for the training providers were obviously to maintain their market share and develop their markets to ensure survival, it was not to engage in the aims of the project. It was frustrating not to have made more progress in this sector but the conclusions drawn were obvious in that the TPs were not prepared to share their business information and did not want to engage in training offered on use of a CRM system.
Implications Web 2.0 technologies and online communication tools will continue to be developed and will continue to support all of the areas focused on within the three strands of this project. The explosion of internet based commercial enterprise has developed markets which can grow for a small business if it is guided in using appropriate internet marketing tools. The methodologies used for traditional business marketing are now being applied on the web and are proving to be very successful when using analytical tools and monitoring systems. Further information capturing on customer profiling and buying habits of typical customers gives businesses information which can be used to extend their product range appropriately and gives them solid data for them to develop new products. Podcasting or Vodcasting to show the usage and range of products that a small business offers is a new but innovative way to personalise the message to customers. Another area for further research should be the impact that Podcasting can have on commercial training requirements.
Recommendations •
Consider using podcasting for advertising in small businesses
•
Consider using podcasting for training in small businesses using specific learning designs
•
Consider ideas for future implementation and research in podcasting for learning6
•
Implement the use of analytical tools to monitor the traffic on a commercial website to profile your clients for marketing purposes and product development
•
Allow for “informal learning” to take a large part in community development projects
•
Be aware of sensitivity of information and reluctance to share amongst competing small businesses or training providers
References http://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/analytics/
http://www.ulltra.com/news_list.asp? http://www.letmebefrank.co.uk/ Salmon G and Edirisingha P ( 2008) , Podcasting for Learning in Universities, Ideas for future implementation and research in podcasting for learning, Table 16.1, 174/5
6
Salmon G and Edirisingha P ( 2008) , Podcasting for Learning in Universities, Ideas for future implementation and research in podcasting for learning, Table 16.1, 174/5
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Appendices Appendix I – Evaluation of the CRM systems Appendix II –Use of Web 2.0 tools with DHI clients Appendix III – Questionnaire for Training Providers Appendix IV – Results of questionnaire from Training Providers
Dissemination Summary Press release – Ulltra skincare – see website -‐ http://www.ulltra.com JISC RSC Summer conference -‐ 21st July 2010 – Presentation on outputs from JISC BCE Collaborative tools, Stephanie Warren
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