5 V ALIDACIÓN 1 P RODUCTO FINAL
5.7 D ISPOSITIVOS USADOS
Introduction
The institutional study visits are part of a Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) funded study of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system usage and related issues across the UK Higher Education (HE) sector, with reference to examples from the Further Education (FE) sector, with particular regard to their support of Business and Community Engagement (BCE) strategies. The KSA Partnership has been contracted by JISC to undertake the study.
The visits consist of two key elements
• A – a series of one-to-one discussions with senior managers
• B – a focus group session involving a cross-section of CRM system users
Definitions
In the context of this study:
Business and Community Engagement (BCE) is the term used to cover the range of engagements that an institution has with organisations in the private, public, cultural, social, civic and voluntary sectors in order to increase the impact of the HE knowledge base to enhance economic development and the strength and vitality of society. BCE activities are often labelled as Knowledge Transfer (KT), Knowledge Exchange (KE), or Third Stream.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) involves the use of software that enables tracking of the interactions between an organisation and its ‘customers’ – be they other organisations or individuals within those organisations - and is especially useful if different parts of an organisation interact with different parts of another organisation. CRM systems enable organisations to manage the entirety of their relationships and identify where multiple interactions are taking place. They also help to consolidate and support their
relationships with customers enabling them to improve the effectiveness of their interactions through having a coordinated and professional approach. In addition to the software implementation however, the adoption of a CRM system also encompasses significant strategic, cultural and organisational issues.
In asking questions about your use of CRM systems we are therefore referring to systems with a level of sophistication above that of the manual management of email lists and other spreadsheet based or ‘Outlook-type systems.
A – One-to-one discussions
The discussion agenda will be used to inform a series of one-to-one, semi-structured interviews as part of an institutional visit. We are seeking interviews with the following institutional staff:
• Pro-Vice-Chancellor/Vice Principal responsible for BCE activities • Senior Manager responsible for institutional information systems
• Senior Manager responsible for institutional BCE activities (or Senior Managers where these activities are managed through more than one central support function)
• Dean of a faculty/school.
The discussion agenda will be rearticulated for the different individuals interviewed.
All responses will be treated as confidential. Any analysis, presentation or reporting of the responses will be in an anonymised or aggregated form. The analysis of the responses will contribute to a detailed report of the study findings and recommendations that will be submitted to JISC in August 2007. The report will be made public in due course.
Discussion agenda
Section A: Thinking about your involvement in the deployment and uptake of the CRM system(s) in your institution…
1. What has been your role and contribution in the deployment of CRM systems in general and in particular to support BCE activity?
2. What experience do you have in using the CRM system(s) and in particular those to support BCE activity?
Section B: Thinking about the context in your institution… 1. What are the institution’s
priorities in relation to business and community engagement (now and in the future)?
2. How is your institution’s BCE activity currently being
supported? Consider:
- Staff infrastructure
- Roles and contribution of different categories of staff (e.g. senior managers, professional BCE staff, other support staff, academics)
Section C: Thinking about the strategy behind the deployment of the CRM system(s) in your institution…
1. What motivated your
institution/faculty/department to deploy the CRM system(s) in general, and particularly those to support BCE activity?
2. What was your
institution/faculty/department trying to achieve in deploying the CRM system(s) in general and particularly those to support BCE activity? And, over what period?
3. What are your
institution/faculty/department’s priorities/plans for the future in relation to the ongoing
development of the CRM
system(s) and their application to BCE activity?
Consider:
- Developing the CRM system to better support core BCE and related activities
- Extending the reach and uptake of system
- Using the data to inform strategic and operational decision (e.g. service improvement, market segmentation/targeting)
- Shared services and commercial exploitation
4. Who has the responsibility for driving forward the deployment of the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity? And, who else is involved?
Section D: Thinking about the process of deploying the CRM system(s) in your institution…
1. What options were considered in securing the supply of the CRM system(s) to support BCE
activity? And, who was involved in the decision-making process? Consider
- In-house/software supply/service outsourcing
- Including non-BCE areas (eg student recruitment, alumni)
2. Which was the preferred option? And, why?
3. What progress has been made in relation to the deployment of the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity?
4. How has the process of deploying the CRM system(s) been supported? And, who by? Consider:
- Project implementation - Staff development - Technical support and
development
5. How successful has the implementation of the CRM system(s) to support your institution’s BCE activity been? Consider:
- Extent to which the initial aspirations have been met?
6. What issues, challenges and sensitivities have been faced in deploying the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity? And, how have these been overcome? Consider:
- Cultural (e.g. contextual issues, preparedness for change, attitudes and perceptions of staff) - Organisational (e.g. business
processes, HR procedures) - Technical (e.g. systems
integration)
7. What levers and enablers have helped to facilitate the process of effectively deploying the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity?
8. What have been the critical success factors in the successful deployment of the CRM
system(s) to support BCE activity?
Section E: Thinking about the benefits and impact to your institution having deployed the CRM system(s)…
1. What benefits have been realised through the deployment of the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity?
Consider:
- Business processes
2. What has been the impact of the CRM system(s) on:
(a) Staff (senior management, professional BCE staff, other support staff, academics) (b) Services/business units (e.g.
business development, IT/information services)?
(c) Customers’ experience?
3. What have you learnt about the effective deployment of CRM systems to support BCE activity?
Section F: Thinking about your institution’s support needs and future deployment of CRM systems to support BCE activity…
1. What plans/priorities does your institution have?
Consider a 1-2 year and 3-5 year planning horizon
2. What support would have been valued in the past?
3. What support would be valued now and over the next two years?
3. How could JISC better support your institution in realising the full potential of CRM systems to support BCE activity in the future?
B – Focus group
The focus group activity will consist of a group discussion with a cross-section (in terms of level/department/type of use) of users of the BCE CRM system. The group should involve of 6-10 users and be scheduled to last approximately 90 mins.
The agenda for the group will be as follows: Introductions/Context (keep brief):
1. What is your role in relation to supporting BCE activity?
2. What experience do you have in using the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity? 3. How successful has the implementation of the CRM system(s) been?
Experience in use:
4. What benefits/impact have been realised through using the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity?
5. What issues have you faced or are you facing in using the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity?
6. What action needs to be taken and by whom to improve how the CRM system(s) are used in practice?
The following pro-formas should be used to capture individual responses for questions 4-6 as follows:
For each question,
• the facilitator asks the group to work independently to write down in box (2) as many as possible of their own ideas in response to the question in box (1)
• In box (3), individuals should rank their ideas in box (b) in terms of 1, 2, 3, 4 – with 1 being the idea which each feels is the best/most important idea - and so on until you have ranked your ideas (at least the top 5). They should draw a line under their own list. (approx 5-10 mins for boxes 1 & 2).
• The facilitator then goes around the group collecting the top two ideas from each person and records them on the flipchart. The remaining ranked ideas can serve as replacements for duplicated ideas, so that if someone has already presented the same idea before they were required to declare their top two rankings then they would move onto their 3rd and 4th ideas etc. This should be done without any judgmental comments being made. The facilitator then goes round the group to collecting any remaining ideas. Individuals should also add any ideas not already on their own list to that list below the line.
• Discuss and clarify the list of ideas (15-20 mins).
• After this discussion, each group member then ranks all of the group’s ideas in Box (4).
Proforma A
A1 Question
What benefits/impact have been realised through using the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity? A2 List of Individual & Group Ideas/Responses A3 Rank of
Individual Ideas
A4 Rank of All Group
Proforma B
B1 Question
What issues have you faced or are you facing in using the CRM system(s) to support BCE activity? B2 List of Individual & Group Ideas/Responses B3 Rank of
Individual Ideas
B4 Rank of All Group
Proforma C
C1 Question
What action needs to be taken and by whom to improve how the CRM system(s) are used in practice? C2 List of Individual & Group Ideas/Responses C3 Rank of
Individual Ideas
C4 Rank of All Group