Datatel Partners With SAS on BI -- How About CRM for Higher Ed?

October 20, 2005

According to an announcement that came across our TMCnet news feeds today, Datatel is calling on SAS to add analytical capabilities to the services Datatel offers to colleges and universities. (See "Datatel and SAS Partner to Power High-Performance Higher Education.")

Reading the press release, I think the partnership is limited to improving the business intelligence (BI)�capabilities of Datatel's ERP (enterprise resource planning) product. But I wonder whether the partnership could eventually lead to greater CRM (customer relationship management)�capabilities for Datatel's products as well.

Not long�ago, I worked on a consulting project with a graduate school that was using Datatel for managing student information among other things. The IT and business folks had been making a valiant effort for several years to get Datatel implemented in a complex multi-campus system with a corporate culture�valuing decentralized authority ("They're a bunch of cowboys," one manager told me.) In spite of the hard work and difficulties involved in the implementation, the school�was seeing a real payback in terms of their management capabilities.

I thought at the time that the school could really benefit from a CRM implementation,�with the Datatel database as the core information repository. But when I discussed the idea with a few people, I found that the only one who had ever heard of CRM was the president. A lot of blank�stares.�The concept made sense, but it can be hard for a school or other non-profit organization to think of the people it serves as "customers" -- so the term "CRM" can grate a little bit.

The more I thought about it, the more I could see that the CRM model makes�particular sense in the business of higher education. Think of the diversity of touch-points a college or university has with its students and the longevity of the relationship between school and student�-- from the first time the school contacts the prospective student during high school -- all the way up though graduation and the alumni relationship -- even up to the former student's death, when the alum�leaves a bequest to the school in their will! (Because the school has continued to be in touch through the years, as the alum was making his or her estate plans.)

Here are some of the departments (and notes about the type of contact involved)�that might be able to benefit from a single view of the student (customer) housed in a database available to any school employee that comes in touch with a student throughout the institutional relationship:

Admissions/Marketing -- Contacts with�guidance counselors (and other influencers) and�prospective students in referring institutions. Contact during campus visits and similar promotional events.

Registrar -- Housing of student information, courses, schedule,�grades, etc.

Student Services -- Housing, medical, parking, computing, library�and other services.

Finance -- Billing

Financial Aid

Alumni Relations -- Contacts such as fund-raising, publications, volunteer service, networking, events.

Institutional Advancement/Development -- Fund-raising, planned giving.

Is a CRM product in Datatel's plans for the future, and could the SAS relationship put them on the path to providing�CRM? I see a lot of potential for such an offering in the higher education market.

AB -- 10/20/05

Related Tags: higher education, datatel, Datatel, school, student, relationship