[SAP-CRM Systems] Students & Employers as Customers

One article in the Chartered Accountants Magazine reports the CRM Survey 2013 (see link). Here is one excerpt: "But no matter how many bells and whistles are included, and no matter how easy it is to access CRM in the cloud, some people are reluctant to embrace the technology. They don't want to spend the time to keep the information up to date or give away their insight (and power) by disclosing key information to everyone in the company. Change management is key in the implementation of any CRM system to make sure employees are motivated to get on board."

The second article titled "CRM Failure and the Seven Deadly Sins" by Sudhir Kale is from Marketing Management (Sep/Oct 2004). The 7 sins highlighted are:

• Focusing solely on technology
• Losing sight of customers
• Ignoring customer lifetime value
• Lack of management support
• Undervaluing data analysis
• Underestimating change management
• Inflexible business processes

The above is quite true of any technology solution (including ERP, SCM, SRM, and PLM solutions).  A well-implemented ERP solution when governed by design thinking aims to overcome the above mentioned sins. According to the SAP-2014 Annual Report: "Regardless of the setting, SAP embeds methods such as design thinking into all projects and researches innovative approaches to generate and evaluate applications, technologies, and business ideas."   

Presumably, SAP relies on design thinking during the implementation drives as well. Like several other Universities across the globe, KIIT has recently implemented SAP. The University has gone live, among other things, with SAP-SLCM (Student Life Cycle Management).

If we look at the entire student lifecycle from student recruitment (i.e., before admissions) to student placement and beyond, I believe, KIIT has been spending quite a lot on student training and placement initiatives. Perhaps, in such cases, something like a "placement self-service" would be quite useful.

Accordingly, one would assume that probably SAP-CRM is the answer for engaging with KIIT's customers - i.e., students as well as the employers [among other groups of customers(click)]. Unfortunately, however, SAP-CRM implementations in Universities abroad largely support student recruitment processes (prior to admissions) or for attracting funds from alumni while supporting the student lifecycles. They don't have a concept of supporting campus placement related transactions - a practice quite common in Indian education sector.

Read: "Campus Placements in US Universities – Jobs, Internships Recruitment"(click)

Hence, while the SAP implementation at KIIT (and other similar Universities) considers the "students as customers (SAC)" of the University, it has yet to develop solutions for strengthening ties with the "employers as customers (EAC)".

Thus, I suggest developing an SAP-CRM system with a capable feedback process to strengthen our service delivery systems (i.e., strengthening of our placement, training and academic processes). It may help us in exploring a concern once put forth by a colleague: "The Indian market and its customers [be it SAC or EAC] have distinct features and behaviors and we need to delve deep into it." {w.r.t my note titled “[Curr. Overhaul] To Build a Better B-School, Consider Student a Customer”; 10 Dec 2013}

[Note: This post shares an idea for bringing training & placement under the SAP system. I suggest developing an SAP-CRM system with a capable feedback process to strengthen our service delivery systems (i.e., strengthening of our placement, training and academic processes). Request EAM team, ITM Area and other faculty colleagues to give their views if possible]