[Editors] CRM products used at MIT?

[JoAnna French]

Hi all, 

In my previous role at MIT Sloan, we used Salesforce to manage our
relationships with companies. Jackie Wilbur now oversees corporate
relationships at MIT Sloan and I believe she uses Salesforce to help
manage these relationships. I know that Exec Ed, SMR, MFin, and the
sustainability initiative all use Salesforce as well, although not the
same platform (not the same data).

To answer your additional questions - 3) how do you use it, and 4) what
else can you share about using a CRM - I¹ll say this - the platform,
whatever you choose (Salesforce, FileMaker, etc) is only as good as the
data that is put in it (garbage in, garbage out). Our intention was to use
Salesforce to track the many and varied corporate relationships with the
School, but this was a very manual and tedious effort and not everyone
bought into it. There were many shadow databases with people keeping their
own records (email, other excel spreadsheets, etc.). Also, since not all
of the corporate-facing groups across the School were using it, it wasn¹t
terribly efficient.

I¹m happy to talk more about this one-on-one, if you¹d like. I think if a
CRM is used to manage a discreet list of relationships that don¹t overlap
with other departments, it can be very helpful. I have no issue with
Salesforce as a platform. I think it does a fine job of tracking
relationships, but our challenge was business integration. Technology can
only do so much!

Hope this helps!
JoAnna 

 


___________________________
JoAnna French
Marketing Copywriter
Office of Communications
MIT Sloan School of Management
jmfrench at mit.edu

77 Massachusetts Ave, EE20-600
Cambridge, MA 02139
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c: 339.226.0178




On 5/29/14, 3:34 PM, "Cecilia M Marra" <cmarra at MIT.EDU> wrote:

>Hi All,
>
>I'm curious to learn what CRM tools people have found useful as well.
>We've built a few highly customized FileMaker systems with CRM components
>for various DLCs. But I'd be very interested to hear if anyone has found
>more generalizable, effective tools that could serve broader needs in the
>community.
>
>I'd be happy to share information about the CRMs we've built, if people
>are interested in knowing what kinds of features are included.   Our
>systems are primarily for academic administration, but there are CRM
>components that could be of wider interest, such as correspondence
>templating functionality that also includes logging of all outgoing
>communications with individuals.
>
>Thanks!
>Cecilia
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Cecilia Marra
>Manager, Departmental Consulting, Analysis & Development
>Information Systems & Technology
>Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>cmarra at mit.edu
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>From: editors-bounces at MIT.EDU [editors-bounces at MIT.EDU] on behalf of Mara
>Elena Karapetian [mara at mtl.mit.edu]
>Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2014 12:17 PM
>To: editors at mit.edu
>Subject: [Editors] CRM products used at MIT?
>
>Hello editors,
>
>Our lab is exploring the possibility of using such as a customer
>relationship management software to keep track of students, staff,
>faculty, and friends of our lab (friends meaning our industrial
>friends). I'm wondering 1) who else, if anyone, is using such a thing in
>their DLC, 2) what do you use, 3) how do you use it, and 4) what else
>can you share about using a CRM? These are new waters for us.
>
>Thank you in advance for anything you can share!
>
>All the best,
>
>--
>___________________________________________________
>Mara Elena Karapetian, Manager of Media & Design
>Microsystems Technology Laboratories
>Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>60 Vassar St, Room 39-313
>Cambridge, MA 02139
>
>Please note that I am out of the office on Tuesdays as I serve on a
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>
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