HiTech Institute
Integrated Data Helps Technology Career College Save 800 Working Hours per Month
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Company Overview
HiTech Institute is a private career college delivering corporate and individual technology training from eight learning centers located in Toronto, Detroit and Jacksonville, Florida. Founded in 1998, the company has grown to a full-time staff of 27 with hundreds of part-time instructors teaching more than 500 courses.
Business Challenge
Learning programs at HiTech Institute include Information Technology, Project Management, Engineering Design, Business Solutions and Administration, Health Care and Community Services. Students can choose specialized instruction in Microsoft, IBM and Cisco technology deployment and management; business courses like Project Management Institute PMP; and engineering areas like CAD and electrical design. Most graduates find careers in the government, banking, transportation, health care, communications and energy sectors.
HiTech Institute is also a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, with competencies in Microsoft Certified Partners for Learning Solutions and Microsoft Dynamics™, formerly Microsoft Business Solutions. The college is part of an umbrella organization called HiTech Network, which has a Microsoft Dynamics consulting arm, an associated school that offers diploma-level courses, and a recruiting operation. This affiliation gives HiTech Institute a unique competitive advantage: the company’s instructors keep their skills up to date by working on technology deployments through the consulting firm.
Having such skilled IT resources on staff gives HiTech Institute another advantage – a pipeline to an extensive knowledge base for solving its own technology issues. So when the company realized its decentralized business records were hindering its ability to manage its operations efficiently, it turned to these internal resources for help.
“When I started the company it was a much simpler operation to manage. But we’ve grown so quickly that almost before we realized it, all of our valuable data was locked into separate silos of information – none of our applications within the different departments talked to each other,” says Pravin Patel, President, HiTech Institute. “With the number of resources we coordinate on a regular basis to deliver over 500 specialized courses, it was clear we needed an integrated solution so our people could share information more easily.”
HiTech Institute’s sales and accounting departments were using a Microsoft Access application to manage and update student records. The company’s marketing team leveraged information kept in Microsoft Excel, and the college’s course catalog information was kept in a Microsoft SQL Server™ database using a Web application. This decentralized IT environment meant management was unable to generate accurate reports, and thus had difficulty managing operations.
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Solution
After consulting with expert instructors at the college, HiTech Institute selected Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Microsoft Dynamics NAV to track sales, maintain student records and integrate all its departments on a common dataset.
"The Microsoft Dynamics products are providing a powerful platform for our company to better manage its entire business operation through timely, accurate information that empowers the decision-making process,” says Patel. “Although we’re a small company, we’re finding the solution delivers great value.
The overall project roll out of Microsoft Dynamics CRM started in December 2004 and was completed in August 2005. Six months later, the company upgraded to Microsoft Dynamics CRM because the newer version delivers a robust marketing module.
“When we upgraded to Microsoft Dynamics 3.0, we gradually began adding departments, customizing it to suit our specific needs”, says Patel. “A course catalogue had to be entered, as well as some business rules. Really, it’s become an ongoing implementation cycle because we keep finding new functionalities that benefit our various divisions.”
HiTech Institute initially used Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a lead tracker and communications tool for interacting with students and to perform billing. The college then began using the software’s case management feature to streamline student registration and text book purchases.
With the upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, HiTech Institute expanded its marketing activities to include promotional e-mail blasts to its list of qualified leads. The marketing module in Microsoft Dynamics CRM allows the college to track all the e-mails it sends, then create reports that analyze how successful the outreach was based on how many direct connections were made with potential students.
HiTech Institute also deployed Microsoft Dynamics NAV as a business management solution that allowed it to extend the benefits of the Microsoft Dynamics CRM centralized data repository across the company. Seven modules – Financial Management, Training (customized), Sales/Marketing, Purchase, Resource Planning, and Human Resources – were implemented so that the company’s operations, accounting, purchasing and sales departments could interact using a common dataset. The rollout was completed in November 2005.
The Microsoft Dynamics NAV deployment took one of the college’s expert instructors about four months of dedicated project work. It involved creating 90 custom forms linked to a Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 database, with a customized structure to reflect the special requirements of an educational institute. This meant adding a total of 60 tables to the database.
As well, a total of 70 custom reports were created for the training module, plus a key report for the operations department – the job request report. This defines all the resources required for every class within a given date range and location, including instructor, classroom, course documents, and the students registered for the class.
Business Benefits
By deploying Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, all HiTech Institute employees now have access to the same information, regardless of department or the applications they are using. Business processes are now more efficient because centralized data access means no information is duplicated between departments and reduces the number of hours spent per month by four hundred and twelve. This cuts down on data entry, since the same information can be used for scheduling, billing, marketing and cut data entry across the board by one hundred and seventeen.
Integrated system
With Microsoft Dynamics NAV maintaining the back-end information and Microsoft Dynamics CRM managing data on the front end, HiTech Institute has an end-to-end integrated solution linked together via Microsoft BizTalk Server. Potential students can enter their information at the company’s Web site and it is automatically stored in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Those students who formally register are then transferred automatically into the Microsoft Dynamics NAV system via BizTalk Server. This gives management and staff an integrated view and control of all the college’s business activity.
Microsoft Dynamics NAV provides robust enterprise control from the operations, accounting and financial management perspective, while Microsoft Dynamics CRM is used to manage sales leads more efficiently. With Microsoft Dynamics CRM, there are 15 customized business rules that relieve staff from the burden of more mundane tasks.
“The rules facility in Microsoft Dynamics CRM lets us automate many of our routine operations, saving us time in small increments – in fact we’ve calculated that the entire deployment is saving us over 800 hours per month,” says Patel. “For instance, in the sales department, if a lead is entered in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and there is no response within seven days, then the lead is automatically deleted. Thus only active students are tracked.”
Increased internal efficiency
Microsoft Dynamics NAV enables HiTech Institute to track all enterprise information in one location. Data is entered once and is useable from any department, given approved access. The result is a great reduction in time spent manually searching to find required information.
As well, the customized Microsoft Dynamics NAV training module has helped improve cross-departmental productivity. Operations have immediate access to sales department information, and can begin allocating resources by simply reviewing the new orders entered into the Microsoft Dynamics NAV system. Purchasing can order the books needed for different courses based on the number of students who have registered and completed the payment process. Accounts can verify payment history and receipt dates and times.
The ability to control access through Microsoft Dynamics NAV also provides improved data security, and enables auditing of records entry which helps ensure the information being stored is accurate. And because the solution is based on Microsoft SQL Server, the software’s automatic backup features have enabled HiTech Institute to simplify the database administrator requirements. This helps make the solution easier to maintain, while providing all the disaster recovery features inherent in Microsoft SQL Server to help protect the ERP system data.
More accurate financial reporting
One of HiTech Institute’s main goals was to improve its financial system so management had a clearer picture of its accounts.
“Before we deployed Microsoft Dynamics NAV, we used Simply Accounting, and we were always three to four months behind in our financial statements,” says Patel. “We are a small company, but we want to have the up-to-date reporting capabilities of a big company. With our new system, all our financial numbers are in real-time.”
Patel adds that the solution is helping HiTech Institute reduce the amount of staff time spent on reporting. “Microsoft Dynamics NAV is helping us to close our books quarterly, because we can get all the reports we need in a few seconds. Previously the reporting happened on a quarterly basis for the previous quarter only so information was always three months out of date. Now the information is available online and fully up to date,” he says.
As well, the Ratio Analysis feature in Microsoft Dynamics NAV is enabling the college to measure its growth more accurately. This gives management more insight into financial numbers, which helps them provide more accurate budget forecasts.
Improved customer service
The new solutions are also helping HiTech Institute provide better customer service. According to Patel, the company’s sales department has had great success using the case management feature in Microsoft Dynamics CRM to resolve student issues quickly, and track customer concerns.
“We continually evaluate our performance with students because we’re a quality-conscious company. As soon as we began using Microsoft Dynamics CRM, the number of student complaints dropped significantly because the case management feature made everyone aware of outstanding issues until they were resolved,” said Patel.
As a result, evaluations by students showed strong improvement. The number of active complaint cases at any given time dropped 70 per cent from previous levels, with recent statistics averaging just one or two cases open at a time.
Microsoft Dynamics
Microsoft Dynamics is a line of financial, customer relationship and supply chain management solutions that helps businesses work more effectively. Delivered through a network of channel partners providing specialised services, these integrated, adaptable business management solutions work like and with familiar Microsoft software to streamline processes across an entire business.
For more information about Microsoft Dynamics, go to:http://www.microsoft.com/canada/dynamics/default.mspx
For More Information
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For more information about HiTech Institute products and services, call (800) 816 - 4811 or visit the Web site at: www.htinstitute.com
