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Danielle Tarp

Oracle NetSuite Corporate Communications
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Higher Education Institutions Implement NetSuite for CRM

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Statewide College Access Program led by the University of North Carolina Among Institutions Standardised on NetSuite for CRM

SAN MATEO, Calif.—October 13, 2005—NetSuite, Inc., the leader in on-demand business management software for growing organisations, today announced that both the Wharton School and a statewide college access program led by the 16-campus University of North Carolina (UNC) have implemented NetSuite for CRM to better manage its respective programs. The Wharton School MBA Program for Executives is using NetSuite CRM+ to manage its recruitment and application process. Similarly, the College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC) Resource Center—administered by the UNC Office of the President—has implemented NetSuite's CRM functionality to better coordinate college planning services to students, parents, and educators. Further, NetSuite's NetFlex platform allows NetSuite CRM functionality to be tailored to meet the unique needs of these universities. For more information about this, visit www.netsuite.com.au/whartonUNC.

The Wharton School MBA Program for Executives, recognised as one of the best executive MBA programs in the world, has implemented NetSuite CRM+ to help manage new leads, track the application process, and provide timely and accurate reports. The Wharton MBA for Executives Program's admissions office is using NetSuite CRM+ in a myriad of ways to manage its recruitment and application process, including:

  • Marketing – Captures the information from its targeted e-mail marketing campaigns and stores it in NetSuite CRM+. The admissions office also uses NetSuite's reporting/data mining capabilities to build mailing lists for its third-party e-mailer.
  • Web Site – Links NetSuite to inquiries for more information on the Web site. Inquiries are stored in NetSuite, where they are ready to be acted on immediately.
  • E-mail – Customised Reception Sign-Up Web forms (NetSuite's campaign management tools) schedule all "reminder" e-mails for the many admissions receptions hosted. Students who have registered for a reception will receive a follow-up reminder e-mail specific to the reception that was selected.
  • Collaboration – Through NetSuite's NetFlex tools, all NetSuite CRM+ information stays in sync with an external application tracking system. Data is regularly exported from that system and imported into NetSuite.

While administered by the UNC Office of the President, the College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC) Resource Center involves all of North Carolina's 110 two-year and four-year, public and private colleges as well as the state's K-12 schools. CFNC is a nationally recognised model for K-16 collaboration and services to improve college access. As part of a comprehensive effort to increase the number of North Carolina residents attaining college degrees, the centre has implemented NetSuite for CRM.

CFNC chose NetSuite for three principle reasons. First, to gain more robust functionality than they had with their previous, disparate CRM applications, which included a Goldmine database that resided on a campus server; second, to allow all team members who are dispersed throughout the state to access essential information from any location in real-time; and third, to save the money and time they would have spent on maintenance, upkeep and security issues associated with a more expensive server-based solution.

CFNC plans to use NetSuite's CRM functionality for a wide variety of activities, including:

  • Ordering – the CFNC Resource Center annually sends out over 250,000 free college planning publications and needed a system to help handle all the orders.
  • Phone support – NetSuite will allow CFNC to handle cases for their toll-free college planning phone line. For example, a high school student may call and ask, "How can I become a nurse?"
  • Website support – e-mail questions coming into the Center from CFNC.org's more than 900,000 student account holders will be handled as cases through NetSuite.
  • Training – CFNC trains more than 600 educators each year through its training workshops. NetSuite will be used to keep track of all attendees.
  • In addition, CFNC plans to use NetSuite for other purposes including tracking inventory, e-mail campaigns, document sharing and event management.

"We've been extremely pleased with how NetSuite has been able to be customised to fit the specific CRM needs of our industry," said Mark Wiles, Director of the College Foundation of North Carolina Resource Center—UNC Office of the President. "The professionalism of the NetSuite Professional Services team and their willingness to help us has been even better than we expected. Every time we have had a question, they have gone out of their way to find us a solution."

Zach Nelson, CEO of NetSuite, said, "The success we've had in helping Wharton and the University of North Carolina are examples of how NetSuite's CRM functionality is flexible and powerful enough to serve industries such as higher education. We are extremely happy to help each of these schools further their efforts of achieving excellence in education."

About the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is recognised around the world for its academic strengths across every major discipline and at every level of business education. Founded in 1881 as the first collegiate business school in the nation, Wharton has approximately 4,600 undergraduate, MBA, Executive MBA, and doctoral students, more than 8,000 participants in its executive education programs annually, and an alumni network of more than 80,000 worldwide. For more information please visit www.wharton.upenn.edu.

About College Foundation of North Carolina
College Foundation of North Carolina (CFNC) is a free service provided by the State of North Carolina to increase college access for students at all North Carolina two and four-year, private and public institutions. Partners include the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities, North Carolina Community College System, University of North Carolina, State Occupational Information Coordinating Committee, College Foundation, Inc. (non-profit), and the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority. For more information please visit www.cfnc.org.