Implementing Salesforce for New Student Intake During Covid-19
Ordinarily, summer break is a time for colleges to start preparing for the year ahead – but in true 2020 fashion, this wasn’t smooth sailing for Teachers College, Columbia University. The industry of higher education is far from immune to challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Avnish Kotecha, Senior Director at Computer Futures, and his team enabled the implementation of an entire Salesforce function so that a new intake of students could stay connected in the virtual world.
Partnering with Salesforce
Computer Futures is all about bringing skilled people together to build the future. This year, many organizations had to get creative to make this happen. It all began when Salesforce approached Avnish and Jul Schaevitz, Executive Salesforce Alliance Manager at Computer Futures, with a request to create a full project team.
According to Avnish, "over the past few years, we’ve established a trusted relationship through our registered partnership with Salesforce. When the pandemic hit and businesses were in crisis, we were ready to support those in need. By using our tech staffing expertise, we were able to offer expert Salesforce recruitment support.
By using our flexible staffing model and combining this with our Salesforce Higher Education experience, we were able to connect with the account executive to find a solution that supported the needs of the college."
Creating Communities Through Technology
Teacher’s College at Columbia University needed a solution that would help their incoming students to maintain a world-class onboarding experience. Salesforce offered the tools to bring this virtual experience to life. Avnish, Jul, and the Computer Futures Salesforce recruitment team had the right connections to the tech industry to execute the vision.
Computer Futures partnered with Selina Suarez, CEO at PepUp Tech. She led as the Salesforce Architect for the project, bringing in a group of graduates with her, while Computer Futures worked alongside her as the project manager to provide a viable, personalized, and cost-effective solution.
"Our cost-effective offering, flexible staffing model, and knowledge of the Salesforce recruitment market allowed us to implement this in a way that worked for our client in a very short timeframe. PepUp Tech is an amazing initiative focused on giving people opportunities through Salesforce careers. The team really understands the importance of building personalized solutions through the product – we knew straight away that this collaboration was right," said Avnish.
Computer Futures' market knowledge, industry connections, and innovative approach allowed us to enhance the Salesforce career potential of up and coming talent.
Bringing Skilled People Together
Thanks to the work of the project team, the student experience at the Teacher’s College within Columbia University is alive and thriving.
John Lombardi, Deputy CIO, was thrilled with the outcome. "I was impressed with the speed by which Computer Futures was able to put the team together. We had a very aggressive project schedule to deliver a virtual orientation solution for new students. The solution delivered has exceeded our expectations and was delivered on time. I will use Computer Futures again and highly recommend them."
But our work is not done yet. The Computer Futures team continues to provide ongoing support to the Teacher's College and we are proactively discussing the next phases of projects that will help the college to learn more about the full potential of Salesforce.
Thanks to the incredible Salesforce community, our amazing account director, the inspiring work of PepUp Tech, and our awesome project team at Computer Futures, this community is staying connected!
