The Client
The University at Albany (UAlbany), a leader in educational equity and social mobility, is renowned for its cutting-edge research and diverse academic programs. As a Carnegie-classified R1 institution, UAlbany is driving innovation across fields like artificial intelligence, atmospheric sciences, public health, and social sciences. However, the University’s groundbreaking work doesn’t stop with academics—it extends to fostering economic and technological growth through corporate partnerships.
Unlike many university departments that leverage Salesforce primarily for managing the student lifecycle, UAlbany is using Salesforce as an innovative tool to power its corporate partnership initiatives and to measure economic development impact. The Office of Economic Development, Entrepreneurship and Industry Partnerships and its Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program have embraced Salesforce to better understand and showcase the University’s impact, with an ambitious vision to scale this approach University-wide for a holistic view of their societal contributions.
The Challenge
Before adopting Salesforce, the University at Albany’s Office of Economic Development relied on a web-based platform specifically designed for incubators and accelerators. While this system claimed to offer a variety of features—including CRM functionality, custom reporting, mentoring support, economic impact tracking, and dashboards—it fell short in several areas. The platform was buggy, lacked reliable customer support, and had an unintuitive user interface. These issues, combined with the sudden sunsetting of the software, left the team with a disjointed program management process and no single source of truth.
Lead generation was handled through multiple channels, including the Innovate 518 website, social media, email marketing, word-of-mouth, and networking. However, tracking and managing these leads alongside program data across various tools such as Outlook, Teams, and spreadsheets created inefficiencies and administrative burdens. The University needed a more robust and scalable system to streamline communication, program tracking, reporting, and data management.
With goals of creating a single source of truth, improving efficiency, reducing administrative burdens, and focusing on supporting companies in their incubator programs, UAlbany sought a solution that could meet both its immediate and long-term needs. Their requirements included program tracking, economic impact reporting, project management, and two-way engagement tracking.
The Solution
Since implementing Salesforce, the University at Albany has seen significant improvements in efficiency and data management. Program tracking is now streamlined, and economic impact data is centralized, enabling the Director of Economic Development to tell a cohesive story about the University’s contributions to economic growth. Administrative burdens have been reduced, freeing the team to focus on supporting companies in their programs.
Salesforce’s user-friendly interface and robust features have also helped the team secure buy-in from other campus entities, paving the way for a campus-wide implementation. By consolidating data and creating a unified approach to tracking impact, UAlbany is positioned to better demonstrate its contributions to economic and technological development.
Looking forward, UAlbany aims to expand Salesforce usage across the campus, creating a shared system for tracking and reporting on impact. This initiative will allow the University to gather and present a holistic view of its economic and societal contributions, strengthening its position as a leader in innovation and growth. Working with Redpath not only helped UAlbany realize these goals but also empowered the team to refine their processes and set the stage for continued success.
The Results
Since implementing Salesforce, the University at Albany has seen significant improvements in efficiency and data management. Program tracking is now streamlined, and economic impact data is centralized, enabling the Director of Economic Development to tell a cohesive story about the University’s contributions to economic growth. Administrative burdens have been reduced, freeing the team to focus on supporting companies in their programs.
Salesforce’s user-friendly interface and robust features have also helped the team secure buy-in from other campus entities, paving the way for a campus-wide implementation. By consolidating data and creating a unified approach to tracking impact, UAlbany is positioned to better demonstrate its contributions to economic and technological development.
Looking forward, UAlbany aims to expand Salesforce usage across the campus, creating a shared system for tracking and reporting on impact. This initiative will allow the University to gather and present a holistic view of its economic and societal contributions, strengthening its position as a leader in innovation and growth. Working with Redpath not only helped UAlbany realize these goals but also empowered the team to refine their processes and set the stage for continued success.
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