Institut Químic de Sarrià

For Institut Químic de Sarrià (IQS), effectively engaging its community— prospective students, students, alumni, and partner corporations—is critical to strengthening its student enrolment and financial health. Based in Barcelona, IQS has evolved into an international leader for advanced engineering and management programmes. Like many institutions though, IQS’s vision and growth were outpacing their internal infrastructure.

In order to continue broadening its international offerings and delivering outstanding international student experiences, IQS recognised the need to transform their internal operations. The transformation started with undergraduate and graduate programmes admissions —and quickly scaled to other IQS departments that were operating in silos and lacked modern digital tools to optimise processes and reduce human error.

“We needed to improve efficiency across the university,” said Narcís Vidal Borrell, IQS’s Head of Digital & CRM.  “Our information and technology systems were siloed and information was shared using a spreadsheet, which resulted in numerous errors and significant staff time wasted on low-value tasks.” 

Implementing Salesforce to Build Efficiency and Flexibility

IQS selected Salesforce.org Education Cloud as the platform to elevate and modernise operations and best align with their prestigious institutional reputation. The first objective was to create a more flexible and efficient environment for the university’s departments. That’s why IQS sought to consolidate all of its data into Salesforce, thus giving staff the automation and internal organisation needed to deliver on the university’s vision.

IQS unified and advanced its operations with Salesforce products, using:

• Sales Cloud to create a streamlined hub for all lead management efforts among undergraduate, graduate, and executive programmes. 
• Marketing Cloud to deploy a more cohesive approach to marketing and communications, creating greater alignment for brand outreach. 
• Experience Cloud to nurture deeper engagement in its alumni community, foster networking opportunities and support student employability with an online portal to jumpstart their careers.

The Result: Automation, Personalisation, and Efficiency

As IQS continues its accelerated growth, Salesforce has enabled staff to build resiliency and handle new challenges with greater organisation and process clarity. Using Salesforce, IQS has gained insights into their operations and have improved their ability to engage with all stakeholders.

With Salesforce, IQS staff are now:

• Increasingly efficient due to the consolidation of data, gaining a 360-degree view into students and operations, and the automation of business processes. For instance, it allowed IQS staff to reduce by 40% time spent on common tasks in career services.
• Well-positioned to respond flexibly and efficiently in support of IQS’s strategy, with one connected platform fit for their operations and for engaging their community.
• Offering a superior student experience, thanks to personalised, timely communications and highly performant career services.
• Providing alumni with a portal to explore job opportunities from partner organisations, register for IQS events, mingle with other alumni, and keep their information up to date.
• Data driven in their decision making, thanks to the insights they can get on students and student interactions as well as the team’s activities and performance.

“Salesforce has empowered our staff to do their jobs so much more easily, effectively, and efficiently that even those originally reticent about the project are now fully onboard,” said Vidal.

Looking Ahead

IQS has plans to advance its Salesforce capabilities in additional areas of the university, including Tech Transfer and IQS Business Foundation.