SPEAKERS
Outsourcing Student email, our journey
Robert Irving
The competitive environment in education is hotting up, Universities are now competing like never before to attract and retain students to protect and build their institutions. The services provided to students can be more important to the choice of institution than the universities sandstone reputation. Students are coming out of high tech schools with a wealth of expectation of the technologies they can expect in their tertiary studies; the reality for many can be somewhat disappointing. Universities are now catching up and one area where value can be delivered to students is in the communication tools provided to them. Students don’t want email anymore they want fully online communication portals.
The problem with delivering such solutions is that they can be expensive and resource intensive, two commodities that are generally rare in the tertiary sector. In recent years there has been increasing competition between email service providers to attract new users to their service so that they can attract advertising revenue. Attracting advertising revenue can be maximised and made ever more efficient through providing advertisers with a targeted market. How does a targeted marked of professional graduates sound, not only when they are young but also when they are middle aged and even old. The opportunity is too commercially sound for organisations like Microsoft and Google not to aggressively target the market and for Universities not to take advantage.
We are one of these universities that have seen the value these services can provide to our students and this paper will take you through our journey. From watching other Universities boldly go, to our approach for choosing between the Goliath’s and the steps through to implementation and ‘go-live’. We will share our pain and oversights so that those of you planning the same journey can avoid our pot holes and those that have trod before us avoiding our pit falls and mock appropriately.
 | Robert Irving's Biography *IT Professional for 18 years in UK & Australia last 10 in senior management
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