BINUS University helps students achieve their dreams while advancing society

BINUS University is one of Indonesia’s largest private universities, serving more than 45,000 students across a growing network of campuses. It offers unique programs like “3+1” which encourages students to spend one year on activities like community development or working on a startup. These programs combined with the university’s excellence in education and innovation serve to empower students and ultimately advance society. The success of this approach is evident in the university’s notable alumni. These include Tyovan Widagdo, Founder and CEO of Bahaso, an online platform to teach Indonesians foreign languages, and Michael Jovan Sugianto, Co-Founder of TaniHub, an Indonesian agritech startup.

“At the centre of everything we do is our commitment to helping students achieve their dreams so they can go on to enrich society and improve the quality of life for Indonesians," said Judi Arto, Marketing Director of Binus Group.

It’s a bold and meaningful mission that demands a deep understanding of students and the ability to nurture their talents. Salesforce provides BINUS University with both and is helping it create personalised pathways for student success.

For most students, their journey with BINUS University begins in their last two years of high school when they’re exploring their options for what’s next. It is a critical time for engagement, but before Salesforce, the university had neither the time nor data to connect with each student in an impactful way.

“We were just starting out on our digital transformation and beginning to automate our internal processes, but still had no way to effectively track or manage the student journey,” explained Ivan Sangkereng, Head of IT. “Implementing Salesforce has given us control over this and supports a greater emphasis on the student experience.”

Most importantly, Salesforce has helped BINUS University unite all its data for a 360 degree view of students. Armed with this information, the university can better attract and engage prospects. It can also identify students’ talents, personalise their experience and help drive their success.

Combining its rich data with Marketing Cloud, BINUS University is now able to connect with students in more intelligent and efficient ways. This includes automating and personalising communication with prospects based on interests like sports and arts, or finer details like whether they first visited the campus with family or friends. Using Social Studio, the university is also able to target hard to reach audiences like those with a preference for public universities.

Once these students are engaged, BINUS University can then focus on supporting them with their application and enrollment—using automated email journeys to send reminders and trigger next steps.

“Every year we meet around 100,000 new prospects and by using Salesforce we can connect with them more personally and support their ambition,” said Arto. “As a result, our leads and enrollments are growing like never before.”

A new portal that encourages students to recruit new students will add to this growth and will sit alongside many other Community Cloud-based portals which BINUS University uses to connect with students and others in its community. These include a portal that helps students map their talents to suitable majors, as well as dedicated portals for schools and families of students and alumni.

With support from the Salesforce Premier Success team and new knowledge gained from online learning through Trailhead, BINUS University is building on these early results and completely changing the way it works. By using Salesforce to automate and streamline processes, the university has been able to adopt a paperless office. This has effectively lowered the university’s consumption of material goods, aligning BINUS University with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, which provide a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet.

By managing the registration process directly in Salesforce, BINUS University has been able to improve data accuracy and make the process more convenient. There are now eight steps instead of ten and applicants can complete them all online. In addition, the university can identify when students are having difficulty with the process, so they can reach out to provide direction. Some of these communications, including payment reminders, are automated through Service Cloud which the university uses to manage inbound requests. This provides staff with a history of all cases and helps them to respond to requests faster and more personally, whether the student submits these in-person, through email or via live chat.

Another area where the university is excelling is in its use of real-time data to maximise the impact of marketing activities. Thanks to the integration between Salesforce and Tableau, management is able to view this data alongside a range of other metrics for a comprehensive view of performance. This allows for faster analysis of how the university is tracking in terms of leads and registration so that it can quickly take action if the numbers are not where they want.

BINUS University will next turn its focus to the post-enrollment journey and look for new ways to engage students and help them achieve their dreams. Already, two out of three graduates from BINUS University go on to become entrepreneurs or work inside a global organisation where they can fulfill their ambitions and make an impact. One of the ways the university wants to increase this impact is by strengthening collaboration with industry partners, global companies and others who help to enable its students’ success.

“Everything we’ve done and continue to do with Salesforce helps us to optimise our student’s potential. At the end of the day, that’s how we will have the biggest impact on society,” said Arto.

While BINUS University continues to transform with Salesforce, the university’s digitalisation has proved invaluable in helping it respond to COVID-19 and manage essential communication. In mid-March the university started to carry out operations online, including:

Admissions processes such as consultation, registration and re-registration, and entrance tests Lectures which are supported by a Guided Self Learning Class guide Mid-semester and final semester exams which are carried out using take home tests and project models All thesis and dissertation guidance as well as thesis and dissertation examinations which are carried out via video conference The entire implementation of the Enrichment Program for tracking research and entrepreneurship is carried out online, while internship and community development tracks involve students working from home

With 150 employees already using Salesforce, the Binus team were able to easily transition to working from home and have maintained regular communication with current and future students. Management is also able to closely track any impact to the university through daily reports and analytics. They can identify any students facing financial difficulties and make sure to pause any irrelevant communication.

During this period, BINUS has maintained the quality of teaching and learning by carrying out the learning process online just as it is done on campus. This includes holding online seminars, training, and group discussions. BINUS also maintains employee productivity by providing knowledge and online training to improve skills and competency.

All of these initiatives reflect BINUS University’s commitment to its students, employees, and Indonesia more broadly, and have been enabled through its ongoing digital transformation.