Lancaster University grows consultancy revenue by 60% a year

Lancaster University is a leading UK higher education institution that consistently ranks in the top 15 across three major league tables. The university campus spans 560 acres of parkland and is home to approximately 16,600 students.

A centralised system enhances the partner experience to secure more funding.

Sharing knowledge and working alongside external partners are core components of Lancaster University’s identity and mission statement. From student engagement, consultancy work, business support, and more, the university works constantly with partners on a multitude of projects, requiring the team to manage and record over 8,400 opportunities — and growing. Demonstrating the impact of this engagement is a key requirement in the higher education sector and often drives critical funding. But with projects happening across four faculties, each with dozens of departments and teams using their own systems, there was no unified way to manage engagements. The university needed a centralised approach to project management to create efficiencies for partners and staff, facilitate building effective long-term partnerships, and track the impact of projects organisation-wide.

Siloed solutions are combined into a single, unified platform to avoid duplication and create a streamlined partner experience.

To break down silos and deliver a consistent, streamlined partner experience, Lancaster University set out to unify business engagement across the institution and bring its data together in a singular institutional view – renewing its focus on the partner experience. After examining the market, the university chose to build a new CRM system on Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, creating its own Knowledge Exchange & Engagement Platform (KEEP) — providing the capabilities to cost-effectively centralise partner management onto a single platform. A considered approach to change management also made its adoption relatively smooth. KEEP enables a variety of process improvements that are transforming the partner experience. For example, partners can now view real-time internship listings in their portal, submit role proposals through auto-prefilled forms, and manage projects independently — updating statuses, uploading documents, and nominating supervisors. Automated communications keep them informed throughout the process. When recruiting partners for new projects, the university can also send prefilled eligibility forms, saving valuable time.

Lancaster University utilises Salesforce Knowledge to provide a database of useful resources. These include knowledge articles and videos targeted towards specific users, as well as ‘how-to’ guides to teach companies how to make the most of KEEP.

The university has also built a Partner Community where partners can access forms, receive targeted alerts about upcoming projects, interact with other businesses in the university ecosystem, and self-manage aspects of their own projects with the university, such as internship applications. To date, the platform has supported over 2,200 student projects, 800 placements, and 200 internships, many initiated directly by partners, significantly enhancing efficiency and engagement.

In total, Lancaster University has utilised Salesforce flows to automate various tasks, manage data, and enhance communication. These flows streamline processes such as sending automated emails, updating records, managing approvals, and integrating external systems. By automating these activities, the university ensures efficiency, reduces manual effort, and maintains consistency across different areas of operation.

Sales Cloud grows Lancaster University’s consultancy revenue by 60% and reduces license costs by 90%.

Lancaster University has successfully completed its rollout and is now developing the next phase of the KEEP roadmap, building on a solid platform foundation. Feedback from both partners and university staff has been overwhelmingly positive, and the university is already reaping the rewards. For instance, since the launch of KEEP, consultancy income recorded through the platform has increased by 426%. The number of consultancy opportunities has grown by 95%, and the average value of consultancy engagements has increased by 165%. The university’s IP and Commercialisation team previously had four users relying on a standalone, bespoke system. Now they use the IP and Commercialisation app — a patent management system for managing all aspects of research commercialisation from enquiries, initial disclosure, patent management, commercialisation to validation programmes and reporting. By migrating to Sales Cloud, the university has reduced license costs by approximately 90% a year.

Since the implementation of KEEP, Lancaster University has continued to expand its Salesforce foundation with new applications and services, including:

• CyberFocus Programme Management – supporting Lancaster's role as lead institution for the CyberFocus Impact Acceleration programme, managing applications, assessments, funding decisions, and project monitoring across a seven-university partnership.
• Contracts Management – a centralised solution for managing external agreements, approvals, governance and reporting.
• Enquiry Management – enabling structured capture, verification, triage, and conversion of external enquiries into opportunities, improving the customer journey and management information.
• KEEP Time – a bespoke time recording application capturing staff effort against projects and activities, supporting reporting, planning, and funding requirements.

Together, these developments reflect how Salesforce plays a strategic role for Lancaster University, supporting CRM, programme management, project delivery, contracts, commercialisation, student engagement, and operational processes across the institution.

Given the scale of ongoing partner engagement across its four faculties, Lancaster University was compelled to introduce a system that would optimise long-term relationship building and track project impact. Building a new CRM system on Sales Cloud has been transformative – centralising partner management onto a single platform cost-effectively, bringing data together in a singular institutional view, and providing a rapid path to value.