Integration of business process management, CRM allows educational organization to manage growth
Cary, NC May 16, 2005 — Platform Learning Inc., the nation's largest private provider of supplemental educational services (SES) for students attending struggling public schools, said it has experienced process improvements resulting in productivity growth in its first year of process automation with Ultimus and IntellAgent Solutions.
Ultimus provides business process management (BPM) and workflow automation software and services, and IntellAgent Solutions is a business process consulting firm.
Platform Learning provides federally-funded after-school and weekend tutoring programs to students attending public schools that have been identified as "in need of improvement" under the No Child Left Behind Act.
The company's SMART system utilizes the Ultimus BPM Suite and a Microsoft customer relationship management (CRM)-based user interface, developed and integrated by IntellAgent Solutions, to automate and ensure the proper tracking and capture of critical business and educational data.
The integrated BPM system automates many of Platform Learning's previously manual processes, allowing the organization to accurately capture large numbers of forms associated with the daily operations of its core business, transmit them to its outsourcing data extraction partner, receive the extracted data, and import and process it with high levels of accuracy and minimal human intervention.
Additionally, the Ultimus/SAP integration enables Platform Learning to assign expenditures automatically to the correct educational program.
Since initial implementation one year ago, the combined BPM solution had enabled Platform Learning to manage its growth from serving 10,000 students in 2003 to serving more than 50,000 students across the country during the past school year.
"The SMART system and its Ultimus BPM framework are critical to our rapid growth and success," said Joseph Sorisi, chief information officer for Platform Learning. "We plan to continue to expand our services into dozens of additional cities throughout the United States over the next several years, and this technology will help ensure that our critical data is properly captured and maintained."
Kurt Reiter, President of IntellAgent Solutions, said, "Outstanding program growth has made coordinating the assignment of students, instructors, classes and curriculum a challenge for Platform Learning. The company recognized that it could not sustain its growth and control costs without streamlining some of its critical processes with process automation."
Specific performance improvements at Platform Learning include online status and reports reduce incidence of "lost tasks" to zero; curriculum orders, which had previously taken up to a week to process, are processed within 24 hours of testing; and attendance, which had previously taken days to process, is processed within 24 hours of each class.
"We are very pleased to partner with IntellAgent Solutions to help Platform Learning achieve ongoing success," said Rashid Khan, CEO and co-founder, Ultimus Inc. "Knowing that Ultimus technology is being used to help in the education and development of students gives us great satisfaction."
