Tab Content: Testimonials

“KEEP has been an invaluable tool for streamlining our processes and enhancing collaboration both across our team but also with many business development staff across the University. It means we can really keep on track of who is speaking to whom in real time and identify opportunities for mutual benefit. It also means keeping on top of GDPR and other matters is easier as all the data is on the system rather than spread across the organisation.

Ben Titley helped tailor the system to our specific needs, helping us keep on track across the 12 programmes and hundreds of projects we set up and manage each year with many stakeholders internally and externally. His support helped us set up useful reports and dashboards and we are excited to begin further development here. We also automated some elements of our activity so we don’t have lots of data entry as enquiries drop straight into the system, ensuring someone in the team can pick it up, this was particularly useful during the pandemic and when staff might be off as workflow isn’t then interrupted. Overall, KEEP has significantly optimized our workflows, fostered transparency, and enhanced our ability to deliver high-quality consulting and research services to our clients and stakeholders.”

Jennifer Peasnell - Company Projects Manager

“The Sci-Tech Futures team migrated the recruitment processes for their Internship and Psychology Employability Programmes in time for the start of the academic year 2022-23 when their ten-year old previous online system needed replacing.

After just over eighteen months of using the system, the team is delighted with the ease with which the entire recruitment process can be managed – from organisations and staff submitting Job Descriptions, through receiving applications from our students for vacancies and ultimately to the final interview and selection stage.

Paperwork and thus the team’s carbon footprint is kept to a minimum, record-keeping is more secure and data extremely well protected. The system itself is easy to navigate, with a manual for guidance as well as a tech team which is very supportive and helpful if any questions arise.

The team is looking forward to further developments of the KEEP system, including the sending out of emails to students via the system, an electronic signature function and data analysis opportunities. “

Pam Pickles – Student Engagement Manager

“KEEP has enhanced our team’s activity, increasing efficiency of our workflows as we engage with hundreds of businesses. The platform effectively captures and stores Account and Contact details and the forms have reduced the need for manual processing and transfer of data. We are now able to easily view all previous engagement with organisations and track their relationship with the University over time. The use of dashboards has enabled effective collaboration and insight across our team, as all members can monitor progress in real time. When managing specific opportunities, the system provides a mechanism to clearly track stages in the process from initial contact through to onboarding. The reports feature enables our team to easily condense and review our contacts that meet certain criteria so we can target them with relevant opportunities. The customisable nature of the system means we have been able to develop modules that meet the changing needs of our team without having to rely on external support, this agile way of working has been extremely beneficial.”

Daisy Richmond – KE Project Development Manager

Since the introduction of KEEP to the LUMS KE Team in 2020/21 our processes, particularly for the recruitment of businesses onto externally funded programmes has improved significantly. Particularly the transparency of data, allowing for colleagues working across marketing, business liaison, administration and project management to see at a glance where the pipeline of businesses are in advance of the delivery commencing. The tracking of interactions through opportunities and campaigns has allowed for MI and reporting to support accreditations in the faculty providing an accurate picture, in one place, of the engagement that businesses have had with the university.

Recently, with the introduction of KEEP360 to allow all KEEP users to have visibility of all university opportunities assigned to accounts/contacts, this has meant more insights have been available to enable greater analysis on the types of companies we approach, and their historical interactions with the university, ultimately resulting in a more considered approach to the ‘customer journey’

Alex Errington - Partnerships and Engagement Operations Manager

"When I first joined Consultancy, KEEP served as our primary reporting tool, yet it fell short of meeting the team's needs for effectively managing workload. This resulted in a lack of comprehensive visibility into the status of consultancy projects and the tasks at hand. Consequently, we resorted to using numerous external spreadsheets and OneDrive folders as a makeshift solution, driven by the rapid expansion of personnel and workload within the service. It became evident that we were underutilising KEEP's capabilities.

Upon assuming the role of Head of Consultancy Services, I collaborated with Ben Titley, with invaluable support from Marc Liver, to conduct a thorough process review involving the entire Consultancy Team. This led to significant enhancements to KEEP, aimed at minimising redundant efforts and enhancing efficiency through automated processes and the integration of external tools such as Form Assembly and AdobeSign.

Ben's guidance also enabled us to create insightful reports and dashboards, and we eagerly anticipate further collaboration with him and his team to refine and optimise our processes and systems. The flexibility of KEEP, coupled with Ben's expertise, has proven to be immensely valuable. Overall, KEEP has greatly streamlined our workflows and boosted our capacity to deliver an efficient and seamless consultancy support service to both internal stakeholders and external clients."

Natalie Miller - Head of Consultancy Services

KEEP Time

In October 2023, the KE Services team faced the challenge of implementing a replacement electronic timesheet system that could align to multi-funder requirements for the suite of regeneration funded Knowledge Exchange initiatives awarded in the post-ESIF era. The creation of the KEEP Time recording system within the KEEP CRM system has allowed multiple users, authorisers, and administrators to complete funding compliant time records that can be administered and managed remotely, from user entry through to AdobeSign authorisation. This audit trail has provided a robust and bespoke response to a challenge that replaced a system that had been adopted for over 20 years in a matter of weeks. The ongoing support, maintenance, and adaptations from the KE Systems team has been exemplary during the initial stages of implementation.

Lessons from ESIF

The adoption of KEEP for KE Services has been built upon an evaluation of feedback and experience from the previous suite of ESIF funded projects administered via the Project Support Unit. Financial information, output delivery processes, performance management, and HE-BCI reporting for regeneration projects had all previously relied on multiple spreadsheets, held locally, and shared via a range of systems (e.g. SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, email). This approach came with multiple risks regarding version control, manual updates, duplication, and a lack of visibility and transparency. Pivoting the service provision on to the KEEP CRM system allows us to implement risk management strategies to proactively seek to resolve these identified issues and work in partnership with delivery teams in a more transparent, effective, and efficient manner. The integration of KE Services and KEEP are still in early stages, but the potential for development and future improvements has been adopted as an exciting opportunity to streamline KE operations and reporting mechanisms. Building upon existing embedded KEEP-users (e.g. Consultancy) will also enable the wider KE RES Services to streamline and build resilience across the Professional Services teams within LU Enterprise division.

Sula Ross – KE Services Manager