Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Higher Education: Assessing The Inclination of Higher Education Institutions in Adapting CRM With Special Reference to Management Institutes

With global citizens and their vision imperatives there is an evolving breed of MBA students surveying the business landscape with a more discerning eye and demanding a new type of education, what students are asking for is interscholastic quality—not just interdisciplinary education—this, in turn, has given rise to a new technology-based tools for gathering and disseminating knowledge that has become a central element of today's education. The advent of the knowledge economy, a factor of globalization and networking has posed new thrust on our education programs at national and international levels. Students, alumni, faculty and staff members have metamorphosed to customers, for an education institution and these liaisons are to be honored with a belief that “Every contact counts!” With such a considerable paradigm shift in the higher education sector worldwide, institutions are constantly looking for ways to capitalize on technology and enhance the effectiveness of their customer relationships. Collectively referred to as ‘Constituent', the entire students, alumni, donors, promoters, faculty members, and administration staff members network today to demand a more customer-oriented approach to optimize the educational experience. To be able to carve a niche in this cluttered market place the institutions are resorting to developing competitive advantage by using mathematical science of predictive analytics to be able to better forecast student retention and enrollment and targeted campaigns to understand student behavior and the one-stop solution to all the woes of the higher education system is CRM: Customer Relationship Management. This research paper aims to explore the reins of the paradigm shift in the education sector and gauge the awareness of the stakeholders for the new technology. The paper also explores the premise or readiness of users and their perception about the effectiveness of the various functions of the Customer Relationship Management software