Information Builders > Case Studies > Taylor University Manages Student Recruiting With WebFOCUS RStat

Taylor University Manages Student Recruiting With WebFOCUS RStat

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

WebFOCUS
Rstat
InfoAssist

Tech Stack

Business Intelligence
Predictive Analytics
Data Visualization

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Productivity Improvements
Customer Satisfaction

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics

Applicable Industries

Education

Applicable Functions

Sales & Marketing
Business Operation

Use Cases

Predictive Maintenance
Demand Planning & Forecasting

Services

Data Science Services
System Integration

About The Customer

Taylor University is a coeducational, non-denominational Christian liberal arts college located on a 952-acre campus in Upland, Indiana. Founded in 1846, the university is reliant on student tuition for its institutional budget. Like most small private colleges, institutional funds are leveraged to encourage enrollment to meet annual budget goals. This process, known as discounting, lowers the cost for students to attend college. As discount rates rise across the industry, operational efficiency is needed to meet bottom-line revenue goals. The admissions department at Taylor University consists of a team of five full-time recruiters who process an inquiry pool of 50,000 prospective students to fill about 500 enrollment spots.

The Challenge

Taylor University, a non-denominational Christian liberal arts college, was looking to improve operational and financial performance by gathering data about various campus activities such as recruiting, marketing, fundraising, registration, and institutional research. The university was reliant on student tuition for its institutional budget and as discount rates rise across the industry, operational efficiency was needed to meet bottom-line revenue goals. The admissions department, in particular, faced the challenge of processing an inquiry pool of 50,000 prospective students to fill about 500 enrollment spots. The university needed a predictive analytics tool that would allow them to strategically target inquiries to improve marketing, recruitment, and enrollment.

The Solution

Taylor University adopted Information Builders’ WebFOCUS business intelligence (BI) and analytics platform as its enterprise standard to foster a culture of “data-informed decision-making.” The platform allows non-technical users to visualize information through easy-to-use InfoApps™ – self-service applications that let users easily explore data through charts, graphs, reports, and other interactive content. The university also uses advanced analytics to do predictive modeling, machine learning, and data mining in preparation for the future. For example, in the admissions department, WebFOCUS RStat guides tactical recruitment activities. RStat helps recruiters determine the best prospective students and in the future, it will also indicate which ones are most likely to enroll. The admissions department built predictive models with RStat that monitor the progression of students through the sales funnel, computing the relative probabilities that help the sales and marketing groups target their efforts.

Operational Impact

Admissions Department has insights to predict prospective students who are likely to enroll, and why.
Marketing team can carry out targeted recruiting campaigns.
Faculty and staff precisely target students and alumni for extracurricular events.
The measurable output of engagements is higher than ever, with current stats on the number of phone calls, number of text messages, number of mailings, all tied to the number of applications received.
Efforts are much more targeted and measurable than ever before.

Quantitative Benefit

The macro list of 50,000 prospective students translates into roughly 2,000 applicants – and approximately one-quarter of these individuals will enroll in any given year.