Harnessing data to improve learners’ experience

NCC Education Selects ProTech’s Cloud-Based CRM & Digital Solution to Enhance Customer Service, Improve Operational Productivity, Efficiency and Support Business Strategy

ProTech’s digital platform ProWeb and its specialist CRM software Pro9, delivering a highly secure, integrated web and CRM solution hosted in ProTech’s ProCloud, has been chosen from a shortlist of competitive solutions to deliver an Awarding Body Management System for NCC Education. The ProTech solution will significantly improve NCC Education’s levels of customer service, reduce its operating costs and support its business strategy to deliver a web based communications channel for its customers, employee users and learners.

“Our current Awarding Body Management System, developed around ten years ago, is now constrained by physical and technological limitations,” said Emma Dawkins, Director of Qualifications and Academic Delivery for NCC Education, a leading awarding body and global provider of high quality British education qualifications, recognised by universities, professional bodies and employers worldwide. NCC Education currently offers its complete education solution through its global network of Accredited Partner Centres in more than 50 countries worldwide.

“As our Awarding Body Management System is now out dated it does not integrate fully or in some areas at all, with other systems we deploy,” continued Dawkins. “This has resulted in our inability to take advantage of modern technology and its application in innovative teaching delivery and assessment activity which are at the core of an awarding organisation.”

One of the key criteria in the selection of ProTech as NCC Education’s preferred CRM provider was its ability to provide an integrated web and CRM solution that supported the delivery of a cloud-based Awarding Body Management System. This will enable NCC Education to move away from its existing ‘on premise’ system thereby removing the need to manage and support the infrastructure required to host the CRM and digital solution.

NCC Education’s Awarding Body Management System will be hosted in ProTech’s ProCloud, a highly secure, always available, fully serviced managed Cloud infrastructure, supported 24×7, 365 by ProTech’s front line support team.

The implementation of ProTech’s Pro9 software delivering CRM, Education, Record Management, Sales & Marketing and Sales Ledger modules, specifically designed for the Not for Profit (NFP) sector integrated with ProTech’s ProWeb digital platform, will ensure that NCC Education’s Awarding Body Management System will be scalable, flexible and adaptable to meet its current and future business requirements, providing crucial integration with other major systems it uses.

ProWeb will allow ProTech to design and build a new Centre Portal for NCC Education that will initially provide an online interface for its Accredited Partner Centres.  

The Centre Portal will enable NCC Education’s Accredited Partner Centres to perform additional online activities including: registering students and their individual profile, register students onto their specific qualification journeys, schedule exams, conduct online exam assessments, receive qualification results, monitor and track students’ progress, throughout their learning journey and to download and view key resources.

“The integration of ProWeb and Pro9 will enable NCC Education to fully leverage data captured from our corporate website and Centre Portal and to crucially share it across the organisation delivering a richness of data that was not previously possible,” said Dawkins.

ProTech’s cloud-based solution will compliment NCC Education’s existing Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) ensuring that it offers learner-led and customised features in line with and exceeding those of other VLE’s currently on the market.

Business benefits to be delivered will include: user accounts fully integrated with NCC Education’s main student and Centre Portal database, automated workflow, and integrated document management across the organisation. Importantly, NCC Education’s financial processes and data will now be integrated with its accounting system.

“We chose ProTech as its team quickly understood our business requirements. It was clear that the team’s pragmatic and transparent approach would ensure that a partnering relationship would be established with NCC Education’s project team,” Dawkins added.

“ProTech has met our key objective around the replacement of our existing Awarding Body Management System as it will enable efficient manageability and sustainability of our systems through controlled development and systems integration. At the same time, it will support and deliver customer self-service and drive out waste and zero value workflow and processes,” said Dawkins.

The deployment of ProTech’s integrated web and CRM is a key element of NCC Education’s overall business strategy to implement an integrated IT and CRM solution. The objective is for the solution to support the operational management and delivery of NCC Education’s core teaching and assessments business and deliver a web based communications channel for its customers and employee users enabling a direct relationship with its learners.

About NCC Education: NCC Education was originally part of the National Computing Centre which was first established as an IT initiative by the British Government in 1966 and started offering IT qualifications in 1976.

Since then it has grown a worldwide network of Accredited Partner Centres in more than 50 countries worldwide and supported from the UK head office located in The Towers in the east of Didsbury and three regional offices situated in China, Malaysia and South Africa.

As a leading awarding body and global provider of high quality British education solutions, NCC Education’s qualifications are recognised by universities, professional bodies and employers worldwide. It provides its complete education solution to over 150 Accredited Partner Centres worldwide.

A unique and flexible approach to providing the International Degree Pathway allows students to enter or leave their degree journey at their own pace and receive a certificate for their achievements at each stage. Over 1,000,000 students have boosted their careers with NCC Education qualifications.

About ProTech: For more than 20 years ProTech has been delivering specialist CRM software and change management services to the Not for Profit (NFP) sector. Its Pro-9 CRM software operates in a Microsoft environment and delivers easily configurable specialist NFP modules with CRM, workflow, process automation and reporting capability at their core: Membership & Subscriptions, Learning & Education/Professional Qualifications, CPD, Event Management, Annual Appeal, Fundraising, Marketing & Campaigns and Sales Ledger.

By adding ProWeb, (secure digital platform) and ProCloud (a fully managed Cloud CRM offering) to its specialist CRM and change management solution portfolio, ProTech delivers a Government ‘OFFICIAL’ security accredited fully integrated web and CRM platform.

ProTech’s Lean3S, change management methodology based on Lean and Systems Thinking, ensures that NFPs can fully optimise their investment in ProTech’s fully integrated web and CRM technology platform.