What Does a Fully Integrated Corporate Alumni Platform Mean?

When we talk about a Corporate Alumni Platform for the Large Enterprise, we often talk about 'fully integrated': the requirement for the enterprise that the Alumni Platform works as part of the ecosystem, not as a silo. It means the application is enterprise-grade, best in class, integrates across the existing IT stack and is consumer-focused.

Corporate Alumni Platform: Fully Integrated

The new definition of what it means for an enterprise to bring in a new application to engage their alumni is critical. While some might look at the 'which alumni platform' question from a feature/function perspective (i.e. 'does it do this or that'), this is but one small part of a broader conversation that must be had. The more important questions include: 'Do we have a unified landscape?', 'Do all our applications talk to each other?', 'Do users have to toggle between screens?' and finally, 'Does the total cost of ownership of our entire enterprise ecosystem remain intact, without being impacted by this net new application?'

Having a Corporate Alumni Platform is now being considered critical for business. It transforms the talent pipeline, identifies contingent workers available for a project, engages with sales channels and increases overall brand value.

However for it to be successful it needs to be “fully integrated” – to define what this means:

Alumni does NOT:

• live in a silo
• accessible only to a single admin
• have a separate database
• require roles and permissions to be individually set

What it does mean:

• Alumni data can co-exist with your existing HRIS platform. Native integrations enable functions such as:
  • Single click joining of the network as part of offboarding
  • Feed Alumni into talent search and succession planning
  • Correlate Alumni profiles to specific job opportunities
  • Provide a recruiter with Alumni data and employment performance data
  • Push Alumni into Talent Communities
  • Create workflows when Alumni apply or look at high match job postings
  • Process the recruitment feed to provide targeted careers recommendations
• Alumni data can feed directly into CRM systems to allow the sales force to view potential sponsors within target organizations that are company Alumni
• Pull in deals from internal procurement or marketplace platforms to extend internal deal opportunities to the Alumni population
• Inherit roles and permissions directly via the Access Control / IDP engine to provide specific back-end access directly to groups or people based on their role within the organization

So, for example, internal recruiters in the organization might be able to access Alumni talent search or take actions such as bring Alumni into talent communities, all without having to define 'new' roles and permissions in the application.

The point being: they're simple, easy, and unified. And most of all, a platform will allow alumni to drive value anywhere in the organization, in real time.