Why to start Alumni network?

If you think your former employees are valuable for your organization and want to keep in touch with them, then start thinking of building a corporate alumni network to tap full potential of your former employees. There is no doubt that your people are your greatest asset. 

Companies have realized the fact that alums are that intangible asset of a company who can play an important role in their business success. When employees eventually leave an organization, they take with them wealth of knowledge capital, their understanding of the organization and their corporate network. Moreover, despite being detached from their previous organization, ex-employees can remain a part of their previous organization’s business activities. Some of ex-employees become clients and some become business referral sources. It’s just a matter of strengthening relationships with them and maintaining contact on a regular basis which in turn form advantageous business connections and continue building professional relationships over time.

This can only be achieved by having a successful alumni portal through which organization and its alumni members can stay connected with each other. Since contacts and recommendations in business world have an important role, utilizing a corporate alumni network to improve these should not be ignored. 

Viburnix, a robust corporate alumni software helps the organizations to build and maintain a successful alumni network. It is a user friendly software which comes with various interesting features, like creating and managing profiles of the members, event management feature, collection of dues/ donation online to name just a few. Besides it also keeps the members involved and engaged by creating polls and surveys, encouraging blogging and host forums, jobs postings and members referrals.

Features existing and expected in good alumni association software

In today’s computer and web based world, maintaining alumni relations has become simpler through the number of alumni association software available. These software’s are state of the art, capable of being updated by the manufacturer in order to maintain the latest information on the existing people and also to add new data every year. The software must be intuitive in terms of connecting unknown but linked people based on evaluation of the profiles of people who can benefit from each others associations.  The software must enable alumni to connect, communicate, create and contribute on a single platform which  reaches everyone connected through the alumni association software.

This can help create a lot of opportunities to the alumni both socially and professionally. On the social level the software might consist of support groups for different causes, create event data information so that invites can be sent and RSVP’s can be collected and also it should provide data as to where each member is placed globally so that the alumni can easily socialize. A corporate alumni software can extensively help the ex-colleagues as well as with the corporation to exchange business news and ideas.

Since today most business projects are collaborations with other sectors a corporate alumni software can help key people of various fields exchange ideas and result in overall development of all corporations.  A corporate alumni software must follow and execute a honor code in  order to eliminate breach of company policies. It must provide a well connected platform to exchange high throughput business ideas and also get valuable inputs from others through a polling system. Alumni associations can be well maintained with minimal redundancy and data loss when a good alumni software is employed.

Alumni Association - Your Institute’s Best Brand Builder

In recent times alumni associations are receiving due importance that they had not experienced before. Part of the reason for this trend is the realization of its importance in creating a vibrant community that can interact between themselves and mould their professional life. With the advent of computers and cloud computing it is now possible for alumni members to –

• Communicate more effectively
• Collaborate between themselves
• Connect with each other
• Control the association and
• Contribute to society

Managing alumni association within the ambit of your institution is today a complex process. It requires expert knowledge in computers and corporate alumni software to bring together your alumni members and build a brand image for your college and school.

Developing the alumni association of your college or school can be very taxing if you have neglected it all along. In this age of internet it is possible to regain the lost ground by taking recourse to professional training in alumni management. Here are some of the major benefits.

• Identify the alumnus and begin a dialogue with them
• Build a vibrant community to discuss your institution
• Create and implement a software driven alumni portal
• Create a knowledge base that your students can benefit from

Alumni association management training is beneficial for – institution directors, public relations officers, deans, college managers and faculty. With competition between institutions at its zenith, an institution’s alumnus is the best ambassadors to speak in favor of your institute. Many well known institutions are already using their alumni association proactively.