Accelerating life science careers & enabling biotech innovation
BCBA uses Salesforce and Soapbox Engage to track key data and facilitate collaboration in the biotech industry
Biotech Connection Bay Area (BCBA) is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that brings together academic scientists and industry professionals to facilitate life science innovation. Led by graduate students and postdoctoral scholars in the San Francisco Bay Area, BCBA helps exceptional academic researchers acquire the business skills necessary to become life science leaders while providing BCBA clients with valuable market research, diligence, and scientific insights.
As an organization led by students, high turnover is characteristic and expected for BCBA. To ensure smooth operation, they needed a comprehensive space for their data that would transfer key information about their organization throughout the turnover. When BCBA connected with Soapbox Engage, all of their data was stored in Excel spreadsheets. Then the Soapbox Engage professional services team helped them transition to Salesforce NPSP and customize their CRM to meet their organizational needs.
Read on to learn about the work of Biotech Connection Bay Area and why the Soapbox Engage NPSP Quickstart Package was the right solution for them.
“With Soapbox Engage, we’re able to streamline our project management, which means more time spent engaging our members.”
Meghan Pendyala, Chief-of-Staff
Easy reporting on clean data
The BCBA project model consists of 10-12 week long engagements with their clients, in which 4-6 academic trainees, a project manager, and senior BCBA consultant, and an industry professional help their clients address business challenges in the life-science industry. With many teams working across a broad range of engagements, reliable data tracking is imperative.
Previously, BCBA used multiple spreadsheets to track their projects, members, and clients, making it difficult to parse through data and project timelines. Moving their data and project management into Salesforce allowed them to see the status of all of their ongoing projects in one space. Additionally, they now have the ability to use Salesforce reports to understand their data, solve challenges, and draw fast comparisons.
“The best part of Salesforce is the analytics: being able to filter through our contacts has allowed us to target where we might be able to get more longitudinal engagement.”
Meghan Pendyala, Chief-of-Staff
Unique tracking with custom data fields
Salesforce reports also improve cross-team collaboration. Sharing insights on BCBA data is as simple as selecting which data points are important and running an automated report that can display those data points in easy-to-understand (read: time-saving!) formats. Custom fields implemented by Soapbox Engage allow BCBA staff to get really specific on how they track their projects and members.
“We were able to leverage custom fields to make sure our contacts and projects had consistent information that would benefit our analysis.”
Meghan Pendyala, Chief-of-Staff
BCBA’s use case is unique. As a nonprofit that provides consulting and due diligence specific to the biotech industry, they need to track their projects and consulting work, as well as their student members. Custom fields make this task easy. Data collection and analysis inside their Salesforce instance is set up to meet their specific insight needs, and custom list views built by Soapbox Engage make viewing and sharing these insights a breeze.
Staff training with an all-inclusive professional services package
The NPSP Quickstart offering from Soapbox Engage is an all-inclusive service in which a professional services team will implement and customize an organization’s Salesforce CRM and online engagement tools to maximize impact, then provide the org’s team with the necessary training to succeed after implementation.
In the case of BCBA, they sought support in data migration, CRM configuration, and implementation of Salesforce Inbox. From discovery services, to implementation, to training for BCBA staff, Soapbox Engage was there every step of the way. Chief-of-staff Meghen Pendayla noted that this consistent support was critical for an organization run by students, saying “as graduate students, it’s difficult to find spare time, but Johnny (Professional Services Manager) was patient with us as we organized our data and willing to answer all of our complicated questions.”
“From drawing up the game plan, to regular meetings, and training to make sure we knew how to use our workspace, [Soapbox Engage professional services] was so easy to work with.”
Meghan Pendyala, Chief-of-Staff
With an affordable NPSP Quickstart package and the help of a dedicated Soapbox Engage team, BCBA went from disparate spreadsheets to an organized, comprehensive system with the Salesforce Nonprofit Success Pack built on a CRM that provides them with invaluable data capture and analysis.
To learn more about the work and projects of BCBA, visit their website or check out their past projects and success stories.