Students Ace the Challenge with Overground Cloud

Thanks for visiting our blog series, Salesforce Partner Success in the Classroom! Every month, we introduce different Salesforce partners who teach Salesforce content or curriculum in partnership with higher ed institutions. Along the way, you’ll hear stories of the incredible work Partners are driving across the ecosystem to create and skill up new talent.

Today, we share how the Goldman Sachs Local College Collaborative (LCC) and Salesforce Partner Overground Cloud support Saint Peter’s University students in learning Salesforce.
 

How it started

The Players:

• Goldman Sachs (GS) hosts a six-month program (LCC) that develops career readiness, analytical, and teamwork skills in high-performing students from local colleges. On top of skills development, GS coaches mentor each school cohort and assign a partner company to solve a real-world business case challenge.
• Saint Peter’s University (SPU) is one of the LCC’s participating colleges. Raymond Butkus, Executive Lecturer, and Taina Cutler, Senior Career Coach, lead business students to success.
• Overground Cloud is SPU’s partner company. Howard Stall, VP of Technology, shares a personal connection to this initiative. "After experiencing Salesforce's student competition with my daughter, I jumped at the chance to participate in the LCC. I asked Paul Yoder, Co-Founder and Partner to tag along so we can learn from this and hopefully create our own competition soon! Market demand is outpacing available resources currently working in the Salesforce ecosystem today and we completely believe the future is in the hands of students. Helping them start their journey will not just benefit them, but the ecosystem as a whole.”

Overground Cloud was tasked to develop a case study, host a company meet and greet, perform monthly progress check-ins, and judge the final presentation. They got to work and started the process of putting a case together.

Combined forces form the case

To start, SPU and Overground Cloud aligned on the learning objectives for students including:

• What’s digital transformation and why is it important?
• What’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM)? What is Salesforce?
• Why do companies need CRM?

Based on these learning objectives, Overground Cloud created a case based on real-life pandemic business challenges for a consumer goods company, like increasing revenue, tracking online customer interactions, and improving order processing. The case starts with an introduction to Salesforce and its ecosystem, leads into how to work with customers to identify business challenges, and ends with professional development–like teamwork and presentation skills. The project deliverables were designed to simulate a Salesforce partner’s discovery process, requirements gathering, persona identification, and pitching customized recommendations to a customer.

The students set out to crack the case!

Students ace the challenge

Students went through in-class learning, met with Overground employees, explored Trailhead, and learned how to virtually collaborate on a project. As a team, the students showcased their final presentation deck followed by Q&A with Overground Cloud representatives and a panel of GS guest judges. The showcased solutions included:

1. A framework for a Salesforce customer to determine the benefits, cost, and strategy of using Salesforce CRM.
2. A project scope and situation analysis, demonstrating market research and understanding of the customer’s business challenges.
3. Opportunity identification.
4. Recommendations and a statement of work, which included strategy, tactics, timeline, and the necessary resources to deliver on the project.

Done deal!

As a result of the LCC, Saint Peter’s students walk away ready to enter the workforce of tomorrow with Salesforce consulting experience under their belts. Student Trailblazer Natalie Varghese shares, “the GS LCC proved to be an invaluable opportunity for real-world, experiential learning. I'm grateful to have developed technical skills, like using the Salesforce platform, alongside learning how to be a dynamic teammate and more well-rounded individual.”

Howard from Overground Cloud shares, “witnessing the evolution of the students' work and seeing them take on a real world example was truly amazing. We have underestimated the capabilities of our world's students in being able to handle the demands of tomorrow's software industry. All of us need to step up our training programs and engagement with this demographic. I would hire every single one of them if I could.”
 

Get involved

Are you a Salesforce employer who wants to get involved in our existing student programming?
Reach out to talentalliance@salesforce.com.

Want to deliver your own case challenge?
See best practices from Trailhead and case study framework in our university toolkit.