Jeff, whose background was in International Education, in more the recruitment and admissions side, explained he had spent a lot of time in this space which made him hyper aware of the problems around this part of a university’s processes.

This is where the idea for Enroly came from, as Jeff quickly saw that during the process there was very limited technology and resources available, especially at the offer-to-arrival stage. There seems to be a lot more help for the top of the funnel, but lower down it is still often run by outdated spreadsheets.

Jeff said: “Students were getting lost in the system and we wanted to do something to help.” So, he and Maynard created the technology to automate the offer-to-arrival process.

Now, the CAS Shield platform uses cutting-edge automation and self-service technology to create seamless workflows that empower university staff and students to enrol smarter: boosting international student numbers, revenues, and revolutionising the student experience.

Having built up good relationships with the universities, Jeff explained that Enroly is onboarding at least one new client to the platform every two weeks. “We recently have gone from growth to the scale phase. One-in-five UK universities and 5,000 global education agents are now using Enroly software to process hundreds of thousands of international students.”

Jeff added that the startup is on track to have enrolled 35% of UK-bound international students  by the end of the year. “By the end of the 2021 academic year, we had 100,000 students onboarded through the platform, which was a fantastic achievement for us.”

Enroly does currently work with UK-based universities, but there has been an avid interest from Australia and the US for the near future.

CHALLENGES

The software itself has been quite a challenge to build, as Jeff explained with the platform there are many different users, all with different lenses and purposes for using Enroly such as universities, students, and agents.

Jeff explained: “We use robotic automation as one of the core technologies, but the tech itself has been an extremely complex process. It is not just a one-use application; it requires an aggressive integration with other systems. However, we have been able to integrate it for some clients in just a few hours.”

Another challenge is the process of digital transformation in universities or lack of. The systems are so outdated, and Jeff said they don’t seem to be turning as quickly as SMEs. “Getting through to the decision makers can be extremely difficult sometimes.” Enroly pride themselves on being very clear and open on what is going to be tough and what they can do to help through every step of the process.

And as with all startups, finding the right talent as you scale is a massive challenge. Jeff said often the knowledge is either in the technology or in the industry and so you have to prioritise one or the other. “Edtech has not always been my background, I was more in the operational side of things. It was my first step into the tech world with Enroly. What I have seen with COVID is that it has really driven forward the players in the industry.”

COVID

As with most businesses Jeff and the team did worry at the start that COVID and the pandemic would hurt the delivery, as it is all about students coming over to study. But education is so resilient, and Jeff said people didn’t want their education to stop. “We found the wheels of the business kept turning, there was so much resilience from both the industry and the students.”

In some ways it has brought a positive impact, as pre-COVID all meetings were having to take place face-to-face, but as the world went virtual it made life so much easier and brought more opportunities. Jeff said: “We went from doing three demos a week and travelling round for them, to three in a day. It also did help to speed up the tech acquisition for universities.”

THE FUTURE

It is an exciting time for the offering as the space is a very interesting one to be in. Enroly’s real-time data product is getting a lot of traction and already has paying clients, with a lot of scope of plugging into an even bigger international audience. The opportunity to make universities more data driven is not one to be missed and Jeff and the team are excited to help utilise these great offers and services.