Case Studies

Bainbridge Graduate Institute Case Study

In early 2002, Elizabeth and Gifford Pinchot, Jill Bamburg and Dr. Sherman Severin founded Bainbridge Graduate Institute (BGI) to help prepare diverse leaders to build enterprises that are financially successful, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable. Combining their collective expertise in business innovation and business education, they designed BGI to offer world-class sustainable innovation and management training. 

 
From the beginning, BGI found new and innovative ways to manage their institution. In leading BGI’s Network and Technical Infrastructure initiatives, Dave Stenstrom was aware that the organization needed an integrated strategy for managing their student information and vital documents. The first piece of technology that was explored was a student information system. In exploring all options, EMPOWER was identified as the best solution for BGI’s needs.
 
EMPOWER is an award-winning student information system that integrates fragmented campus records into a seamless database. With its modular design, BGI can effectively manage as many or as few of it’s administrative departments in a single system--on-site as well as on the web.
 
In addition to a student information system, BGI needed a way to digitize, store and easily retrieve student documents that were initiated on paper. After researching various document management systems, RADIX proved to be their best option, primarily due to the seamless integration with the EMPOWER system.
 
“We looked at several options, but found that RADIX had everything we needed at an affordable price,” says Stenstrom. “The choice to go with RADIX was an easy one when we saw how efficient the integration with the EMPOWER system was. It was like ‘voilà’!”
 
Although the EMPOWER integration was key to BGI’s decision, there were several other concerns and needs that needed to be met by the document management system. Security was a major concern for BGI due to the personal student information that was recorded on the documents to be stored. RADIX proved to be compliant for all of the institution’s security needs and was far more secure than their previous paper documents in file cabinets.
 
“With usernames and passwords RADIX can allow access and deny access as needed per user,” says Steve Ogden, Imagetek’s National Sales Manager. “Unlike an unlocked file cabinet, only people who are authorized by the system administrator can download and view sensitive student information.”
 
In addition to higher security, BGI needed a way to easily connect offsite employees and remote campuses to student documents. Because RADIX is deployed via web technologies, the system can be accessed by any authorized user in any location, 24/7. Access via the web provided an immediate return on investment for the institution by eliminating travel and shipping costs for remote campuses accessing student documents.
 
Finally, BGI needed to find a document management system that did not require internal IT resources to maintain and update the system. Because RADIX is delivered through a web platform, BGI would not need to invest in expensive servers, back-up systems and additional IT staff to support the system.
 
Implementation and training for RADIX took only a few hours and after a few months, BGI’s entire history of student records were uploaded and accessible via the EMPOWER integration.
 
“The level of efficiency we experience with the RADIX/EMPOWER integration far exceeds our previously paper-based filing system,” says Melissa Brown, Registrar. “We are absolutely saving time and money with these solutions.”

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