Main Duties & Scope of the role
The Business Applications Owner CRM will serve as the strategic and operational owner of the companys Zoho CRM and related platforms (Zoho One ecosystem), ensuring the system fully supports global student recruitment, counselling, and partner engagement workflows. This role bridges business and technology: the BSO defines process, policy, and priorities, while a technical delivery team handles configuration and development. The BSO ensures that the CRM drives operational excellence, consistent global practice, and actionable insight across marketing, counsellors, universities, and management.
Key Responsibilities
CRM Strategy & Governance
- Own and articulate the CRM vision and roadmap, ensuring it aligns with organisational goals for student recruitment, counselling efficiency, and conversion.
- Serve as the business owner for Zoho CRM, Zoho Analytics, Zoho Marketing Automation, and related modules.
- Lead a structured governance framework to manage enhancement requests, prioritise development, and oversee change control.
- Ensure CRM policies comply with GDPR and local data privacy regulations in all operating countries.
Process Design & Optimisation
- Map and continuously refine end-to-end business processes within the CRM from lead capture to enrolment and post-arrival support.
- Ensure the CRM reflects best practice for enquiry handling, student follow-up, counsellor allocation, offer tracking, and university partner reporting.
- Standardise data definitions, workflows, and pipeline stages across all markets to ensure consistent performance measurement.
- Identify process bottlenecks and champion automation and simplification initiatives.
Stakeholder Engagement & Business Alignment
- Act as the primary business liaison between regional offices, marketing, counselling, admissions, and the technical CRM team.
- Translate business requirements into clear, actionable specifications for configuration and automation.
- Manage a structured feedback process to ensure continuous alignment between system design and business needs
- Represent CRM interests in strategic planning, marketing campaigns, and partner integrations (universities, agents, etc.)
Adoption, Training & Change Management
- Drive user adoption across offices through communication, training, and clear documentation.
- Maintain CRM playbooks and process guides tailored for counsellors, marketing staff, and managers.
- Champion data discipline ensuring clean, consistent, and complete records across the organisation.
- Work with regional leads to measure and improve CRM usage and performance metrics.
- Evaluate business processes and decide what to automate, what to integrate, and what to customize Insight, Reporting & Data Quality
- Define and own the CRM reporting framework, ensuring decision-makers have access to accurate, real-time dashboards via Zoho Analytics.
- Monitor data quality KPIs (duplicate rates, lead source attribution, conversion tracking, etc.).
- Provide leadership teams with weekly and monthly insight packs on recruitment performance, pipeline value, counsellor productivity, and partner activity.
- Ensure alignment between CRM and external systems (marketing automation, website forms, student portals, etc.)
Collaboration with Technical Teams
- Work with internal Zoho administrators, developers, and external consultants to deliver system enhancements and integrations.
- Validate that new functionality meets business objectives before rollout.
- Coordinate testing, sign-off, and business communications for system changes.
About the Candidate (including required competencies)
Personal Attributes:
- Highly organised, analytical, and commercially aware.
- Collaborative and inclusive leadership style.
- Able to balance strategic direction with practical operational delivery.
- Comfortable working in a fast-paced, international business environment.
- Strong sense of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement.
Success Measures:
- Increased global adoption of CRM best practices across all offices.
- Improved lead conversion rates, reduced data duplication, and faster response times.
- Accurate, timely management reporting and actionable business insight.
- Positive stakeholder feedback from marketing, counselling, and leadership teams.
- A clear, prioritised CRM roadmap aligned with strategic business objective
Key Attributes:
Collaborative:
Work effectively with cross-functional teams to shape the product vision and maximize delivery value. Continuous Learner:
Stay informed about industry best practices and foster team growth through knowledge sharing. Team-Oriented:
Promote teamwork and shared responsibility for achieving product goals. Detail-Oriented:
Ensure high-quality deliverables and contribute to team efficiency. Customer-Focused Negotiator:
Balance stakeholder needs with product value to deliver the best outcomes. Technically Informed:
Leverage basic technical knowledge to understand feasibility, communicate effectively with the development team, and make informed prioritization decisions without dictating technical solutions.
Requirements & Qualification
Essential:
- 10+ years of experience with (relevant 7-8 years) in a CRM or business operations leadership role (ideally in education, recruitment, or professional services).
- Strong understanding of sales, marketing, and customer lifecycle processes.
- Proven ability to manage cross-functional stakeholders and translate business needs into deliverable system outcomes.
- Excellent communication and presentation skills comfortable leading workshops and stakeholder meetings.
- Data-driven, with strong skills in reporting, performance monitoring, and commercial insight. Desirable:
- Hands-on experience with Zoho CRM / Zoho One (or Salesforce, HubSpot, Dynamics).
- Knowledge of student recruitment workflows, including enquiry capture, counselling, offers, and CAS/visa management.
- Familiarity with marketing automation tools, data protection frameworks, and integrations (APIs, Google Workspace, etc.).
- Experience working in multi-country, high-volume operational environments. Education:
- Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field.
What We Offer:
- A collaborative, innovative, and supportive work environment.
- Opportunities for continuous learning, growth, and professional development.
- Competitive compensation package and clear career advancement pathways.
- Join us and make a significant impact by driving our mission to deliver world-class customer experiences and products.
Apply today !
