Leading Public Administration Institute Streamlines Processes with Blue 360 degree feedback software

Based in Quebec City, Canada, ENAP (École nationale d’administration publique) is one of the largest Public Administration universities in the world.

As a leading institution in public administration, ENAP serves the public with two arms: a university providing Master’s and PhD programs and a services division providing management competency development, continuing education, and organizational consulting for public and para-public institutions.

To serve their clientele, the services division employs leading edge development methods, and 360 degree evaluations are an important component.

“360 evaluations are one of the most powerful development tools that are available today,” says Lucie Montreuil, Director of Operations and Quality Assurance for the Services to Organizations division at ENAP.

“We’ve made it a requirement for several of our programs.”

Manual processes consuming resources

To manage 360s, the services division used to rely on a homegrown application originally built for one specific client on a standard database management system. But the system created many errors and was becoming intensely laborious.

“Our analyst had to spend one day a week verifying data and cleaning it up. She also had to conduct follow-up calls to remind respondents to complete the survey,” says Lucie.

With every subject being reviewed by ten respondents, the homegrown method required a tremendous amount of manual effort that could be better invested elsewhere.

Looking for the best fit for their needs

Lucie and her team surveyed the market for a new solution, and narrowed down their selection to four providers before selecting Blue 360 degree feedback software from Explorance, a 360 review application that integrates with in-house systems to simplify management of 360 evaluations.

“Blue 360 is a powerful 360 application that does everything we need, and at the right price.”

They liked having a local provider available, especially for the multi-lingual capabilities and technical support.

“We are primarily a French-speaking institution, and were pleased to be able to get sales and technical support in French from Explorance.”

“Blue 360 is now also being used in one of the courses as a teaching tool, and it’s working well,”

Lucie Montreuil,
Director of Operations and Quality Assurance for the Services to Organizations division, ENAP

Saving more than 30% on time and resources

Over an 18-month period, the services organization at ENAP has conducted over 1,200 evaluations with the new 360 degree feedback application. They have seen dramatic time savings with the new system — their in-house resources now spends at least 30% less time managing 360 evaluations.

“Our in-house analyst no longer has to spend one day a week on tedious manual work,” she says.

Further, because Blue integrates with in-house systems, it can also be implemented in training programs and courses.

“Blue is now also being used in one of the courses as a teaching tool, and it’s working well,” Lucie says.

To help reduce capital costs further, the services division opted to have their 360 application hosted by Explorance. This means Explorance keeps the 360 application running on their own hardware, which eliminates the need for ENAP to invest in more servers.

Without the headaches of maintaining servers, the services division can put their focus on what they do best: training and consulting for their clientele.

“Our division doesn’t have the resources or the space needed to invest in and maintain servers for a 360 application, so we were delighted that Explorance could take that burden off our hands,” she says.

Customer service makes all the difference

The services division has been pleased by the customer service that they’ve received from Explorance.

“Customer service was important to us in our selection process, and we are very pleased by the customer service we’ve received from Explorance.”

For example, ENAP has high standards for their reports, and needed additional programming from the software provider to meet them.

“We required additional development on some of our reports to meet our standards,” says Lucie. “Explorance worked with us to make the modifications necessary.”

Explorance went the extra mile for the organization in other ways. “We ran into an issue at some point during implementation, and Explorance went out of their way to address it. We truly appreciated how seriously Explorance took our situation,” says Lucie.

“They take the time to listen to our concerns and implement the changes necessary to address them. It makes a big difference to us and our entire experience.”

Proven to be reliable

Lucie has been especially pleased by the reliability of the hosted system.

“We have been impressed by how reliable the system has been,” she says. “Other than during one update, the system has always been available and online.”

“We are looking forward to adding more applications from the Blue suite of products, such as Blue tests and surveys, which we think could greatly enhance our service offering to our clients,” she says.

Overall, Blue 360 degree feedback offers the reliability, automation, features, and customer service the organization needs to satisfy their high standards on 360 evaluations.

“This is a very good application that is reliable, has the reports we want, and the features we want. But above all, we’ve had excellent support,” she says.

“There are a lot of nice applications out there, but none provided the level of customer service we were looking for. Explorance’s customer service is outstanding, and together with their software, provides a truly complete package.”