A research powerhouse with many “customers”
Penn State’s Materials Research Institute is a leading center for materials science innovation, bringing together researchers from across the university and partnering with industry to advance metals, ceramics, polymers, composites, and next-generation electronics. MRI operates world-class core facilities and gives outside companies and internal researchers access to advanced instrumentation and staff expertise — work that shapes everything from smartphone glass to batteries to biomedical devices.
MRI’s model is unusual, even inside a large university. The institute coordinates large multi-year sponsored programs, hosts events like Materials Day, runs regular seminars, and publishes newsletters. Its “customers” include corporate R&D teams, federal agencies, faculty across five colleges, graduate students, post-docs, and industry visitors who may come and go over many years. Sustaining that impact depends on tracking thousands of people, projects, events, and conversations over time — and letting a lean team turn all that activity into thoughtful outreach.
Growth past the point where spreadsheets and listservs could hold
For a long time, most of the relationship data behind MRI’s activity lived in spreadsheets, listservs, Mailchimp, and Outlook. As the audience grew into the thousands, the cracks started to show. Every campaign meant exporting and cleaning lists, checking outdated contacts, uploading files, and hoping nothing important fell through the gaps.
Different teams struggled to see a complete picture of who MRI knew, how they were engaging, or where opportunities were emerging. An initial Microsoft Dynamics 365 deployment added real structure and visibility — but over time it felt heavier than what a roughly fifty-user deployment inside a single institute actually needed. There was more configuration, more complexity, and more capability than MRI would ever use.
- Fragmented contact data: Records scattered across spreadsheets, listservs, Mailchimp, and Outlook made data hygiene a constant manual battle.
- Campaign drag: Each outreach effort required exporting, cleaning, and re-uploading lists before a single message went out.
- No shared view: Teams could not see the full picture of relationships, engagement history, or emerging opportunities.
- Over-scaled platform: Full Dynamics 365 carried configuration and cost overhead disproportionate to a fifty-user institute on a university budget.
“We’d grown to the point where spreadsheets and listservs just weren’t cutting it anymore. We needed a real system on the Microsoft platform the university already trusted, but we didn’t want to feel like we were running a big enterprise sales organization.”Bob Cornwall, Managing Director, Materials Research Institute, Penn State
Why Power-CRM, and why Velosio
MRI first implemented Dynamics 365 with help from Strava, a specialized CRM partner now part of Velosio. When that same team introduced Power-CRM — built on Microsoft Power Apps and Dataverse with familiar Dynamics 365 underpinnings, but simpler to use and quicker to implement — MRI saw a better fit. The move let them keep the strengths of their original approach while trimming away complexity they did not need.
Functional fit without excess
Power-CRM easily covered MRI’s core needs: contact management, marketing, case tracking, agreement and sample workflows, and internal operations — nothing more.
Approachable for non-CRM people
The interface felt cleaner to users who would never think of themselves as “CRM people,” which mattered for adoption across a research organization.
A partner who already knew the data
Deployment was fast and predictable because Velosio already understood MRI’s environment, data, and the way the institute works.
University-budget economics
Total cost came in significantly lower than a comparable Dynamics 365 footprint, while preserving Microsoft ecosystem integration and data ownership.
“Power CRM gave us the pieces of Dynamics 365 we actually used, without all the extra weight. It’s a much better fit. We kept the integration and the data ownership and lost a lot of the overhead.”Bob Cornwall, Managing Director, Materials Research Institute, Penn State
A connected foundation for outreach, service, and operations
MRI initially focused Power-CRM on marketing and outreach. Once that foundation was solid, the institute expanded the platform to the Customer Service team — more than doubling the number of active users and turning Power-CRM into a shared system across multiple groups.
| Workstream | What changed | Business value |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing & outreach | A single living view of faculty, corporate contacts, event attendees, and alumni, with ClickDimensions connected for multi-channel scheduling. | List prep time cut roughly in half; more targeted, more frequent campaigns |
| Customer service | Inquiries and support requests moved off a standalone Zendesk instance into Power-CRM with consistent workflows. | Shared visibility and a far easier path to reporting |
| Agreements & samples | Sponsor agreement lifecycle and the work performed under it tracked in CRM rather than email threads and ad hoc documents. | Clear line from first conversation to results delivered and follow-on work |
| People & space management | A central record of staff, students, post-docs, visiting researchers, and industry guests — filling a gap university HR systems don’t address. | Better space planning, communications, and program management |
| Integration & reporting | Power Automate and Power BI pull data from SQL, Microsoft Forms, and university systems into leadership dashboards. | Clearer view of subscriber growth, event engagement, and industry participation |
From scattered lists to a single connected system
Power-CRM gives MRI a simpler, more connected way to manage a complex network of relationships. For Marketing Director Jennifer McCann, the shift is tangible: instead of juggling spreadsheets and manually uploading lists for each campaign, she works from one living view of the institute’s audience.
Marketing keeps pace with the science
Reclaimed list-prep time goes into planning campaigns, experimenting with new segments, and running more frequent, more targeted outreach.
Service runs on one system
All inquiries now flow through Power-CRM with consistent workflows, connecting interactions back to projects, facilities, and sponsors.
Sponsor work is traceable end to end
Agreements, samples, and appointments live in CRM, clarifying what was committed, what was delivered, and what facility usage it drove.
AI is part of everyday work
MRI’s developers treat Copilot as a primary tool when building new automations or troubleshooting, working faster within platform guardrails.
| Metric | Before | After | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing list preparation | Export, clean, and upload lists for every campaign | Roughly half the time; lists pulled in a couple of clicks | Customer-estimated |
| Social post scheduling | Daily manual effort across channels | About one hour for two weeks of content | Validated |
| Case management | Standalone Zendesk instance, separate from CRM data | Standalone Zendesk instance, separate from CRM data | Validated |
| Active user base | Marketing team only at initial rollout | More than doubled after Customer Service adoption | Validated |
| Platform cost | Full Dynamics 365 footprint for ~50 users | Significantly lower total cost | Qualitative |
“It sounds simple, but having everything in one place is huge. Faculty, corporate contacts, event attendees, alumni — I’m not chasing them across spreadsheets anymore. I can pull the list I need in a couple of clicks.”Jennifer McCann, Marketing Director, Materials Research Institute, Penn State
Why Power-CRM matters
The strategic point here is fit. MRI never needed less capability than Dynamics 365 offered in the abstract — it needed the capability matched to how a fifty-user research institute actually operates inside a much larger university. Power-CRM, built on Power Apps and Dataverse, preserved what mattered most (Microsoft ecosystem integration, data ownership, familiar Dynamics underpinnings) while removing configuration weight and cost that would have gone unused.
That right-sizing is what made expansion possible. Because the platform was approachable enough for people who don’t consider themselves CRM users, MRI could extend it from marketing into customer service, agreements, and internal people-and-space tracking — becoming a shared operational system rather than one department’s tool. And because it runs in the Microsoft cloud, internal developers connect it to other systems using tools they already know.
A foundation built for connecting people, facilities, and partners
Over more than a decade with Velosio, MRI has moved from spreadsheets and listservs to a modern CRM foundation, adjusted course from full Dynamics 365 to a right-sized Power-CRM approach, and grown CRM from a marketing tool into a multi-team platform supporting outreach, service, and internal operations. With Copilot, Power Automate, and Power BI already in everyday use, the institute has room to keep extending automation and reporting as needs evolve.
Penn State’s Materials Research Institute shows how a well-designed, appropriately scaled CRM — backed by a skilled, responsive partner — can support a complex, high-impact organization inside a much larger enterprise. Today, Power-CRM is simply part of how MRI connects talented people and advanced facilities with the partners who need them most.
“What’s made this work so well is that the team has stuck with us. They listened when we just needed a bare-bones CRM, and they’ve helped us grow it into something a lot more sophisticated yet still simple to use.”Bob Cornwall, Managing Director, Materials Research Institute, Penn State
