How Vrije Academie is gearing up for the AI revolution
How structured software evaluation led Vrije Academie to a smarter path forward - not a new system, but the right architecture around the one they already had.
Strategic Advisory
Vendor Evaluation
System Integration
Through the engagement with Best Byte, Vrije Academie achieved:
A buildable foundation. Clear system boundaries (one source of truth per domain) so that automation and AI can be added without creating fragmentation along the way.
A sequenced roadmap in delivery. Three workstreams tackled simultaneously, each step making the next phase easier to achieve.
A validated architecture. The decision to stay on Salesforce is now backed by evidence, not inertia - VA knows what alternatives exist and what they don’t fit.
3 minutes
At Best Byte, we don't just evaluate and select software. The selection work is one input into a much bigger goal: laying the architectural foundation that automation and AI can be built on top of for years to come.
That distinction shaped how we worked with Vrije Academie. The starting question looked like a software selection - should they replace Salesforce? - but the real work was structural. Before any meaningful automation could be added, VA needed clarity on which system should own which data, where the seams between systems should sit, and what the architecture should look like on the other side.
The Challenge
Vrije Academie is a Dutch cultural education institute running around 7,000 sessions per year across 500 programmes, 20 locations, and 15,000 participants - coordinated through a network of 150–200 freelance lecturers.
As the operation grew, the digital stack hadn't kept pace. Scheduling, lecturer coordination, customer service, e-commerce, and reporting were spread across systems that weren't well connected - and Salesforce, as the operational core, was being stretched far past its intended scope.
On the surface, the question was: should we replace Salesforce, or keep it? Underneath, the real question was: what does the right foundation look like - one that can carry future automation and AI investment without falling over?
The challenge was to separate the software question from the foundation question, and to solve the foundation question first.
The Approach
We didn't start with a tool list. We took VA through a structured process - each stage delivering its own concrete value, and together producing a technical foundation they could confidently build on.
Discovery: Stakeholder interviews across operations, marketing, programming, and finance. Not a requirements gathering exercise for a software brief - a diagnostic of how the organisation actually worked, where information got stuck, and what would need to change before any automation or AI could be effective.
Value delivered: a shared, evidence-based picture of the current state - replacing fragmented, role-specific views with one common reference point.
Solution Architecture. Translating discovery findings into architectural decisions: which system should own which domain, where data needs to flow, and what the integration boundaries look like. This is the layer most organisations skip - jumping straight from "we need a new CRM" to vendor demos.
Value delivered: a technology-neutral blueprint that defined what the landscape needed to do, before anyone evaluated how.
Decision Making: Structured vendor evaluation, scenario-based demos using real VA workflows, and commercial modelling against operational scale over a multi-year horizon. Every decision traced back to the architecture - not to feature lists or sales decks.
Value delivered: defensible choices grounded in VA's actual requirements, with a clear Total Cost Ownership view separating what was technically possible from what was commercially sensible.
Digital Transformation: With the architecture defined and the vendor decisions made, the work shifted to coordinated implementation - standing up the new landscape, migrating data, and sequencing go-lives so the organisation can absorb change without disruption. This is the stage where the blueprint becomes operational, and where the real readiness for AI and automation is built.
Value delivered: a live, integrated digital foundation - not just a strategy document, but a working system ready for the next layer.
The Results
The evaluation surfaced a clear conclusion: no platform on the market met VA's needs at a commercially sensible cost. Stitching together cheaper alternatives would have created more complexity, not less.
The right answer was to stay on Salesforce - and to build the foundation around it. Three workstreams are now in delivery, each one strengthening the foundation and making the next layer of automation and AI materially easier to add:
HubSpot Service Hub. A dedicated customer service layer, integrated with Salesforce. Foundation for: inbox triage and support automation.
Website rebuild on Next.js, Medusa and Sanity. Decoupled, API-first front end. Foundation for: personalisation and AI-driven discovery.
Salesforce recalibration. Narrowed to what it does best - the operational data model. Foundation for: the canonical data layer every downstream system and AI use case will reference.
With clean data flows and clear system boundaries in place, VA can plug in automation and AI use cases without redoing the groundwork each time - from inbox triage and AI-driven course recommendations through to lecturer scheduling assistance and voice AI for participant contact.
Key takeaways
Digital Transformation is a means, not an end. The real work is removing manual work, sluggish processes and enabling teams to accelerate.
For Vrije Academie, the engagement delivered more than a platform decision. It delivered a validated architecture, a sequenced roadmap already in motion, and a clean foundation that automation and AI can sit on top of.
A foundation that makes future automation and AI investment faster, cheaper, and actually feasible - grounded in evidence, validated against real constraints, and aligned with how your organisation actually works.