It’s an exciting time in higher education, with technology innovations, globalization, changing demographics, and evolving workforce needs changing the way things are done. This is prompting higher education leaders to re-evaluate institutional operations and the delivery of education itself. This disruption presents a tremendous opportunity for re-establishing the critical importance of higher education to society and the economy, and for constructing a new foundational model that will help institutions thrive. Technology has played a significant role in creating this opportunity and addressing the challenges that inevitably accompany change, and it will continue to do so.
As Nicole Engelbert, director of research and technology at Ovum Technology, stated in the recent “Taking a Journey to the Modern Campus” webcast, essential solutions such as human capital management (HCM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and student information systems (SIS) play a critical role in addressing the challenges that face higher education, and will in the future. There are many factors to consider as institutions seek to move from limited legacy applications to more innovative, flexible, and scalable solutions. Ovum shares Oracle’s view that a high-risk rip-and-replace endeavor is not required. Rather, a strategy of integrating existing systems with new cloud applications over time allows colleges and universities to modernize campuses at their own pace and in a way that is best aligned with their unique needs, starting with five key steps.
- Focus on building capacity for agility, flexibility, and innovation.
Success in the next era will depend on an institution’s ability to quickly move in new directions and experiment with novel ideas and programs. This will require intentional actions to shift from spending the largest percentage of resources on maintaining mission-critical solutions to using them to drive innovation.
- Align institutional and IT agendas.
As institutions look to solve more complex business problems, the technology landscape must change in parallel. Line-of-business and technology leadership must work diligently to understand and embrace their common priorities to improve student outcomes, institutional standing, and operational management.
- Take a unified approach to mission-critical applications.
As institutions tackle complex priorities, they will need new capabilities from their ERP, HCM, and SIS solutions. They should be structured as a unified set of solutions from which capabilities are drawn to address business problems rather than as a set of individual applications defined by discrete features and functionality.
- Embrace a hybrid model in order to take incremental steps to the cloud.
Cloud delivery models offer tremendous potential to drive more efficient use of resources and increase the capacity for innovation. Moreover, hybrid delivery strategies enable colleges and universities to manage their cloud migration path by allowing them to adopt cloud services at their own pace and in a way that considers their unique needs and circumstances.
- Seek out vendor partners with deep technology and industry expertise.
Building the modern campus demands a vendor partner that understands the distinctive culture, processes, and requirements of higher education and delivers a complete set of solutions to support them. As you modernize your systems, it is important to find a vendor partner with deep technological expertise and proven security, one that can support a modular approach to cloud services.
Learn more: Click here to watch the “Taking a Journey to the Modern Campus” webcast and start mapping your journey today!