Empowering Higher Education Series: The Real Impact of Making IT Better
Educational institutions are increasingly embracing technology to enhance their operations, streamline processes, and deliver a better experience to students and partners. But ensuring that their IT capabilities stay up-to-date can be a challenge that can make or break institutions’ ability to adapt, grow and remain competitive.
IT and process optimisation plays a critical role in the journey of modernising legacy systems. In this article, we will explore the significance of optimising IT platforms and processes. Our insights are rooted from our delivery team’s knowledge and experience of delivering projects in the higher education sector; further enhanced by decades of experience in delivering large-scale change.
What is Platform Optimisation?
Platform optimisation refers to the process of refining and improving the performance, functionality, and efficiency of an IT platform or systems and overall technical capability.
“For many organisations, legacy systems are seen as holding back the initiatives and business processes that rely on them. When a tipping point is reached, application leaders must look to application modernisation to help remove the obstacles.” – Stefan Van Der Zijden, VP Analyst, Gartner.
This approach involves analysing the existing platform’s underlaying infrastructure, features, and user experience to identify areas for enhancement and implementing strategic changes to maximise its potential. The goal is to incrementally improve and then optimise the platform’s capabilities to deliver a better user experience, achieve objectives, and meet the evolving needs of a technology hungry world.
Benefits of Platform Optimisation
By focusing on platform optimisation, higher education institutions can achieve several benefits:
- Improvement and Growth:
With a blueprint view of the organisation, platform optimisation provides a strategic roadmap for improvement on the journey of change. It enables a deeper understanding of the existing infrastructure, processes, and systems, revelling areas where optimisation can lead to enhanced efficiency, productivity, and competitiveness.
- Effective Decision-Making:
When institutions have a clear understanding of their current ‘As-is’ state and align it with their desired strategic outcomes, they lay a strong foundation for effective decision-making. A clear, comprehensive view enables decision-makers to identify opportunities for optimisation, prioritise initiatives, and allocate resources strategically, helping to make data-driven decisions that really align with their strategic goals.
- Better User Experience:
Institutions can benefit from accelerated responsiveness, heightened efficiency, and enhanced flexibility and agility when addressing student, faculty, and staff requirements. By leveraging efficient platforms, institutions can automate processes like admissions, registration, and student records management. Moreover, optimised platforms facilitate seamless communication among faculty, staff, and students, leading to improved collaboration and increased operational efficiency.
How We Deliver Platform Optimisation
“We don’t believe in a one size fits all approach, but we do draw upon a broad range of experience alongside a refreshingly candid approach to working with people to make things better. Our process is unique to each institution and the paths chosen will vary. It is crucial to maintain objectivity when assessing competitors, technological advancements, and industry trends, and to stay focused on your own objectives, people, processes, and platforms to really address your specific needs.” – Shaun Walsh, Co-Founder and Director at Perform Partners
By providing the skills and expertise to support and help deliver the optimisation roadmap, we help embed the changes that protect the operations and move IT onto a more sustainable footing.
Our approach typically involves these key elements:
- Comprehensive and Quick Assessments
- Realistic design and roadmap planning
- Quick win recommendations
- Business impact and benefit creation/ facilitation
- Integration and Scalability milestones
- Data-driven Insights and proactive reporting
In higher education institutions, technology should never be viewed as an obstacle to change or “just IT”, but rather as a keystone for progress. Legacy and old systems in educational institutions can sometimes feel chaotic and hinder the ambition of its leaders. However, by leveraging technology effectively, universities can unlock opportunities, streamline processes, and mitigate risks by gaining clarity and visibility and a plan to make things better.
Chat with one of our SMEs and find out how you can secure a better future for your organisation.