The Perfect Storm

By Jerry Smith

A perfect storm is bearing down on higher education, and it’s threatening the future of our community colleges. Disruptive forces, like declining funding and enrollment and increasing competition and regulatory requirements, are stretching community colleges’ scare resources dangerously thin. Across the nation, institutions are realizing that their current business model is not sustainable. But how can colleges that are caught in the cross-winds of change survive these turbulent times and thrive in the future?

Thriving in the Storm

While no one can fully predict the future, we can prepare our colleges to weather the storm by understanding what the future will demand: maximum return on investment (ROI) on both systems and staff, highly-optimized business processes and operations, and an unwavering commitment to the student experience. It’s a tall order, and it begins with a mindset shift, especially when it comes to Information Technology.

In order to thrive in the future, colleges must move away from the old, cost-prohibitive "build it, own it" IT model to a cost-effective on-demand services model, which may be referred to as "Collaborative Services." The Collaborative Services model changes the way colleges approach IT by providing them with access to on-demand technology resources and allowing them to use as much (or as little) as they need—and pay accordingly. It works much the same way as buying electricity to light your home. Even though you have the option to install a generator and produce your own electricity, most people don’t want to invest the time and money to build and maintain their own energy source. Instead, they choose to purchase electricity from a utility provider, flip a switch when they want to turn their lights on or off, and receive a bill at the end of the month for the amount of electricity they used. Similarly, Collaborative Services allows colleges to "turn on and off" technology services, such as database administration, ERP system programming, information security, help desk support, reporting, instructional design, and more. It allows colleges to receive all the technical support they need for a fraction of the cost because it takes significant overhead out of the equation.

Part of this mindset shift may involve moving your college’s IT operations to cloud-based services. Cloud computing relieves your institution of the burden of running the "IT factory," shifting capital-intensive hardware costs, maintenance issues, and security concerns to the service provider. This new IT model allows your staff to bring more value to your institution by serving as functional analysts who ensure that technology is effectively serving your business operations and academic departments and is supporting the best possible student experience.

Navigating the Way

Though transformation is never easy, it’s critical to ensure your institution’s success in the future. Effective transformation management includes the following components:

 

• Defining the desired student experience and developing a vision of what your transformed college will be
• Assessing your current processes and procedures against the desired experience and vision and examining current and future best practices
• Conducting a Business Process Review (BPR) of key areas that are preventing the vision from being realized to understand how your institution could improve the way it meets the needs of its students and staff and determine which services would be optimal to purchase through a Collaborative Services or Cloud Services agreement
• Designing and implementing new, optimized business practices that bring congruency to the desired and current practice
• Conducting a Cloud Readiness Assessment to determine if your people, processes, technology, and business model are ready to move to the cloud and inform your Cloud Transition Plan

 

CampusWorks specializes in helping community colleges redesign their business processes, prepare for and transition to cloud services, and achieve organizational transformations that position them to not just survive in these changing times, but to grow and prosper through the storm.

To learn more about CampusWorks’ Collaborative Services, visit us at www.campusworksinc.com.