Digitisation has not left any stone unturned and is continuously making bigger inroads into people’s lives. When one looks back at the past two years, which have seen unprecedented times, it is also evident that technology has played a central role in how businesses operate and engage with customers.
The educational space, which has primarily taken a traditional approach, also found itself in the wave of digital transformation in these times. What started as resiliency efforts have now become a competitive factor; educational institutions are no exception. However, it was also found that the digital transformation journey emerged tougher for educational institutions than organisations from other sectors due to several challenges. I have underlined them below.
Unique challenges
It’s a no-brainer that this generation is of tech-savvy, digital-native learners. However, adapting to the digital environment has not been as easy as ABC for the faculty. This is also attributed to the conventional pedagogies of most Indian institutions. This leads us to the second biggest challenge.
Unlike organisations in the business world whose digital agenda is driven by Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers and Chief Digital Officers, institutions in the education sector have lacked strategic digital leadership and roadmap.
To say these are the only reasons why educational institutions have been laggards in the digital journey, would not be a fair statement. It must also be acknowledged that institutions lack access to simple, holistic, reliable and efficient technology tools – an area that technology solution providers have left underserved.
The need for a digital approach
While the pandemic triggered digitisation at scale to facilitate uninterrupted learning using cloud platforms, it was just one of the many aspects that needed a digital touch. Interestingly, this was a turning point for faculties’ acquaintance with technology tools. However, digital transformation goes much beyond that. The key is to reimagine every process and optimise it by infusing digital, resulting in greater efficiencies and enhanced experiences for all.
Enabling Holistic Transformation
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) platforms have been long known for helping businesses make their processes work cohesively. It provides unified visibility and control of every business function, and insights to make data-driven decisions. Still, most ERP systems are not designed for the unique workflows of educational institutions.
A University Management System changes this by offering a highly effective and customised digital platform that’s built for educational institutions. Taking a giant leap from the traditional processes, it transforms the complete lifecycle of students and employees by adding digital touchpoints throughout the journey. This is done by transforming the institution’s operational workflows panning functions such as finance, academic core, human resources, administration, supplier relationship management, and more.
The ERP of academic institutions, the University Management System, is regarded as the core of Digital Transformation in the education sector. The platform offers all the KPIs of university management at any given point in time so that the management can focus on quality education, not back-office processes. Its comprehensive application suite is exquisitely designed for academic and university administration that replaces manual paper-based tasks across distinctive processes with automation.
Reaping big yields with the right platform
The technology platforms’ effectiveness determines any digital transformation initiative’s outcomes. As highlighted in the challenges, the lack of strategic digital leadership and roadmap can often lead decision makers to informed choices merely based on solution packaging by technology partners. Institutions must look within the shell to truly gauge if the solution will meet their needs in the long term.
Here’s what makes a University Management System compelling:
- It facilitates improved inter-departmental communication
The platform must establish a single-window mechanism for integrating all the services of the institution by bringing all stakeholders under its ambit – students, employees, and faculty members. Most importantly, the platform should automate cross-functional workflows without leaving room for siloes. - It grants access to real-time data
The ideal university management platform provides data-driven intelligence in real-time. This goes a long way in enhancing security, transparency, certainty, speed, responsiveness, and overall experience. Besides, it also expands the convenience and fast access to a range of institution-oriented information. - It helps in assigning all incoming queries
It streamlines numerous cumbersome manual tasks. Driven by automation, the platform does everything from calculating student scholarships to acquiring reports of various programmes. It can also provide the administration with printable transcripts and grade sheets of the students. - It bridges the gap between the institutions and students
The student lifecycle includes numerous engagements with the institution departments across phases. The university management system plays a key role in identifying and plugging the gaps that may impact student experience, allowing them to focus on what really matters – education. - It facilitates the switch to cashless and paperless
Paper, in both – documents and money – only adds to the hassles. Not to mention the environmental impact. By eliminating it, a university management system brings online and digital processes to the fore while improving convenience. - It ensures improved accountability
As manual tasks also lack control and an organised approach, the university management system’s automated workflow capabilities increase transparency, improve accountability, streamline processes, and enhance efficiencies.
Making institutions agile in the digital era
As seen in most sectors, business transformation and cost optimisation are the primary mandates of management. As part of this, corporations and enterprises are shedding their legacy infrastructure load and moving to hybrid infrastructure and cloud-based applications. In education, organisations have little or no pre-existing IT infrastructure burden. This gives them the last-mover advantage and allows them to build their systems on the cloud from scratch.
Yotta’s EdUniverse, powered by iWeb Technology Solutions’ Integrated University Management System (IUMS), is a comprehensive cloud-hosted digital suite for educational institutions. EdUniverse is a complete IUMS platform with many commonly-used and uncommonly-used modules – a core academic module, HR & Payroll, SRM and Administration, etc. – all integrated, offering unified functioning. It is a fully functional ERP for educational institutions with a codeless process and workflow engine. Additionally, it supports OEM-led customisation and personalisation with rapid deployment.
Click here to explore EdUniverse.
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