How Do Institutions Build Competitive Advantage? Top 5 Things Technology Leaders Must Do

In the field of economics, the phrase “competitive advantage” means you possess the lowest opportunity cost of delivering a product or a service. When we talk about opportunity cost, put in simple words, it is what one gives up in order to accomplish an action.

Similarly, competitive advantage should ideally have the same description in the higher education world as well. For instance, think of a leading engineering school offering a program in Puppetry. You might not be able to think of any. Why is that? Well, the competitive advantage of the leading engineering college is to produce the best engineers in the industry.

So, now that a school does not offer a course or a program, it does lead to a conscious financial dilemma, “Whether we want our students to enroll into other colleges?”. I truly hope the answer to this is a definite “yes”. If a school applies the competitive advantage theory, it is bound to enroll students into programs where the school offers not just their expertise but, also a market reputation that students desire. By the end of the day, no college or university can really fulfill each student’s wish or dream, rather it’s better to be good at the one thing you offer.

Therefore, technology leaders must create a competitive advantage for the institution and its faculty to grow research revenue and faculty success. Here are the top 5 things technology leaders must do to increase enrollment, student retention and engagement.

• Automation

As per a report from National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, enrollment rates decline each year and institutions endlessly look for ways to introduce more adeptness in the enrollment process at a lesser cost to maintain high student engagement.  The greatest challenge most universities and colleges face today comprise the lack of retaining skilled IT staff members and a shortage of highly experienced support staff. Thus, the use of Artificial Intelligence can transform the chaotic scenario a college or a student might face. The need of the hour is to improvise and build upon a system that would not breakdown when an astronomical number of students and staff need quick resolutions to every query they type in. Confronted with tight budgets and ever-increasing IT demands, shifting to IT process automation is an option that may well save dollars and at the same time boost IT effectiveness.

• Instant Gratification

Humans are hardwired with the desire to experience pleasure without delay or postponement. In the age where people are looking to avail services instantly, read books without going to the library, order items with the expectation of receiving it overnight, colleges need mobile apps to serve their students constantly. Apps can simply replace the student’s need to call the student helpline for every other query. All we need is instant up to date information (whether it’s the status of the course books you ordered or the confirmation on the hotel that you’ve booked). Mobile apps act as your tracking device as well as your credit card!  

• Redundancy

For institutions with thousands of students and faculty members, IT personnel for any college certainly find themselves wasting valuable time on routine tasks. There is a dire need of IT process automation to empower the end user to handle many of his or her own needs, such as resetting their own passwords and unlocking their accounts using self-service platforms. This makes for a faster turnaround and therefore a better user experience, and it also liberates the IT staff to focus on more important tasks. When your students and faculty members ought to login to just about every application they use in the course of getting their work done, single sign on might just be right solution.

• Presence

At times, colleges and universities barely express their objectives, strategies and practices in elaborating on its competitive terms. The pressure of traditionally set resources needs to be revolutionized to the emergence of tech-based education delivery systems that are bound to not just make a presence but, also strengthen competitive thinking. Competitive advantages progress and make a presence over due course of time wherein the end product are the quality graduates. If universities nurture and work strategically with help of IT tools and automation marvels, actively showcasing achievements through series of social media platforms in the fields in which they have a competitive advantage, they will continue to recruit top students and build upon funding at acceptable levels.

• Performance

The need for gifted workforce is developing around the world and so is the requirement for personnel and staff with essential aptitudes in the higher education sphere. To deliver the base for producing such trained student, organizations are searching for new ideas which can address difficulties of the 21st century through inventive and out-of-the box ideas. Business pioneers are relying on instructive foundations: schools, universities and colleges for providing all around qualified talented individuals into the industry.

Thus, schools and universities are constantly making progress toward enhancing their students both as far as numbers and capability to find rewarding employment. The magnificence of students from a college relies upon the nature of their staff, student support, helpdesk and infrastructure. To accomplish more higher levels in worthy performance, organizations need to set higher objectives for their scholastic as well as non-scholarly staff. These objectives ought to be viably assess at regular interims to bridge the gaps that might be slowing down performance. Organizations which can adequately deal with encouraging their staff, can leave a positive mark on the education sphere.

Along these lines, having the best of class performance tools is a need of great importance as empowering institutions to scale higher is dependent upon cutting resource costs and utilizing tools.