Innovative Digital Strategies Transforming Higher Education and Research Institutions

In his book, “WHATEVER IT IS, I’M AGAINST IT: Resistance to Change in Higher Education,” Brian Rosenberg (President-in-Residence at the Harvard Graduate School of Education) describes why higher education is the most change-resistant among all major industries and why this attitude must change. Among other things, the book recommends that colleges and research centers need to metamorphose with digitization, bringing innovation, agility, and growth across industries. With a hybrid learning model encompassing both online and offline methods to build collaborative learning experiences, the education industry has to ensure that it makes students future-ready.

After the pandemic, McKinsey also deduced that institutions facing steep fundraising declines and low enrollment headwinds would need a transformation approach to operate more flexibly in the long run. The shift for Higher Education and Research (HER) institutions is not about adopting a profit-oriented strategy like businesses evaluating their assets and liabilities. Organizations in this vertical must assess their value to their students and the employment landscape.

In this article, we explore the potential of cutting-edge digital solutions, particularly those offered by SAP, in reinventing academic evaluation and empowering student enablement and engagement. The focus is on redefining campus identity and how building a unique digital environment strengthens student lifecycle management. SAP structures its HER programs to create better learning experiences and reduce operational burdens for institutions in different ways:

Leveraging Cloud ERP and Public Cloud for Education Transformation

SAP provides comprehensive solutions for higher education and research (HER) institutions. These tools drive operational efficiency, enable data-driven decision-making, and redefine the student lifecycle. Key solutions include:

SAP SuccessFactors Learning Management System

A cloud-based platform for personalized learning and development allows institutions to customize learning paths, track student progress, and align educational outcomes with market needs.

AI and Analytics for Higher Education

With AI and analytics at the core, SAP’s solutions enable institutions to harness data for informed decision-making. Platforms like SAP Analytics Cloud provide insights into course demand, resource allocation, and student performance, empowering educators and administrators.

SAP S/4HANA for Education and Research

As a backbone for operations, S/4HANA simplifies financial, HR, and administrative processes. While its capabilities are extensive, it focuses on enabling academic institutions to channel their resources toward education and research, reducing routine administrative burdens.

SAP Public Cloud for Education

SAP’s public cloud offerings emphasize scalability, cost-efficiency, and enhanced collaboration. These solutions allow institutions to streamline operations, increase agility, and evolve in the academic environment.

SAP Fiori for Educational Apps

Fiori offers a modern user interface for creating bespoke educational apps. These apps simplify interactions between educators and students, enhancing engagement and making academic processes more intuitive.

SAP Ariba for Research Collaboration

With robust sourcing and procurement capabilities, SAP Ariba supports seamless research collaboration, simplifies grant approvals, and strengthens partnerships.

SAP Qualtrics for Student Experience Management

Qualtrics helps institutions enhance learning environments and tailor services to meet student expectations by collecting and analyzing student feedback.

Key Pillars of Digital Transformation in Higher Education

By putting students at the core of university operations and improving the efficiency of back-office processes for institutions, SAP’s platforms offer multiple opportunities for result-oriented teaching and learning. The three fundamentals of digitally transforming education services with SAP and other AI-enabled cloud solutions are:

1. Analytics: By centralizing and harmonizing data from various sources on a shared landscape, SAP Analytics Cloud helps HER institutions make informed decisions and forecast trends. These decisions may be about the courses in high demand, enrollment of qualified teachers, optimizing class schedules, budget allocation for different departments, and grant management. Analytical technologies can also be used to identify students at risk of dropping out for targeted support.
2. Operational Efficiency: Digital transformation tools provide automation support for routine workflows such as data entry, report generation, and stakeholder communication to increase speed and accuracy in operations. During restructuring processes, SAP can keep information flowing seamlessly across departments to reduce effort duplication. Leveraging a combination of cloud solutions, institutions can track their expenditures and ensure financial accountability for research projects, faculty hiring, and other activities. As a smart campus initiative with IoT and AI tools, SAP improves institutional asset ROI by predicting maintenance needs and preventing equipment failure.
3. Student Experience: Institutions can capitalize upon data collected in the SAP environment to understand areas where student experience can be upgraded, such as teaching mechanisms, extracurricular activities, and career counseling. Data analytics also helps provide the support students need based on their individual performance and professional goals. The student experience can be further optimized by adopting a digital education platform such as SAP Learning Hub, which has easy-to-navigate learning destinations at different skill levels and 360-degree analytical insights for continuous development.

Having worked with top universities and colleges worldwide, YASH understands how important educational institutions must adapt to a digital future. We help these organizations implement and manage SAP and non-SAP solutions for end-to-end data analytics, customized student information systems, and integrated learning modules. We also provide best practice templates for functional areas ranging from admissions and teaching to examinations and placements.

To learn more about digital transformation in the education sector, write to us at info@yash.com

• SAP
• SAP Analytics
• SAP Analytics Cloud
• SAP SuccessFactors Learning