Why ESM is essential for modern education

Now more than ever, universities and further education colleges in the UK are in a competitive marketplace to attract the best staff and students, and deliver the best possible outcomes for all. This is especially the case in a climate where many establishments are facing funding challenges, and need both a strong reputation and healthy intake numbers to maintain financial viability and success.

At the same time, the expectations around higher education have evolved enormously within the last decade. Technology is playing a greater and greater role in education all the time, through a range of innovations such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), communication tools, collaboration tools, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), and VR classrooms.

But behind the scenes, technology is also important for underpinning essential parts of day-to-day operations. These include service requests from students, faculty, alumni and parents, and experience-focused solutions and tools that focus on self-service, request management, and call logging.

So how can education establishments meet the demands of advancing their technology, and satisfying staff and students alike?

What digital experience challenges are HE institutions facing?

Responding to rising expectations is proving easier said than done for many higher education bodies, including respected global education leaders. Organisations big and small are fighting against several headwinds simultaneously, including:

• Satisfying the tech-savvy: according to The Pie News, 93% of students want a complete digital experience, encompassing social, cultural, organisational, health and wellbeing services. That experience also needs to be user-friendly, intuitive and aesthetically pleasing

• Talent retention and acquisition: modern processes, procedures and systems that are up-to-date are vital for attracting the best staff and students, especially when appealing to the lucrative international student market were visa administration is important

• Asset tracking: education establishments have large and complex asset estates, with loans, movements, changes and updates occurring all the time. Maintaining functionality and cost efficiency of this estate can be difficult due to fragmented IT services, and a lack of overall asset visibility

• Lack of data analysis: that fragmented IT estate makes it difficult and time-consuming to access and analyse collated data, and drive the insights needed to make improvements

• Funding issues: many establishments lack the funding and resources to make updates, especially as they can end up losing even more funding if student number decline

• Security vulnerabilities: 60% of universities were subject to a cyber attack over the past year, highlighting the risk of operational, legal, financial and reputational damage

Why ESM is the solution

Good service management is the way forward for many higher education organisations in resolving these technological and experience issues. However, the effectiveness of service management is limited when different departments and stakeholders have unconnected and siloed solutions, and when assets aren’t tracked in a coordinated manner throughout their life cycles.

The ideal way forward is a consistent approach to all business, academic, and campus services from a single service management solution. This can enable the delivery of services on time, every time, delighting students and ensuring excellence within teaching and business environments. And the most practical and cost-effective way of achieving this is through Enterprise Service Management (ESM).

ESM combines human and automated processes in a streamlined platform that maximises productivity and enables that consistent approach to be maintained in every area. Based on the established principles of IT service management, it can be made available as a fully-managed solution or as a plug-and-play platform.

Deployed and designed in the right way, ESM in an education setting can:

• Give students quick resolutions to issues, and connect them to all the data, applications and resources they need, whenever they need them
• Support a single source of truth for data, easing interactions between departments and IT when issues arise and quick fixes are required
• Relieve staff from repetitive, time-consuming tasks, so that they can devote more time to supporting students and enabling better learning outcomes
• Improve productivity for staff and students alike through automation and self-service functions, boosting satisfaction and reducing stress levels

Why SCC for education ESM?

SCC is already trusted by many higher education organisations to deliver a comprehensive ESM system that helps them deliver the experiences staff and students are looking for. These include the City of Glasgow College and a selection of large Russell Group institutions.

SCC understands that every university has unique challenges and requirements. When you partner with SCC for education ESM, we work closely with you to understand your vision and goals, ensuring the solution we deliver is tailored and totally relevant to your specific institution.

Our holistic approach touches every department, from HR through IT to timetabling and everything in between, supporting a 360 view of service and asset performance.

When you partner with SCC for education ESM, you can take full advantage of:

1. Process automation: we’ll identify the best candidates for automation, based on potential business value and the suitability of the processes

1. Solution recommendation: we work closely with you to design the right automation journey for your specific needs

1. Expert implementation: our experienced team will deploy and support an ESM solution that cuts costs, reduces response time and enhances experiences for all

1. End-to-end phased approach: our experienced team will deploy and support an ESM solution that cuts costs, reduces response time and enhwe always consult with all your stakeholders every step of the way, with workshops, guidance and advice, and take a phased approach to remove time pressure and get each stage of the journey right

1. Tailored advice: our expertise and digital automation capabilities are ideal for ensuring ESM technology is deployed in ways that deliver maximum benefit to the establishment, its staff and its students