One positive effect  of the current recession is that it has produced some constructive thinking about money management. According to Ernst & Young’s Opportunities in adversity study, 82% of businesses say that “cash is now an issue.”  CIOs, like their counterparts across the organization, are seeking ways to conserve cash, and perhaps this crisis intervention orientation will be the start of some longer-term shifts in attitudes, behaviors and trends.  As the old adage goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Recessions are very natural times for new attitudes, behaviors and trends to take hold, because “business as usual” is no longer working.  They are times to reflect on lessons learned.

The recession is raising consciousness, for example, about just how much money is being spent on IT maintenance and support.  As the role of IT has expanded within organizations, starting with pure data management, then moving on to information management, and then strategic knowledge management, maintenance and support costs have also expanded to consume a staggering 70% to 80% of IT budgets, according to Forrester Research.  It’s not uncommon for companies to own a multitude of data centers and hundreds of servers. 

One way to look at this problem is to simply acknowledge that this is the inevitable trend. But, the other way to look at it is that the cost-saving opportunity here is huge.  There is no question about the fact that adopting a managed services approach can save the organization significant amounts of money, because you are giving over day-to-day maintenance and support responsibilities to a firm that can take advantage of the economies of scale that come with being in the business of managing technology for a multitude of organizations.

The transition to managed services has been understandably difficult for many organizations to embrace.  First of all, it is big change, and change brings up the very natural and appropriate attention to risks.  Are there security or privacy risks, for example?   

As it goes with technology, however, continuous improvements have been made to ensure that the organization is not putting itself at risk with the transfer of IT maintenance and support to an outside partner.  The solutions have been baked in to ensure that your data is perhaps even more secure with an outside vendor that provides managed services for a living.  The risks have been addressed…and managed services should enable you to provide even more proactive and preventive support than can be provided internally.  This is because, to be a player in the managed services business, a vendor must have state-of-the-art equipment, processes and practices, all across the board.

And think what you could do with the budget freed up for more strategic work.  Your organization definitely needs to make the best use of the “I” in your “T,” but it does not need to have the “T” maintained and supported internally, at a cost that, almost invariably, far surpasses what can be provided by an external vendor. It’s the 21st century, and you now have a higher strategic calling.  Your organization needs you to free up dollars to invest in strategic innovations that improve the financial position of your organization, better serve your customers and, if yours is a commercial enterprise, give you a differential advantage.

In this new era of modern technology, Higher Education is in the midst of rapid change in response to environmental, social, economic, technological and political transformations occurring worldwide. As a result, institutions of Higher Education are facing ever more numerous operational challenges. In order to survive these challenges, Higher Education needs new institutional strategies and decision-making processes. For a Higher Education institution to prosper and perform efficiently, all levels of campus staff and administration must collaborate to create a wave of change by implementing Business Intelligence to manage and monitor campus performance. Going one step higher, a digital dashboard provides a view of campus performance that can be directly mapped to campus vision and mission.

So to all Higher Education institutions out there, please take this opportunity to re-strategize your campus performance management in order to gain or maintain a competitive edge!

Here are some of the major benefits a digital dashboard for Higher Education provides:
• Enables administrators and campus executives to better support the education process by accurately compiling, analyzing and reporting information across systems to both internal and external decision-makers
• Empowers faculty with the information they need to create the best learning environment for all students
• Provides the right information at the right time to the right user group
• Maximizes the availability of information to all levels of the organization: the Executive level receives performance data, the Management level receives trend and summary data, and the Staff level receives detailed data
• Facilitates seamless processes supporting the full life cycle of student administration
• Enables campus executives and administrators to track and monitor campus key performance indicators in order to establish, improve and align them with the mission

I have mentioned Key Performance Indicators in a couple of my blog entries. I will discuss these further in my next entry.

“Why do I need a dashboard? I’m a college department head, not a cab driver!” This is the common response that I receive every time I bring up the topic of the digital dashboard. However, I’m not talking about an automobile dashboard, of course, but a digital dashboard for Higher Education.

A digital dashboard is a Business Intelligence system designed along the lines of an automobile dashboard display system. However, digital dashboard is enhanced with sophisticated features that display real-time data in a more interactive and presentable way with color-coded visual effects – graphical representations of gauges and depictions that summarize institutional performance. While an automobile dashboard displays a speedometer, fuel gauge, temperature gauge, etc., the digital dashboard displays a Higher Education institution’s performance indicators with multiple gauges—in this case Key Performance Indicators, such as Retention Rate, Enrollment, Student Graduation Rate, Transfer Rate, etc. Much as a driver does with the automobile, college and university executives take appropriate actions based on alerts provided by the indicators.

In my next entry, I will share some thoughts on the digital dashboard as a Business Intelligence tool.

We celebrated our 10 year anniversary last week. That’s 10 action-packed orbits around the sun! In actual fact, we passed this milestone on February 28, 2008, but wanted to have the celebration in a month that offered better weather than is typical in late February in Chicago.

Over 300 people joined us on June 4 at the Adler Planetarium for an evening of networking, dancing and good cheer. The Galileo Room was filled to capacity with clients, partners, vendors – and our wonderful and talented employees and their spouses. The energy in the room was truly amazing.

A link to the video we developed for the event appears at the end of this entry. Whether you know Synch well or not, it provides a good way to gain a deepened sense of who we are as a company, and what we stand for.

Follow this link to our “Elevating Value” video. Follow this link to our 10th anniversary celebration picture gallery.