Composable technology in higher education

Striving for cultural change to improve business outcomes.

Ian Anderson, Enterprise Architect at Ellucian, looks at how Gartner’s business composability approach can help universities adapt.

Over the past two decades, the world has changed. Laptops and cell phones are commonplace, Google answers our questions rather than encyclopedias, and Bitcoin and NFTs have become part of everyday conversation. As the world has advanced, so has higher education. It has become increasingly competitive and commercial. Old business and technology architecture no longer keeps pace with today’s students, and the need to adapt to change is more important than ever before. If institutions can’t adjust, they won’t be able to succeed.

Let’s use Blockbuster as an example of the importance of transformation. Blockbuster used to be the go-to store for video rentals, until Netflix came on the scene. Before Netflix was a streaming platform, they mailed DVDs to your house, cutting out the annoying step of going to a store, which was the experience Blockbuster provided. They didn’t stop there. Netflix was able to respond to the changing marketplace and move away from DVD rental, becoming a world-renowned streaming platform, while Blockbuster is a thing of the past. It is an extreme example of how adapting to change to meet customer needs is necessary for businesses to survive.

Just like Blockbuster and Netflix, universities need to be able to cater to the changing needs of their student base. To do that, they must implement systems and processes that can help them adapt.

Gartner’s business composability approach

In order to survive universities need to evolve to meet changing student and staff needs, but how can they? Employing a more composable business from a technology perspective is one way forward.

At their 2020 symposium, Gartner introduced business composability as a singular approach revolving around three core elements:

Composable thinking
Composable business architecture
Composable technologies

In this context, business composability helps an organisation respond to disruptions quicker, deliver improved performance and make better quality decisions; all needed across the global HE sector. Business composability refers to the modularity of business assets—people, processes, technologies and even physical assets—so that businesses can adapt and swiftly create new value during times of uncertainty. The approach divides systems and processes into building blocks, enabling them to easily change any part of the business operation at pace, supported by overriding design principles, without mass business disruption.

Organizations that have adopted a composable approach will outpace the competition by 80% in the speed of new feature implementation.
Gartner's prediction for 2023

Composability for ever-changing student needs

One reason the sector is changing is that student, employers and regulators requirements are evolving. Government and employers are increasingly voicing the demand for graduates to be ‘work-ready’ after university, putting pressure on students to choose courses that will enable them to enhance their employability post-degree. This is especially important now with the ever growing tend towards students wanting micro credentials to ensure that they stay up to date with the latest skills and can continue to learn throughout their life. This makes it imperative that the product offerings from universities are relative to the global economy and that they have the infrastructure in place to support these ever-changing student and skill requirements.

Additionally, rising fees add a larger financial implication to a student’s decision on where to study and an increasing demand to see ‘value for money’ from their chosen institution. In addition, the pandemic has accelerated a shift in engagement methods, such as online learning and communications.

To support such rapid demand for change, it is natural to turn to technology to provide answers. This is where composability comes in.

Having a standardised operating model—free from multiple competing business processes requiring complex technology customisations and integrations—is a key element of this as it helps universities restructure and become more adaptable. Organisation leaders, including CIOs, are striving to make use of business composability to ultimately achieve these results. Higher education institutions must pivot quickly and adapt to fulfil the institution’s mission.

So, it begs the question—how do you implement a composable environment?

The struggle to adapt

Universities have always been driven by the academic ethos of collaboration. While this enhances and supports the teaching, learning and research elements of higher education, it creates a complex business and technology architecture that is often not designed to facilitate change.

For universities, budget is often not what’s preventing change, rather it’s culture. At Ellucian, part of my role involves engaging with universities to review their current operating model. I often uncover unnecessary process variations, application functionality duplication, double data entry and other complications which contribute to making change hard to achieve and implement consistently across the organization.

Unnecessary complexity has an almost universal negative impact, on data quality and consistency, user experience, and the ability to successfully plan and report.

Composable institutions think in a different way. Being a highly composable enterprise is still a new idea for all industries, but it is not unattainable. It will, however, require careful planning.

What are the implications for your Student Information System?

Ellucian has recognised that even for a technology vendor, the discussion can no longer simply be about features and functionality. Our products are uniquely placed to offer the ability to perform hundreds of processes that are effective, efficient, standardised and repeatable. Read more about how our solutions support composability. However, our commitment is to work with customers on a strategic level to understand:

How are they thinking about setting themselves up for success to meet an ever-evolving operating environment?
How is the business going to be holistically architected to ensure that all components work seamlessly yet are composable enough to allow rapid change with minimum disruption?
How do we develop our technologies to best fit this new way of working?

It is then down to each university to employ the services they need for the best student experience in a more composable manner.