This article is addressed especially for the Chairman, Principals, Directors of Schools, Colleges & Universities. No one has the same amount of passion and love towards your institutions than you people. You have the experience and expertise and you know very well what’s best for your institutions. Many of you might be already having some ERP implemented in your institution. This article will be helpful for you to take a decision on a new ERP Implementation and also to re-analyze the advantages from your currently implemented ERP. Please share this article with other institution heads that you know.
1. Time is Money
In these times when there are so many institutes and so many options for the students to even go abroad to study, you must be really spending a lot on admissions. And to make sure that your institution has a strong reputation, you must be investing heavily on high quality staff. After all these huge investments why do you want your staff to put so much time in manual working? Don’t you want to save everyone’s time and energy for operational work processes and help them use that time for more productive work and your ultimate goal i.e. ‘Academic Excellence’.
2. Your Students and Staff are on Internet and Digital Smart Phones already.
We are in the Digital age and all your staff and students are already using smart phones. Don’t they deserve to get all the information from the institute about their day to day activities online or on their mobiles through a Mobile App? When you are teaching your students the advantages of technology, why are you yourself not following it?
3. Best Practices should be followed by all your Staff.
If you are not on an ERP, your best staff will be working on uniquely followed strategies and you’re not so good staff will be following a mediocre process. Why don’t you allow all to follow the Best Practices for everyone by using a centralized ERP so that the GAP between the working styles of your staff can be reduced and all of you can follow the best practices incorporated in your ERP? By the ERP all your records, reports and analysis will be in similar formats which will make things more clear and proper for you to manage.
4. Increase Student and Staff Satisfaction
More the information, lesser are the anxieties and confusions.
Faster the information, quicker and better decision making.
ERP gives everyone in your campus the opportunity to have transparent and real time information about the day to day matters related to them. This keeps all the stakeholders more informed, alert and satisfied.
5. You cannot evaluate a student or staff members performance in one go.
Without an ERP you will always be dependent on the feedback and information from others before taking a decision. For Example: If you come across a parent who asks you the performance of the child studying in your institute, will you be able to tell the parent how regular the student is in attending classes, is the fee paid, how regularly he goes to the library, what are his marks scored etc.? You will need to get a complete evaluation of the child from many departments and then you will be able to analyze and reply the parent. But if you have an ERP implemented all this information can be accessed in one go.
Same thing applies in handling Staff Appraisal Requests, without clear facts you may give weight-age to someone who is more close to you rather than someone more deserving.
6. Make people accountable automatically.
When your staff knows that everything is reported automatically to you every day in real-time; this brings accountability. And once the system becomes accountable there is a great discipline in working of all departments. It’s like having a CCTV Camera, even if the camera is off or not monitored all the time people under it are more disciplined towards their work.
7. Accurate Records
Since you are an educational institution your records related to exams, fees, attendance etc. needs to be 100% accurate at all times. Also your ERP will resolve your problem of data duplication and data redundancy as you will not need to keep the same records of students and staff in all departments separately and make changes in them separately throughout the year.
8. Your Staff should focus more on Students Performance
Don’t just keep your staff involved in the operational process and use their time in making reports and analysis for you. All this should be done by the ERP for them & you. Smart ERP Systems will give a lot of reports and analysis related to performance of students and staff members or different departments.
9. Your Brand Reputation
Look at the other big institutions around you, are they giving their students the advantages of an ERP. Do the students and staff there have a login where they can check everything related to them? If they are using an ERP then you should not miss it and if they are not then you will have the early mover advantage in your region.
Without an ERP there will be a time that the Students and Staff of your campus will feel that they are missing the advantages of technology. Why to give them this feeling when you can solve this problem by having an ERP implemented in your institution easily.
10. Don't you want Growth?
If you want to keep your focus only on your existing campus and are not looking for growth and expansion; then you can avoid the decision of implementing an ERP. Because a successfully implemented ERP will help you in taking better decisions, help you in a more accountable staff, help you in more disciplined students and a lot more advantages. All this will motivate you to take your institute to greater heights in terms of quality in academics and infrastructure. Your relaxation in time and ease in decision making will help you implement your future growth plans faster & better.
11. What suits you: Being System Dependent or Person Dependent?
Being System Dependent on an ERP means that you should not worry if some staff member is not available the next day due to any reason. Any other person can start the same work from the point where the person earlier left the work in ERP. So you will never get into the pressure of being dependent on any individual person.
12. Still using preprinted stationary?
If you are still using preprinted stationary for fee receipts, mark sheets, leave forms etc. then you are unnecessarily wasting too much of your resources. ERP gives you option to generate these things easily by the system keeping in consideration all the day to day changes in the formats if required.
13. It’s already too late.
I am sure that you were always thinking of getting an ERP Implemented in your institute but somehow you have delayed it. Sometimes you might feel admissions are low so let’s delay it. Sometimes you might feel the current staff is habitual of the old ways of working so why to disturb the status quo. But you have to decide that you would like to pick up the bicycle and run as fast as you can or sit on it comfortably and ride it.
Thanks for reading this article. Your comments or feedback are welcome below.
If you have any questions on this article or have any questions for me related to ERP Implementations for your School, College or University; kindly contact on the below details.
Don’t forget to share this article with heads of your or other institutions.
