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COOKIE POLICY
In the school management industry, technology is a crucial foundation for supporting clients and remaining competitive within the marketplace. So when a 50-year-old company that was an industry leader began planning their next growth stage, they sought to create a robust data platform. They further needed to ensure that their tech capabilities aligned with their growth goals and opportunities. Seeking to develop an innovative tech strategy, they reached out to UDig to design their roadmap forward.
After five decades in business supporting independent schools, our client earned a solid industry reputation as a go-to resource. They also had collected a depth of data from forms, surveys, and other tools. While they’d successfully been serving their clients through the years, they’d not optimized how they could transform their data into lasting business value for themselves and their clients. Further, they had begun losing market share with some of their existing technology and needed a plan to revamp their offerings and maintain their competitive edge.
In addition, the company had a small IT team in place. So the tech strategy needed to create leverage for the team and be efficient to operate — while transforming the way they work and support clients.
To create their tech strategy, we knew we had to gain an in-depth understanding of how they currently work versus what they aspire to achieve. We had sponsorship and buy-in for the process from the company’s complete C-Suite, which made for a proactive, productive engagement when aligning against business goals.
First Priority – Deep Dive into Their Needs
To get started, we first needed to quickly get up to speed and develop a deep understanding of their needs and capabilities. We engaged the key stakeholder in a thorough meeting to identify their business objectives and values. We further needed to uncover:
Integrated Approach
Also, a key factor in supporting the project was integrating data and software engineering resources to ensure fluid development across our efforts. This integration resulted in our client having:
As a result, we were able to work seamlessly between our team, with our client, and across their data and technology goals.
Second Priority – Create a Storyboard
From here, we needed to lay out a storyboard of the information we must review and how to help our client tell their story. This insight led us to conduct a series of interviews and documentation reviews.
Further, with their growth goals, acquisitions were part of our client’s priorities. Through our strategy work, we helped them vet a potential acquisition candidate. The objective was to ensure this decision aligned with their broader tech strategy.
Final Priority: Design Their Tech Strategy Framework
Once we understood their business values and objectives, we were ready to design their tech strategy. We were able to create a strategic framework with the following elements:
Today, our client has an 18-month roadmap that outlines the technology, insights (data), talent, and process strategies for meeting their growth objectives. They have an action plan for every month to outline which steps they must take and which projects they lead or their partners lead. Further, they have the timeline for every implementation step and the associated tasks, benefits, and costs of the suggested strategy. Across the board, we’ve been able to position them with a robust tech strategy that offers real business value and can guide them toward their growth goals and beyond.
