"Metamorphosis in Digital Core Mindset: The Role of OCM and Reinvention in Higher Education’s Challenging Digital Future"

‘Institutions of higher learning may need to reinvent their identity, becoming a Digital Core Entity specializing in the delivery of education and knowledge.’

Adopting a 'Digital Core First' mindset is as relevant and urgent to academic institutions as it is to global commercial enterprises.

While this mindset necessarily means constant and rapid change due to the speed of evolving technology, Higher Learning Institutions are as susceptible to the 70% transformation failure rate as any other organization.

?What causes this habitual failure? Putting too much emphasis on the WHAT and not nearly enough importance on the WHY. More time and attention given to organizational alignment and articulating a clear value proposition for the technology implementation to the end-users will increase success rates.

?If you sit in highly anticipated kick-off meetings, can you recall the last time the meeting commenced with the senior sponsor giving a fully articulated answer to this question: ‘What does this investment in new technology mean for our organization, and how do we intend to use it to create value for our people and our customers?’ The answer is probably no.

?With a compelling value proposition for bettering the people, the organizational mission and purpose, or the planet, you are more likely to secure the intended end-user adoption and utilization of the new technology.

?A “Digital Core First’ mindset may be your organization’s lofty North Star. But without adoption, this star will fizzle out and die, becoming, instead, a cold white dwarf.

Professionally managed change can ensure senior leadership understands the criticality of on-point communications and messaging. Beginning with the strategic alignment of the business and technology leaders, a carefully crafted business value case is developed, considering value at every level.

What does this look like? Instead of issuing an edict on the overarching value and expected business outcome, intelligent organizations will devise a cross-functional approach to uncover the specialized values throughout the organization. What unique value will this technology bring to Sales and Marketing, Research and Development, Customer Service, or Learning and Development? And how will success be defined and measured in each of these areas? By providing engagement by these internal ‘customers’ of the technology, you inherently grow interest, understanding, and buy-in for the new technology, achieving what is paramount: adoption.

?With the escalation in new technologies, a sense of uncertainty develops, often coupled with a need for a more clearly communicated vision and direction. This results in teams feeling pulled in different directions, causing miscommunication, conflicting priorities, and organizational inefficiency. With robust human-designed change management, employee enablement is improved, making it easier to gain sustained support. This Harvard Business?Review?quote sums it up. “A major reason for the lack of productivity gains from new technologies, including AI, is the failure to invest in… your workforce.?I once managed to persuade my grandfather to buy a cellphone; he never even bothered to take it out of the box.” If your people don’t take the product out of the box and use it, you’ve wasted a lot of time and money. Deploying professionally executed change management increases the likelihood of success by 6X. (Prosci)

As technology has evolved, so has organizational change management. OCM is undergoing a metamorphosis, long overdue, blending traditional models and frameworks with the agile principles of both Enterprise Reinvention Culture and Design Thinking. The OCM Lead is now becoming the strategic partner a CIO can rely on. To truly support the CIO’s vision, professional change management must include skilled anticipatory threat, pattern, and trend assessment, a re-wired strategic philosophy focused on being nimble and flexible, and a re-tooled performance management and measurement methodology, helping us understand iteratively if we are on track or if the plan needs to be reworked or entirely reinvented.

Higher education institutions wanting to adopt a ‘Digital Core First’ mindset must focus on?five areas?during a digital transformation: the Business Operating Model, the Digital Technology itself, the Talent and Workplace component, the Value Chain, and User or Customer Experience.

By Reinventing the 'as-is' state of a Business Operating Model and imagining the 'to-be' ideal state, institutions will adopt proven methods and tools to unlock resources, become more efficient, and create time for innovation. Optimizing operational efficiency and administrative processes, automating routine tasks, and streamlining workflows across departments through digital applications, institutions augment their capacity to introduce new programs and courses faster, attracting more students and increasing reputational branding, resulting in every institution’s mission-critical goal – remaining relevant. By harnessing digital tools, administrative overhead is reduced, and resources are allocated more efficiently.

Understanding the Digital Core is the heart of the operations is essential. Institutions of higher learning may need to reinvent their identity, becoming a?Digital Core Entity specializing in the delivery of education and knowledge.?

?A 'Digital Core First' approach is the essence of a resilient, adaptable infrastructure. It assures data security and ushers in possibility through emerging technologies like AI analytics, allowing learning institutions to develop cutting-edge educational tools that attract students and funding alike. A Digital Core philosophy provides a canvas for pioneering educational innovations and is the catalyst for operational excellence. Modern digital cores will improve the scalability of initiatives across the institution and reduce maintenance costs and technical debt.

How might digital transformation impact Talent and Workplace Transformation? As with any organization, humans are a learning institution’s most valuable asset. Fostering a culture of innovation by harnessing new technologies and implementing them seamlessly for a multi-prong stakeholder adoption plan will be critical. Faculty and staff become more agile, responding swiftly to educational and operational delivery changes.

This agility not only improves efficiency but also attracts top talent, elevating an institution's reputation and fiscal stability. Implementing and adopting emerging technologies increases the retention of Class-A talent and assists in recruiting the best and the brightest, creating a dynamic, adaptable, and satisfied workforce and faculty.

An imperative will be to keep the Value Chain top of mind. By reinventing the approach to the Value Chain and integrating emergent technology and data across the educational pipeline, from academic programming and organizational processes to student and faculty services, costs will be reduced, errors minimized, and stakeholder experience enhanced. This, too, impacts an institution's reputation and solvency, resulting in happy students, loyal alums, and elated Boards of Regents.

A reinvented ‘Digital Core First’ mindset must adopt and embed a customer-centric-obsessed philosophy, resulting in delighted end-users and customers. Ensuring new technology is user-friendly and personalized retains students and workforce talent and sets the tone to attract more. Learning Institutions want to stay in business just like any other enterprise. The only way to do that is to adopt the new digital frontier and make it an enjoyable and seamless experience.

Organizational Change Management serves as the?bedrock of Digital Transformation?in a higher learning institution by ensuring faculty, staff, students, and external stakeholders are equipped with the skills, mindset, and support needed to embrace digital innovation effectively. Professionally executed OCM facilitates a seamless transition, fostering a culture of adaptability, collaboration, and continuous improvement, propelling the institution toward its digital transformation goals while safeguarding its academic excellence and reputation.

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As a recognized disruption and change expert, fluent in the commercial and US Federal Government sectors, Sarah is obsessed with adding value as a strategic business partner. She works closely with organizations’ business and technology leaders to reimagine the future together, with alignment on business value outcomes for sustainable growth and future-proofing. Sarah holds a Master of Science in Business Administration and Leadership Development, is Certified through Darden School of Business – UVA in Design Thinking for Innovation, is a Certified Enterprise Reinvention Professional, Master-Certified NLP practitioner (Neuroplasticity), and is an ICF-certified executive coach. *The views and opinions contained in this article are my own and do not reflect the opinions nor values of LTIMindtree, Ltd. or any of its affiliates or customers.