According to Gartner, EdTech spend in Higher Ed alone is to reach $38B by the end of 2016. The report goes on to state that the focus has shifted from cost reduction to how can technology be used to gain a competitive advantage.
Jan-Martin Lowendahl, vice president and distinguished analyst for Gartner said that for institutions to thrive in the increasingly competitive education ecosystem, they must become more innovative and it is often technology that will underpin that innovation.
IT Maturity in the EdTech Explosion
So where does this leave you? Simply throwing more bodies into the IT organization will not have an impact on maturity, efficiency or effectiveness. IT leaders in Higher Ed must think differently. For instance, system convergence is a hot topic. For many campuses, the facilities team, HR, Marketing and IT are all operating on different service management platforms. This is a resource drain.
Another area to target is project planning. The PMO and CIO can bridge a much-needed gap by integrating service management and project planning to one system – allowing for resource optimization and reduced redundancy of effort.
In a recent webinar, Barry Cousins, Senior Director at Info-Tech Research Group, weighed in on the EdTech surge. Working smarter is going to be the way forward for EdTech – will you be ready?