4 Signs You’re Using the Wrong Tools to Manage Your Continuing Education Business
There’s more pressure than ever on leaders of professional, continuing, online and workforce education leaders to scale and grow their divisions.
Too many non-traditional education providers run their complex businesses with tools designed to serve the main campus. And they don’t work in this sector.
Here are four signs that you’re using the wrong tools to manage your CE business:
1. You’re Over-Using Excel
Excel’s great for a lot of things—especially when it comes to analyzing data that comes from purpose-built systems.
But if it’s the only tool you use to manage a business that generates hundreds of thousands (or even millions!) of dollars—something needs to change!
If you’re using Excel to manage enrollments, track student progress, review course approvals… or really for any other business-critical function, you’re operating in the 20th Century.
2. You’re Completely Reliant on Staff Effort
People work in higher education because they’re passionate about helping people transform their lives. But if you work them to the bone, it negatively impacts the student experience and ultimately, your staff will leave.
Here’s a great quote from Elisabeth Rees-Johnstone, Executive Director of Continuing Education and Professional Learning at the University of Toronto’s OISE:
“Nobody shows up in the morning wanting to do a terrible job, but when you’re working across myriad systems, lacking easy access to critical information, or held-up shuffling paper files, it creates a negative staff experience.”
3. You’re Reliant on Central Administration for Everything
If you’re not able to update your website or process enrollments, you’re not prepared for scale. A successful CE business has to be agile, responsive and fast-moving.
If every website update needs to be processed by central IT, you’re not capitalizing on market interest.
If every registration needs to be processed by the Registrar’s office, you’re not delivering the customer experience today’s learners expect.
4. Your LMS Isn’t Integrated into Your Registration System
If you’re manually provisioning every single student into your LMS when they register, you’re not offering the immediacy your students expect.
When a student registers, they want to be able to log into the LMS, poke through course materials and get ready for their learning opportunity. If you’re reliant on staff effort to manually provision every learner, you’re behind the times.
How Do You Modernize?
Transforming into a modern business takes modern software. At colleges and universities of all sizes across North America, CE leaders are turning to Modern Campus for a solution.
According to Brian Davis, Director of Business Technology at Louisiana State University Online and Continuing Education, we have to move at the same pace of technology in this rapidly evolving environment.
“Technology is changing quickly and it’s now a requirement to stay competitive in meeting people where they are. How we do things now will change, so it’s important for us to adapt quickly.”
Last updated: September 5, 2022
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