Education
Challenges

The UK further and higher education sectors face many challenges, requiring organisations to continually demonstrate and improve their efficiency, accountability, visibility and overall performance.

50% into higher education by 2010

With the Government targeting recruitment of 50% of young people into higher education by 2010, management teams are tasked with providing greater visibility of how government funding is being spent. With a move towards greater accountability and visibility, universities and colleges are increasingly looking to also ramp up their non-traditional sources of income, through increased research activity and encouraging better paying students from overseas.

Serving the student

With an increasing proportion of funding coming directly from the student, universities and colleges need to focus on retaining their students and do everything they can to encourage prospective students to study at their facility. This means understanding what they want out of their "student experience" and measuring how successfully they are doing against delivering it.

The need for cost savings

As well as looking at ways of generating new revenue, universities and colleges are increasingly aware that significant cost savings can be made by changing antiquated business processes and improving core bask office solutions. The Gershon Efficiency review identified clear savings that need to be made in key areas of back office finance and procurement functions, contributing to the overall 2.5% savings year on year.

Read how COA Solutions is helping its education customers meet these challenges