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Stuart Jones, our advisor with responsibility for supporting the business processes within learning providers feeds back on a regional project and how you can reap the benefits of it.

Understanding business intelligence, analysis and process improvement

The world is full of theories relating to how to improve your business performance and your business intelligence.

Getting to grips with the complexities, as a busy learning provider is difficult enough without trying to identify the relevant bits of all of the theories.

At the JISC Regional Support Centre we are keen to ensure that whilst we understand most of the main theories we need to understand and concentrate on the practical aspects of being a learning provider especially with the current economic constraints.

What it means to you

So, as a learning provider, let’s whittle this down to what you should know:

• Most business improvement is common sense;
• Managing any business (…and particularly managing people!) is not an exact science;
• We have developed most of our business processes by accident (or at best by trial and error) rather than by design;
• We have lots of data – in fact we are data rich … but often information poor;
• We are rarely completely confident in the accuracy of data that is presented to us;
• Our industry (post-16 education) is an extraordinary complex one!;
• Relatively few managers are trained and experienced in the principles of effective information management;
• Most of our departments and faculties prefer to operate as silos.

OK, so some of these statements are a little tongue in cheek but I bet you related to many of them!

Finding out more

In conjunction with the Learning & Skills Improvement Service (LSIS), we supported a project that studied and supported three East Midland learning providers looking at improving business performance through making data more visible.

The concluding report is now available and we will be running a one-day workshop on the 14th February in Nottingham to examine the lessons learnt in some detail.

Attendance is free to funded providers, and delegates not only receive a copy of the report but also a range of business improvement tools.

If you want more advice on how to use technology to improve your business processes then please get intouch with Stuart on 01509 618113 or stuart.jones@rsc-em.ac.uk.

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