To streamline the process of admissions, management, class management, time table management, fee management, accounting, transport etc… implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is an essential part to run the system proficiently. Bhawna Satsangi of Elets News Network (ENN) talks to industry experts to find out the opportunities and challenges in deploying ERP system

For any educational institution, who wants to run the system smoothly and add more students to their campus, it is essential to adopt technology. With growing expectations of improved performance, higher education leaders continue to think more creatively about how their people, processes and technology can work together more efficiently.

At a time when the students are technology- savvy, implementation of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) will bring process efficiency across the organisation and reduce chances of errors. For an educational institute which performs multiple functions like management, admissions, fees management, class management, time table management, accounting, transport, library etc. it is necessary to bring in ERP technology to be more effective and accurate in their task.

Vendors of ERP believe that in order to make the system manageable and transparent, educational institutions must adopt ERP in their system. It is a complete integrated solution which has been designed to cover the in depth functionalities of any educational institute. It is also important to take the time and spend the money to educate everyone about the usage of the system and provide training to people who will operate the system.

The technology is about leveraging the benefits by the people who are using it. The educational institutes today need a mechanism that can streamline their work in more efficient manner. Students no longer are hooked on to one course or engaging once with an educational institute. As the student life-cycle increases, it becomes important to have a system that allows for managing the student-institute relationship for its entire duration of study.

Challenges

Despite promises for improved organisation and more effective management, there are number of challenges and a high failure rate in the implementation of technology. The implementation of ERP system involves high degree of complexity. The reason to the failure of the technology can be many including no interest among employees/users to learn using new technology, strategic goals are not defined, project team is not selected from the experienced employees, accuracy of data is not assured, system efficiency measures do not allow for successful changes, technical issues etc.

An educational institute should look into issues including multitude of legacy systems, training of existing staff and internal IT resources before deploying ERP solutions

The success of the technology depends upon varied factors as it embraces operations of an institute. Participation of management, participation of students, encouraging attitude among the employees, possibility to connect the integral information solutions with other business information systems, cooperation between advisers and employees are of key importance for any technology to flourish in a set up.

The other key pain areas an educational institute should look into before deploying ERP is multitude of legacy systems, training of existing staff and internal IT resources which are the top problems. “It is very hard to move away from a system that has been used for many years-especially if the stakeholders are invested in it emotionally. Also, getting the new system implemented without having significant internal bandwidth for technology would impede the speed of implementation,” says Shreekala Kurup, COO, Crack Verbal.

Benefits

Use of ERP solutions is essential in a system where different users with varied roles and responsibilities have to streamline their workflow. Students, management, teachers, principal, staff, parents, alumni all the data is managed under one platform in a time sensitive manner along with the rules and policies. The success of the technology depends upon factors such as participation of the management, the modernization of existing business processes, possibility to connect the integral information solutions with other business information systems, cooperation between advisers and employees and educated staff to tackle the issues of ERP system at ease.

“ERP solutions would make it easy for an educational institute to scale up and spend less time, money, and energy managing resources. A major chunk of bandwidth goes into processes that are offline, such as the providing of forms etc. All of this, if automated properly, would provide a seamless end-toend experience for the student,” informs Kurup.

“The important trend that we are seeing and catering to is primarily on the fact that anybody can create content and anybody can conduct content. So, both the creation and conduction of contact is actually going away from the standard methods of how we have done it in the past to something that anybody has been able to create. So, our learning system caters to that. Even beyond that what is happening we have capabilities integrating with the sub-standard platforms like Coursera, learner.com etc. and corporate have started using these more and more in terms of partnership,” informs Srikanth Gopalakrishnan, Vice President-Product Management, SAP Labs.

Learning is very popular for SAP modules and there is large number of customers worldwide using SAP ERP solutions. From a trending perspective, skill development is getting linked to learning. The integration points are needed to be tighter now. Digital learning is probably going to the way to go online learning. MOOCs being the most prominent of how knowledge is going to be disseminated. “Today we have a knowledge economy where learning is all over the place. It is not just in the classrooms. Specialized learning skills that people are starting to develop, the need for industry are starting to move towards it.”

openSAP is SAP’s innovative learning platform and a thought leader for Enterprise MOOCs, focusing on key SAP technology & business innovations. openSAP offers maximum learning flexibility with compelling MOOC format and provides an engaging and effective learning experience through gamification and by connecting with fellow students and SAP experts.

“Our objective is to offer huge number of courses to the learners. We are running initiatives with Universities. We believe that there is knowledge among the student community and we have a crowd sourcing platform called SAPmile and we are working with six colleges in terms of crowd sourcing, problem statement that we actually want the students to work on. We want to have crowd sourcing platform that allows students to participate in initiatives in terms of execution of certain ideas,” informs Srikanth.

“An institute offering a course at a K12 level and at a graduate- level might avoid duplicating the process. Also, with various other systems going on the cloud, it is very easy to have each part of an ERP linked to other services using webhooks,” adds Kurup.

Adoption

To understand the process of ERP adoption, it is also essential to understand the ERP life cycle framework or process models. According to the study by Ehie and Madsen suggested five stage implementation process of ERP namely project preparation, business blueprint, realization, final preparation, Go live and support.

Despite being one of the best technologies to be adopted in the education sector to improve the working of the sector, yet the adoption seems to be minimal due to high costs involved in the implementation process.

“I think one of the biggest deterrents for adopting of an ERP solution has been that until now, systems were heavy and depended a lot on customization. Now with SAAS offerings and integration with other systems, the implementation times can be reduced to merely a few weeks. So in the coming years, more and more institutes will be adopting a robust ERP system,” feels Kurup.

In a bid to fulfil market requirement, the company intends to design and develop innovative products in video electronics that are tailor-made for the requirements of the India market, says Trushal Alshi, Founder and Managing Director, Willswell Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

What were the various reasons behind starting Willswell Technologies?

Our team has strong technical background in video electronics.There is much space out there for consumer and commercial video electronics in India. We observed that most of the video electronics hardware is being imported to India, and in most of the cases, the importers (mostly traders) do not have control on quality and technical support for the products. The established brands for products, like projectors, also import the finished products. So overall there is limited scope for innovations as the products are not developed, designed in India. They are not tailor-made for the requirements of the Indian market. Our company intends to design and develop innovative products in video electronics like DLP led projectors with interactive function and multi-OS projectors. We also intend to carry out research and development in embedded systems for real-time scientific learning.

Tell us about the various difficulties and hurdles that are encountered in doing business at the ground level?

Being an Indian start-up company in hardware, our brand value was not considered up to the mark. Also, hardware products’ company is very capital intensive, unlike software products and services companies. Initially, for a long time we had to carry out market research extensively. Products had to be evaluated and tested rigorously before promoting and selling them full fledge.

The existing international brands projectors (certain models) fall in 25,000-30,000 thousand price range. These projectors have many drawback compared to our WXGA resolution DLP LED projectors.

Despite the fact that our projectors have many advantages like long lamp life, portability, low power consumption and very little or no maintenance, the high prices of our projectors in comparison to established international models makes it difficult for us to pitch in our projectors.

Our portable interactive kits (PIWB) are a low cost alternative to traditional bulky ‘with frame’ smart boards. However, there is very low level of awareness about the overall concept.

What is the market size of the products offered by you in India at present?

The present products like projectors have a market value as high as `600 crore. Our other product, the portable interactive whiteboard kit, is a first of its kind in India. The market size we expect for such a product is around `10 crore in the first year and depends on the increase in awareness about the product.

What are the major benefits for organisations and individuals adopting your solutions?

Our strong technical background in audio video electronics enables us to understand the technical requirements of our clients at a deeper level.This enables us to suggest and provide end to end solutions to them. Our clients can trust us for quality and post-sales support.

One example is our portable interactive kit. Using this product, existing projector installations can be converted to interactive smart touch board using stylus like e-pen. Any chalk board, whiteboard or plain wall can be converted into interactive board. This option not only saves space in classrooms, meetings rooms, but also provides portability feature. The product has all the features that a conventional smart board provides but at the same time is offered at less than half of the cost of the framed smart boards.The products can also be afforded by students who have projectors available with them.

What is the vision of your company for the next two years?

We intend to become a reputed brand in education and consumer video electronics and will be known for our excellent quality and best technical support.We will be having more variety of innovative products in interactive and video projection domain.

Digital marketing, dominant online presence and professional networking are few of the important measures that we are engaging in to increase the visibility. Roadshows, exhibitions are also important for us

What are the various methods you are using to increase the visibility of your organisation?

Digital marketing, dominant online presence and professional networking are few of the important measures that we are engaging in to increase the visibility. Roadshows, exhibitions are also important for us.

How do you differentiate your services from competitors?

Very strong technical expertise is our major asset. Openness to new ideas of learning and constant drive for innovation is what will enable us to provide a better experience to our clients as compared to our competitors.

What are the measures adopted by you to engage customers. Please share a special case study?

Initial engagements with clients have been a wonderful experience. Our products are very innovative and not many target clients knew about the concept of converting whiteboards into interactive touch screen. We had to carry out several rounds of meetings and demonstrations for the initial clients. These happy clients are now recommending our products to potential clients.

What are the major stakeholders and sectors you are focussing on?

Our focus is on education, corporate and consumer electronics domains. We are also promoting good quality DLP LED projectors as replacement to TV so market is not limited to Education and Corporate.

What are the various initiatives taken by your organisation to emerge as a market leader?

We are paying a lot of attention to the quality of our products. Post sales technical support and periodic upgradation of products to next better level experience is definitely going to help us in the long run. Fruitful long term association with existing client base will also help us emerge as leaders in the market.

Pramod Ponnaluri, Co-Founder, Kitki started his venture in 2013 with a vision to offer experiential learning modules to aid kids experience the beauty of learning through hands-on workshops and field visits. Today, the company develops board games based on geometry, chemistry and history that drive learning in an effective manner

What were the various reasons behind starting Kitki?

I never even thought I would become an entrepreneur. I was part of a fairly standard rat race – do well in school, graduate from a good college (BITS-Pilani), get a well-paying corporate job and climb the hierarchy ladder. It was only after 6 years of corporate experience that I started thinking more freely and realised how I ended up doing a lot of stuff only because someone said so or because that was the trend. Life is short. Why should anyone do what they don’t love. But there is not enough encouragement for kids to dig deep and find what really interests them. Learning new things certainly helps but unfortunately rote learning has taken precedence over true learning. That is where the root of the problem lies and instead of blaming the system, we decided to find a solution and thus started Kitki.

What are the various difficulties encountered in doing business on ground level?

Kitki was started in 2013 with a plan to partner with schools and offer experiential learning modules that can help kids experience the true beauty of learning through hands-on workshops and field visits. What we didn’t realise early enough was that schools take time to make such big changes and we struggled for over one year trying to convince schools to take our modules more seriously. After several pilot programmes at different types of schools, we knew that we could not sustain ourselves with that model. However, during this period we noticed how well game-like mechanics could engage kids and create an interest to learn among them. We took the hint and started developing board games that are a lot of fun but at the same time drive learning in an effective manner.

What is the market size of the services offered by you in India at present?

While the overall toys industry could be around `10,000 crore, we think educational games are about 20-25 per cent of the board games market in India. But our scope includes an additional segment of schools and further, our board games can cater to an international market.

What are the major benefits for organisations adopting your solutions?

Our games are just like any board game. But at the same time, the games are set in an educational context and subtly enough for kids to learn. Kids (and even adults) can purchase these from toy stores and online stores and have fun at home, at parties, at picnics, anywhere. Even schools are interested in adding these to their classrooms to enhance the learning experience.

What is the vision of your company for next two years?

We have already designed three board games that are based on concepts from geometry, chemistry and history. We are looking to build a portfolio of similar high quality board games over the next few years and let kids experience how fascinating learning really is and to develop a curiosity to learn them.

What are the various methods you are using to increase the visibility of your organisation?

Apart from the traditional options of selling through toy stores and online stores, we are looking at spreading the word through workshops and stalls at offices and residential townships.In-stead of focusing on a one time sale, we are looking to build a strong relationship with our potential customers.

While the overall toys industry could be around `10,000 crore, we think educational games are about 20- 25 per cent of the board games market in India. But our scope includes an additional segment of schools and further, our board games can cater to an international market

How can you differentiate your services from competitors?

Game-based learning in India doesn’t have enough competitors yet. Many of those who are in the space are looking focused on only digital learning. Our physical format board games and the high quality detail in both the concepts and the graphic work differentiate Kitki.

What are the ways of engaging the customers with you?

Can you share a case study? Our board games give us the opportunity of developing different variations of a similar subject. For example, our game on history is based on medieval Indian history and specifically highlights the rise of the Delhi Sultanate. The next version will be on how the Delhi Sultanate’s strength grew into the Central India. We plan to stay alongside a child’s learning experience through new games at different stages.

What are the major stakeholders and sectors you are focusing on?

As of now we are focusing only on game-based learning products through board games. We may enter the digital space as well, once we understand our customers better.

What are the various initiatives taken by your organisation to emerge as a market leader?

We value customer relationships a lot more than absolute sales. We plan to just be honest, let our customers know about our aim and let them be a big part of the revolution. We recently ended one such campaign through which we asked people to help us raise enough funds to manufacture our game on geometry, Three Sticks. The campaign was launched on an international platform called Indiegogo and we received a tremendous response. People pre-ordered the game from all over the world, including teachers and education experts and helped us raise over $11,000! We will continue to work towards building better relationships and not worry about our sales or our market share.