What are the common misunderstandings in higher education admissions software that have led to friction between clients and vendors in legacy software deployment projects? After 16+ years in the space, we have come to identify certain tendencies that we see from other frustrated educational institutions (not our clients, of course) and legacy software providers in the space.
One common misunderstanding that can potentially cause buyer remorse is “the expectation of effortless scalability.” Many buyers expect a higher education admissions software system that will easily scale within their organization whenever appropriate. For example, a university may adopt a CRM system for undergraduate admissions with the expectation that the system should support the intricacies and complexities of graduate admissions and non-traditional programs. The problem with traditional software solutions is that they are not designed to be composable but instead can be likened to pouring permanent concrete. Sure, a concrete wall could be moved after it is built, but not without pain and effort.
To a modern person living in 2024, however, it seems perfectly reasonable to expect that the world of higher education admissions software has evolved to the point where future scalability of requirements, yet to be determined, should not be overly problematic to accommodate. The client may not be able to articulate all of their future requirements for growth, but they have big plans, and they expect a system that will accommodate their future needs. At the same time, to the vendors who provide legacy software systems, this type of vague solution is impossible to satisfy as their systems are designed to adhere to rigid configurations. As such, any impact on the configuration requirements usually involves significant additional technical resources to complete, usually as an expensive change order.
Enrollment Rx Higher Education Admissions Software Solution
At ERX, we realized that our industry would expect easy scalability years ago. We cannot deliver solutions that limit our client’s ability to quickly adopt new operational procedures and support new requirements at the speed of business (even higher education needs to move quickly nowadays). Enrollment Rx delivers composable higher education admissions software solutions that support the rapid configuration of new automation and data models whenever appropriate. The alternatives to our proprietary software products are inflexible systems that require far too many technical resources to modify and maintain in a future-proof capacity. Learn more about how the Enrollment Rx products can help your institution. Please contact us to schedule a live product demonstration today.
