Three Tips from Tec de Monterrey for Your Institutional Digital Transformation Strategy

During Ellucian Live 2023, our Ellucian LAC Podcast and the EdUp en Español podcast collaborated to capture the vision of transformation and innovation of two institutional leaders, who met at the largest technology conference for the management of higher education.

In this episode, Adriana Angarita, co-founder of EdUp en Español, with extensive experience in leadership of higher education institutions and expert in digital transformation oriented to the success of the development of institutions to academic processes, spoke with Carles Abarca, Vice President of Digital Transformation of Tec de Monterrey, Mexico, about the importance of achieving a quality of digital banking grade services in higher education.

Digital transformation in an Educational Institution

The Tec de Monterrey, in Mexico, created the Vice Presidency of Digital Transformation to give technology the strategic place it deserves in the path of institutional excellence. This new position came from an understanding that technology is already an integral part of the educational process. It is impossible to separate the use that higher education institutions make of technology in the service they provide and a good way to improve the services they offer is to reflect on the levels of demand of other sectors to be able to set the bar a little higher.

There are many areas in technology in which the term banking grade is used, it is not really a term that has been defined by some theorist and simply helps to indicate a high level of sophistication and excellence, mainly in security, but that can be extended to the digital services in general offered by an institution. Carles Abarca's goal has been to channel the efforts that Tec has already made historically in technology to offer a digital banking grade experience.

Three tips from Carles Abarca, Vice President of Digital Transformation at Tec de Monterrey, to take into account your institutions digital transformation strategy

There are many areas in technology in which the term banking grade is used, it is not really a term that has been defined by some theorist and simply helps to indicate a high level of sophistication and excellence, mainly in security, but that can be extended to the digital services in general offered by an institution. Carles Abarca's goal has been to channel the efforts that Tec has already made historically in technology to offer a digital banking grade experience.

Digitalization, the incorporation of technology in the central processes of an institution for many years has ceased to be the exclusive responsibility of the technology areas, it is an organizational challenge, it is a challenge of collective change, it is about assuming that the corporate culture has to migrate towards models that seek excellence, instantaneity, speed, data quality. The ultimate goal is the satisfaction of our audiences, our students are used to consuming digital services without friction, we can not continue giving them less than what they expect to receive from an institution like Tec.

These levels of excellence and the pressure that other sectors have suffered for their transformation, place us at a disadvantage for a good number of years, but I would say that focusing on three main factors in the face of the digital transformation of higher education, we would be starting a good path:

1. Have a data strategy

Find a time to design your own data strategy. In all institutions, not just academic ones in general, the lack of data strategy is usually one of the tightest deficits. A data strategy seeks to eliminate dispersion, repetition and incongruity. We must define and look for the elements of data quality that are well measured. It is impossible to propose an ambitious digital transformation strategy without resting on a solid foundation of data, because data is the fuel for everything we have to do.

Only with reliable data and knowing well its life cycle: where I acquire it, how I transform it and how valid it is, only then will I be able to build cutting-edge processes. Because data is what allows me to know my needs, measure the effectiveness of my digital processes.

2. Have the impact of Artificial Intelligence on your radar

Something that is now very fashionable and that I would also place as one of the hits in the digital transformation, because this implies thinking in the medium term, is the role that artificial intelligence has to play in education. It is a transcendent issue. I would dare to say, without being a futurologist, that at some point in history someone will talk about the 2020s as the moment of the artificial intelligence revolution, the time when everything began to change for society and particularly for higher education.

3. Have a cybersecurity strategy

There is an issue that has always been very strong in banking and it is the issue of security, it is a super developed industry in this, in higher education, on the contrary, it is perhaps one of the most important fragilities. We have a long history of defending bank assets against technological fraud for an obvious reason is that banking handles money as raw material and there is no more interesting raw material for hackers. But broadening the focus, these are situations in which the data they are stealing is a sensitive data, transferred to higher education, that data has no marketing value, it has a high reputational value.

Building a good cybersecurity strategy is vital because the immediate consequence of launching an ambitious program of digital transformation is that we expose ourselves more digitally, we potentially expand the vulnerability of our digital environments, if we do not have special attention to how we protect our most important assets, the data of our audiences, then, "unfortunately" higher education institutions will have to look a little more like the banks in the future.

In short, the opportunity is gigantic, and opportunities should not be feared, we must have respect, the opportunity to transform the way we educate people, to reach more people, to transform more lives and do it in a way that contributes to society, is something we cannot miss. There is something that historically defines this sector: the purpose, I am convinced that all of us who are in this sector dedicate our professional mission to that purpose.