Ground Your Institution for Higher Education’s Future Shock
2024 Institutional IT Benchmark Report
IT departments must become capable of playing a strategic, transformative role rather than remaining a reactive, support function.
Institutions must shift their focus toward building the capabilities necessary to gain a competitive advantage, support student success, and ensure long-term sustainability in an increasingly digital landscape.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Higher education IT departments must focus on organizational readiness and capability building to keep pace with the rate of change.
- IT leadership will need to prioritize innovation, align with institutional strategy, and overcome internal barriers to become transformative agents in higher education’s future
Impact and Result
Analyze your effectiveness from these three perspectives to assess where your institution’s IT department stands:
- Is there institutional support to strengthen organizational capabilities?
- Do executives mandate the necessary innovations and investments to enable growth?
- Can the IT department effectively build the organizational capabilities required?
Ground Your Institution for Higher Education’s Future Shock
2024 Institutional IT Benchmark Report
Executive Summary
Your Challenge |
Common Obstacles |
Info-Tech’s Approach |
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Many institutions are struggling with foundational readiness:
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Info-Tech Overarching Insight
Higher education IT departments must focus on organizational readiness and capability building to keep pace with the rate of change. IT leadership will need to prioritize innovation, align with institutional strategies, and overcome internal barriers to become transformative agents in the future of higher education.
Our data is sourced from five analytical diagnostics
CIO Business Vision Diagnostic
Take Info-Tech’s CIO Business Vision Diagnostic to learn what the business sees as important as well as its satisfaction with various core
IT services.
CEO-CIO ALIGNMENT DIAGNOSTIC
Take Info-Tech’s CEO-CIO Alignment Diagnostic to identify the vision of business executives and determine whether IT is aligned.
Management & Governance Diagnostic*
Take Info-Tech’s Management & Governance Diagnostic to gain real insight into which processes your IT staff think are important and effective.
IT Staffing Diagnostic
Take Info-Tech’s IT Staffing Diagnostic to gain real insight into where your IT staff are spending their time, their perceived effectiveness, and barriers to their success.
Security Governance Diagnostic
Take Info-Tech’s Security Governance Diagnostic to understand strengths and weaknesses of IT security governance and management.
* The data is informed by Info-Tech’s earlier capability model. The recently revised Management & Governance model will be used in future reports.
Higher education executives focus on viability
IT needs to align technology with the executives’ priorities, not the executives with technology.
TOP FIVE PRIORITIES FOR HIGHER EDUCATION EXECUTIVES
- Economic and workforce development
- Government operating support for public colleges and universities
- Higher education's value proposition
- Higher education’s affordability
- Government funding for financial aid programs
Source: State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, 2024
Viability is the top priority of executives. This is largely financial viability, but it also includes enrollment, staffing, and the overall value of a college degree.
Source: Inside Higher Ed, 2024
Higher education IT organizations have mixed support from institutional stakeholders
CIOs must continue to climb the maturity ladder to help their organization develop the necessary capabilities.
Stakeholder satisfaction is IT’s key metric. Higher education IT is rated as a Trusted Operator on Info-Tech’s maturity ladder. CIOs at this level have not moved beyond the traditional role of reliable service provision. The Business Partner level is where most IT departments should aspire. According to the graph below, 38% of organizations are positioned for a role in digital transformation by developing modern capabilities for instruction, research, and operations. The Innovator level has been achieved by the top 10%. These organizations lead innovation without losing sight of necessary service provision.
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
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Unlock Sample ResearchContributors
- Chelsy Pham, D.M./IST, Vice President Information Technology & Resources, Hartnell College
- Dr. Beatrice Heneghan, Director of ICT, University of Galway