Five Questions on Decision Support for Higher Education Institutions

Planning to invest in a decision support system for a university or college? Here are some tips for what to think about and how to avoid common pitfalls. Peter Glans, Business Manager for Higher Education at Hypergene, addresses some frequently asked questions.

1. What Should I Consider at the Start of the Procurement Process?

Participation is a key consideration for many organisations. That's why it's so important to take end-user needs into account – not just those of the finance department and controllers, for example. I also believe it's vital to link needs with visions – in other words, to think long-term and build a view of the organisation's overall needs. Another important consideration is the time plan; the project should not take too long to implement.

2. What Can Hypergene Offer Higher Education Institutes?

A great deal. Hypergene provides complete system support for Operational Management, including a comprehensive range of applications. This means our customers require only a single tool. We support the reporting and analysis of financial data, personnel data and student data, as well as Budget and Forecasting, business plans, Risk Analysis, Workforce Planning and more.

We also have a project support module that lets you produce basic data for your applications by creating budgets for different projects, and then follow up the outcomes. Then we link this all together with what we call "operational reporting". This functionality enables you to merge reports together and invite employees to comment on the outcome. The uses of operational reporting are many and varied.

3. What Are the Benefits of Hypergene’s Decision Support?

Perhaps the most important one is that you don't need to work with multiple systems. Hypergene is the hub for your Operational Management; the different modules in the system are seamlessly integrated and share data, saving valuable time and avoiding duplication of tasks.

Another significant benefit is a boost in the quality of budgeting and forecasting work – mainly because the budgeting process becomes much more manageable and forecast accuracy improves. Exchanging Word and Excel for a comprehensive and well-integrated system boosts efficiency and quality assurance.

4. What Do Hypergene Customers Say?

We received very high ratings in our latest customer survey, which is a good indication that we are delivering value to our customers. Many customers are impressed by our expertise in the area of Higher Education, including our support for the SUHF model, which we work with in flexible ways.

Many also praise our user-friendliness and simplicity. These are important focus areas for us, as they are critical in order to support the wider organisation and not just be a tool for the controllers.

5. What Are the Pitfalls to Avoid?

Perhaps the most common pitfall is excessive micromanagement of the functionality in the early stages. The risk is that you think too much about how something works in the existing system instead of thinking along completely new lines, which can lead to unnecessary costs.

The best solution often appears in the pre-study conducted by our highly experienced Business Consultants together with the organisation.

Hypergene's software provides Decision Support through the collection and presentation of business data to management teams, managers, and those who need to stay on top of Operational Management. Hypergene helps you make decisions, steer towards goals, and achieve higher levels of performance and efficiency.

10-minute video demo of Hypergenes solution:

Five Steps to Better Decisions and More Flexible Management

Management is about making decisions at different levels in an organisation, and translating these decisions into actions that lead the business forward.

A Comprehensive Solution or "Best-of-Breed" Software?

Organisations often ask us about about application strategies. For example, is it smarter to choose a comprehensive solution from one supplier, or to integrate several specialised solutions from different suppliers?

What is Business Intelligence?

Business intelligence (BI) is an umbrella term that refers to data-driven methods and processes for improving business understanding and decision-making.