How Insight and Evaluation Can Lead to Execution
Let’s set the stage. You’re a sharp, focused higher education leader staring down the realities of expanding your online and hybrid learning programs. You’ve got big goals: running your online operations in-house, owning the process, and driving growth on your terms.
This is where Online Growth Enablement comes in. This isn’t a fancy buzzword. It’s the real work behind sustainable change. It’s the boots-on-the-ground understanding of exactly where you are today so you can figure out how to move forward tomorrow.
At Archer, we do this every day — rolling up our sleeves and digging deep to map out the real picture of an institution’s online learning infrastructure. Because, let’s be honest. The only way to grow is to start with the truth about your current state and your place within the landscape of the communities you serve with your programs.
Why Your Current State Matters
Success doesn’t happen in a vacuum — especially not in online learning. Enabling the growth of your online learning infrastructure takes coordination, collaboration, and a whole lot of buy-in from every corner of your university. Marketing, tech, enrollment, financial aid, the registrar, faculty, leadership — if they’re not on the same page as you, you can’t successfully move forward. Period.
Driving real growth starts with taking an unflinching look at where you stand today. Questions you should be asking about your online operations include:
- Where are you strong?
- Where are you struggling?
- Where are the untapped opportunities you can scale?
This isn’t about a vague, feel-good assessment from 50,000 feet up. It’s about getting into the weeds. Because, until you understand the inner workings of your current infrastructure, you’re not going to build anything sustainable. You’ll just be putting a fresh coat of paint on a crumbling foundation. And that’s not going to cut it in the long run.
The Power of Deep Insights
Let’s take a look at a real-world example of why a close examination of your current online learning infrastructure matters. One of our partner universities was taking 14 days to review and process the transcripts of students applying to their online programs. This might work fine for a traditional on-campus program with two or three big start dates a year, but for an online program, the game changes. To stay competitive, you need five or six start dates annually. And that 14-day turnaround? For our partner, it meant missing out on dozens of potential enrollments.
Fixing this issue wasn’t about throwing money at the problem. It was about setting a clear benchmark and making it happen. We worked with the institution to rethink its processes, reassign its teams’ responsibilities, and streamline every single step of its transcript review.
The effectiveness of every touchpoint you have with a potential student and every handoff between your admissions, financial aid, and academic advising teams affects your ability to deliver an overall positive student experience. Deep operational insights aren’t just nice to have; they’re the key to uncovering bottlenecks so you can clear the way for real, measurable growth.
How We Help: The Growth Enablement Assessment
At Archer, we don’t do guesswork. We help our partners make sense of the current state of their online learning infrastructure through our Growth Enablement Assessment — a no-stone-left-unturned look at every department and operational variable. From enrollment workflows to marketing execution, we get into the details that others overlook to help you figure out where you are and make a plan for where you want to be.
Our approach is anchored in our Good, Better, Best methodology:
- Good: Your processes are functional. They get the job done, but let’s be honest — they need improvement to keep pace in a competitive online marketplace.
- Better: There’s progress. Your processes are showing alignment, but they’re not quite optimized yet.
- Best: This is where you want to be. Your processes are efficient, scalable, and fully aligned with your strategic goals.
This isn’t just an audit. It’s a road map. By pinpointing exactly where you stand and where you need to go, we equip you with the insights and strategies to move your online learning operations from functional to thriving.
Why It’s All Worth It
Yes, this takes time. Yes, it’s hard work. But the payoff is undeniable.
Fully understanding the current state of your online learning infrastructure isn’t just a box to check — it’s the foundation for every initiative that follows. It gives you the clarity to enhance not only your online learning programs but also the overall health and effectiveness of your institution.
When you commit to this process, you’re building something bigger than just operational efficiency. You’re creating alignment across departments, fostering innovation, and embedding collaboration and continuous improvement into your institution’s culture. When every team is in sync, bottlenecks disappear, every touchpoint matters, and your processes deliver on the promise of a strong student experience.
It’s not just worth it. It’s transformative. If you’re ready to take the first step toward long-term success and scalability, contact Archer Education. Let’s build the online learning infrastructure your institution deserves, together.
