Target-state architecture for a UK university
Making duplication and white space visible across an application estate accumulated function by function — then defining what the target should be.
Context
A university-wide digital technology programme, framed around eight institutional objectives: boosting recruitment and enrolment, optimising resource utilisation, improving operational efficiency, enhancing data insights and reporting, elevating student experience and outcomes, promoting collaboration and breaking down silos, cultivating lifelong alumni and donor relationships, and empowering staff.
The challenge
Universities accumulate application estates by function rather than by design. Student information, research management, learning management, lecture capture, timetabling, the student portal, library management, case management and accommodation each arrive with their own roadmap and owner.
The result is a landscape where the same capability is served by several systems, other capabilities are not served by any system at all, and the institution cannot see which is which. The programme needed a single view of what the university does, what supports it today, and what the target estate should look like — before committing to platform investment.
Approach
- Build the capability model. An institution-wide model covering the academic core — curriculum management, recruitment, admission, enrolment, delivery, assessment and completion — alongside student management and support, research management, and the professional services that sustain them: strategy, governance risk and compliance, library, advancement, marketing, engagement, legal, ICT, HR, finance, information management, and facilities and estates.
- Map the estate onto it. Every capability assessed for whether an application enabled it, and each application classified as existing core, new core, or a gap where no application enabled the capability at all — making duplication and white space visible on the same page.
- Define the target state. A layered architecture — actors, channels, business capabilities, applications — so the estate could be read against what the institution actually does, rather than as a systems inventory.
What was produced
- An institution-wide business capability model spanning academic, research and professional services
- A capability-to-application map identifying enabled, unsupported and duplicated capabilities
- A current-state view of the application landscape across student, research, learning, library, accommodation and professional-services systems
- A layered target-state architecture mapping actors and channels through capabilities to the application estate
The recommendation
Consolidate onto three interoperating core platforms — a service management platform, a CRM and an ERP — each with a distinct role, working together to reduce complexity and provide a unified foundation for students, staff and the wider institution. Capabilities without application support were identified as candidates for the new core platforms rather than for further point solutions.
The toolkits that package this method
The Applications Assessment & Rationalisation Toolkit packages application inventory and scoring, capability-to-application mapping, duplication and coverage analysis, the consolidation opportunity register, and the target landscape and rationalisation roadmap.
The Business Capability Assessment Toolkit provides the capability reference model the landscape is assessed against — the same technique, applied to a different sector.
This piece describes the architecture and the recommendation. Delivery outcomes are not yet published. Client identity withheld and platform names generalised; described at sector level only.