Is Independent Software Development Dying Out - Navigating the Shift Towards Self-Configuring Platforms

In recent years, we have witnessed a remarkable transformation in the software development landscape. Platforms are becoming increasingly self-configuring leading to diminishing dependence on outside development to turn them into productive applications. As the ecosystem of outside developers shrinks, those who remain will need to evolve. What are the implications of this shift and its impact on today’s developers? How can firms prepare to serve modern clients who have ever more sophisticated business needs but, at the same time, require substantially less software development to create corresponding applications?

To be fair, development work does not just disappear. Rather, it shifts from the outside developers, who for years focused on applications’ downstream stage making the partially-done product usable by common folk, to platform companies who create the widest variety of user-ready features that now can be easily deployed through something as simple as a drop-down menu. Remember the ubiquitous web parts that extended mainstream products? These functions are now readily available within the platforms themselves.

So the question put before us now- How will the outside development, or let us just call it an “outside help market”, look like, and what a professional services company can do to remain relevant and competitive?

Embrace the Rise of Self-Configuring Platforms

It is the platform companies that define the market. Smaller developers can embrace the current tsunami of change towards self-configuring platforms or risk losing relevance. The first step is to recognize that modern platforms can streamline development processes and increase efficiency and, therefore, free up valuable resources that can be applied toward innovation. The second is to focus on repositioning the development efforts towards the areas where human expertise is genuinely required, such as artificial intelligence integration, modeling, and operationalizing complex scenarios, end-to-end hybrid process management, and, above all, breakthrough innovation.

 Invest in Diversifying Skill Sets

To thrive in this new landscape, developers must diversify their skill sets beyond traditional coding, which has been mostly absorbed by platform vendors. The newly modernized teams must embrace learning opportunities in operational processes, business analysis, user experience design, and AI integration. The ability to combine automation with a human touch will be crucial in creating seamless, consistent processes that enhance the overall user experience.

 Cultivate Expertise in Platform Integration

Although each platform will be able to accomplish even more all by itself, multiplatform environments will still be present within the enterprise, and platform integration will remain a valuable skill, as more corporations like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google produce robust platforms. Understanding APIs, microservices, and cloud computing will be essential in fully leveraging enterprise-wide deployments of these platforms.

 Foster Culture of Continuous Learning

Lamenting about rapid change has become fashionable but it does not mean that we can ignore the rapid and accelerating rate of change: things happen faster now than before and will happen even faster in the very near future. The workforce that is not ready to learn and evolve will become obsolete and will be replaced. Companies, large and small, must incorporate learning into their working schedules and do their best to guide workers along the knowledge curve.  It will not be enough anymore to be a phenomenal developer or consultant. One must also become a phenomenal learner, but certainly not to the detriment of doing their current job! 

 Collaborate and Share Knowledge

Although we all aspire to be brilliant, few people will be singularly brilliant to NOT require collaborators. Collaboration among developers will be key in this new world of shrinking development needs. More than ever, cross-discipline knowledge and the ability to quickly absorb and incorporate it will be required for success. Organizations will succeed only if they encourage effective and efficient knowledge-sharing and collaboration within teams, communities, or projects. Stepping out of one’s comfort zone must be the requirement, and the only shared view should be the passion for learning. If a developer finds common ground with a human resource expert or a marketer, a truly unorthodox breakthrough might occur.

Emphasize Security and Privacy

Although the new end-to-end, all-inclusive in-platform world appears safer than the old patchwork of loosely connected applications, it still carries significant cyber security and privacy risks. It may be more difficult to break into such a monolithic system but, once an intruder is in, there is little in his way to stop a full-scale exploitation. Developers should prioritize building robust security measures into their applications and nuanced monitoring and alerting.

As self-configuring platforms continue to shape the software development landscape, adapting to the new environment is essential not only for maintaining profitability but also for survival.  Please reach out to Stratuspeer at sales@stratuspeer.com to learn more about how firms are embracing these changes to better serve our current and future clients.

Your Digital immunity - And Your Digital Transformation

The concept of a Digital Immune System (DIS) has emerged as a powerful approach to enhance resilience, combining observability, AI-augmented testing, chaos engineering, auto-remediation, site reliability engineering, and software supply chain security. Each of these DIS components offers a defined framework that, if applied to an organization’s digital strategy, helps define the more resilient digital target state and actions to achieve it.

DIS implementation strategy is firmly rooted in the organization’s business objectives and starts with the creation of an executive-sponsored team to create the strategy itself and ensure its successful execution, an iterative and continuous process. The overall focus of the DIS work is precisely defined, quantified, and continuously measured business outcomes. This allows for prioritization of effort and efficient use of resources to achieve a well-defined highest-value business outcome.

A successful DIS implementation relies on creating dedicated Communities of Practice (CoPs). CoPs, led by enterprise architects, serve as platforms to collect massive amounts of diverse enterprise data and present it in a format relevant to and actionable by the modern digital enterprise. CoPs also integrate AI-based insights, effectively treating those as if they are coming from another team contributor.

Resilience means little if it’s not represented in easily understood terms that can be continuously and reliably measured and acted upon. At the same time, in order to consistently succeed, initiatives that contribute to improving resilience must be rewarded. Initiatives that impact enterprise resilience should be evaluated for tradeoffs, with leaders of resilience-related projects held equally responsible for enhancing customer experiences. By linking resilience improvements to the customer-facing enterprise performance matrices organizations can foster a collective, and ubiquitous, commitment to building a robust Digital Immune System.

In the face of rapid digital transformation, DIS offers organizations a comprehensive and well-articulated approach to boosting resilience while also enhancing experiences and outcomes. By formulating a well-thought-out DIS strategy, fostering CoPs, recognizing resilience improvements, and cultivating a collaborative culture, businesses can establish a robust DIS that not only safeguards against disruptions but also paves the way for sustained growth.

 For more information on the Digital Immune System as a roadmap for organizational evolution, we invite you to speak to a Stratuspeer consultant.

Embracing Proactive Preparedness and Understanding the Threat Landscape

The outcome of dealing with a crisis largely depends on what an organization has done prior to the event’s onset. Did we understand the threat fully and did we make the right preparations? If an answer to any of these two questions is no, organizations and some jobs may not survive the cyber crisis intact.

Stratuspeer partnered with Secureworks to deliver our latest webinar "Leading Through a Crisis With Proactive Preparedness and Understanding the Threat Landscape”. The webinar explores the critical aspects of leadership during times of adversity. It addresses the significance of proactive preparedness and leaders’ responsibility to understand the evolving threat landscape to steer organizations successfully through a cyber crisis.

The webinar highlighted several key components of proactive preparedness:

• Risk Assessment and Scenario Planning. Comprehensive risk assessments, identifying potential threats and vulnerabilities specific to industries and locations, are followed by scenario planning and developing contingency plans.

• Crisis Management Teams. Once the anatomy of the potential cyber crisis is defined, a competent multi-disciplinary crisis management team is assembled from individuals who, in addition to their specific technical skills, possess effective communication skills and a team-centric mindset.

• Crisis Communication. The crisis management communication protocols are established. A proactive communication plan is devised to educate the wider organization on the potential threat and response and help raise the crisis response agility levels.

• Training and Drills. Regular training and crisis simulation drills are developed and carried out.

The discussion covered several crucial aspects of understanding the threat landscape:

• Cybersecurity Challenges. The increasing reliance on technology and digital infrastructure can dramatically alter the organization’s cyber security profile. Fully understanding the current and projected digital setup and applying to it the knowledge of the current threat vectors lead to a more precise definition of projected cyber security challenges.

• Reputational Risks. The sources, distribution mechanisms, and quantified financial impacts of reputational risks must be reviewed and reflected in cyber security planning.

• Economic and Geopolitical Risks. Global events and adverse acts by governments must be included in the organization’s cyber security modeling. Regular reviews ensure that the latest data is utilized.

• Collaboration. The complexity of cyber challenges is increasing, and no organization has the resources or reach to fully understand the threats. A well-designed network of collaborators, public and private, must be engaged in understanding the threat landscape and in planning a response.

The webinar "Leading Through a Crisis With Proactive Preparedness and Understanding the Threat Landscape" highlighted the critical role of well-trained and thoroughly prepared leadership in times of crisis. Proactive preparedness and understanding the threat landscape are no longer optional but imperative for any organization's survival and long-term success.

GLBA in Education – Universities Rushing to Avert a Crisis

The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) was intended for the financial industry. However, educational institutions that accept funding from the US Department of Education are discovering that GLBA also applies to them and failure to comply will be costly.

Under the GLBA, institutions of higher learning must implement prescribed measures to protect the privacy and security of student financial information, including information related to student loans, grants, and scholarships. Failure to comply may result in fines, legal action by the FTC or by affected individuals, and the loss Department of Education’s funding, a frightening addition to an already rich collection of perils for a college or university. GLBA also crosses the organizational protection boundary and targets individual employees who violate the GLBA. They can be fined up to $10,000 per violation which normally corresponds to an individual student record. Since institutions enroll a great many students, a responsible employee may be facing a very hefty penalty, a disposition of which will require legal support further adding to the dramatic price tag.

And… institutions must become largely compliant by June 9, 2023!

GLBA compliance involves a number of steps. A thorough risk assessment to identify potential risks to the privacy and security of student financial information must be conducted. This assessment should evaluate both internal and external risks, including the use of third-party vendors and the potential for data breaches through their systems. The assessment’s findings in regard to protecting student financial data must then be implemented and generally cover physical, administrative, and technical measures, including secure storage, access controls, encryption, and employee training. Educational institutions must also develop and maintain a comprehensive privacy policy, easily accessible by students, employees, and the general public, and regular employee training on GLBA compliance and best practices for protecting student financial information.

Though today no accreditor is known to include GLBA compliance as a specific requirement, it is expected that it will be included soon as part of the validation by an accreditor of an educational institution’s compliance with laws and regulations. As if fines and lawsuits were not enough to make GLBA compliance a Board matter, the prospect of loss of accreditation will certainly elevate the issue to the highest level of the Board’s priority.

First things first though – a GLBA assessment must be conducted to evaluate the current state and gap in compliance. The assessment should include a detailed plan for achieving and maintaining compliance.

Let’s talk about GLBA compliance. Reach out to info@stratuspeer.com or visit us at http://www.stratuspeer.com

Bursting The Cyber Bubble

Cybersecurity costs are consuming an ever greater portion of IT budgets. A multitude of cyber tools, 24x7 monitoring, regular audits, compliance issues, incident response retainers, and dedicated highly compensated staff contribute to creating this very expensive and complex cyber bubble. More and more organizations are concluding that shrinking this bubble starts with first simplifying, standardizing, and rationalizing the infrastructure itself, i.e., reducing the attack surface!

Reducing the attack surface is a critical aspect of cyber security, and can be accomplished through a variety of methods, including implementing access controls, updating software regularly, minimizing the number of unnecessary services and applications, using network segmentation, and staying within a single ecosystem such as Azure or AWS.

Access controls limit the number of people who can access a network or system and can help prevent unauthorized access by attackers. Updating software is crucial to keeping systems and applications secure, as updates often include patches for known vulnerabilities. Removing unnecessary services and applications can reduce the number of potential entry points for attackers, as each service and application represents a potential vulnerability that can be exploited. Staying within a single ecosystem reduces the number of vulnerable APIs and the extent of data-in-transit exposure.

Some of the architecture-level approaches may increase the complexity at a local level but optimize the overall network structure leading to a more favorable overall security profile. Network segmentation, even though this does complexity, helps reduce the risk of organization-wide malware spread if an attack takes place. The same argument can be made in favor of containerization and microservices architecture. Containerization involves packaging applications and services in isolated, lightweight containers that can be easily moved between different environments, thus, isolating applications and services from each other and limiting the amount of code that needs to be secured. Microservices break applications down into smaller, modular services that can be developed and deployed independently, thus, limiting the scope of each service and making it easier to secure each individual component.

 Reducing the attack surface is a crucial component, and should be the starting point, of any effective cyber security strategy. By limiting potential vulnerabilities, entry points, and data movements, organizations can significantly reduce the risk of successful attacks and cyber protection costs.

Want to know more about how Stratuspeer helped customers reduce the attack surface and cyber spending? Please write to us at info@stratuspeer.com or visit us at http://www.stratuspeer.com

Accreditation Impacts: Loss of International Students

The loss of accreditation is a highly impactful event for an institution and its students. But there is one group that may be affected in the most life-changing way – international students who rely on their enrollment at an accredited school to maintain their legal student status in the United States. If an institution loses its accreditation, international students may be forced to transfer to another accredited institution or leave the United States altogether, and do all this within a ridiculously short period of time.

While the impact of the accreditation loss may be more profound for international students, this group may also be more reliant than domestic degree seekers on accreditation as an assurance of educational quality. Outside of the well-known top schools, the accreditation stamp serves as a powerful quality endorsement.

Recognizing the acuteness of the problem, a few changes have been proposed. There is a movement to require institutions to communicate openly and transparently their accreditation efforts to students, including notifying students if reaccreditation is granted conditionally. This may also include a contractual pledge by institutions to help students transition to other accredited institutions within a defined time period if the school loses its accreditation.

At the same time, students may take action themselves. Accreditation loss is rarely sudden. The school’s accreditation status is normally public knowledge and students should task themselves with staying up-to-date on any changes in accreditation status and exploring their options if continued accreditation becomes less than certain. Choosing an institution with a strong historical track record is another path to ensure that the institution’s integrity and, hence, its accreditation is never in doubt.

Education remains one of America’s top exports. Over a million foreign students arrive in the US every year to pursue their studies at accredited schools. Having accreditation support in this highly valuable market may be critical to ensuring that America’s educational dominance remains strong and grows even stronger.

Is Accreditation About to Enter the Danger Zone?

With about 150 accreditors in the US, 80 of them in education, few of us pay much attention to the accreditation seal which an organization might display. For high-profile educational institutions, we do not seem to care at all about their accreditation. We simply assume that a large university’s program in a certain subject is fully legitimate and certainly do not think of checking accreditation data before making our university decisions. Very soon this may be changing.

The Wall Street Journal’s front page article on Wednesday, March 22, 2023 “Colleges Fight a Famed Ranking” suggested that it is the accreditation-rich data collected by an accreditor that should be used by prospective students to educate themselves on their school choices, as universities in swift sequence show the door, or the finger, to U.S . News and its omnipresent rankings. “Presidents and deans say they already disclose many of those numbers to their accreditors and the federal government… Students need to go to one destination to be able to see comprehensive, accurate information from an independent third party that they trust.” It is difficult, if not impossible, to ignore the suggestive inclination.

Accreditation is primarily concerned with ensuring that educational institutions meet certain academic standards rather than making subjective, well-informed, or selective facts based, as the case may be, judgments about quality. However, once rankings are abandoned, there is a danger that accreditation could become a divisive and subjective marketing tool in the eyes of many. This could lead to a subjective interpretation of accreditation standards, with institutions prioritizing those that help them stand out rather than those that truly enhance the quality of their programs. And let us remember that accreditation is a communal affair by the institutions themselves who collaborate on establishing and enforcing accreditation standards.

It is not too difficult to foresee an opportunity for massive conflict, widely spread confusion, and frequent disappointment. The formality of the accreditation programs and their government sponsorship makes it easy to imagine a scenario when an accreditor is sued by disenchanted graduate failing to land the job of their dreams.

It is crucial to maintain the integrity of accreditation by ensuring that it remains objective, uniform, and focused on meeting academic standards rather than becoming a marketing tool. The accreditation field delivers a massive amount of good and has tremendous potential to continue helping the educational community advance and deliver better results. Accreditors do indeed collect massive amounts of data which can be very useful to many. However, accreditors must resist any attempts to turn them into ranking substitutes with implicit suggestions of university choices for an aspiring student, as this will rip out the accreditation core – an objective, uniform, data-driven application of mutually agreed standards to ensure uniformity in delivering quality education.

More or Less Accreditation: Where does the path lead?

The US leads the world in the number of accreditors – over 150 in total and growing. The UK is a distant second with less than 20. This may be the result of the American entrepreneurial culture and our desire for maintaining control. While the number of accreditors is increasing, so is the complexity of accreditation – more is being asked of accreditors and the bar is steadily rising. At the same time, there is a debate if accreditation should serve additional purposes, for example, to replace ratings.

Do we need that much accreditation? Is accreditation the most effective mechanism for enforcing standards and stimulating institutional advancement?

Accreditors are, by design, represented by a self-governing body of peers who agree to regulate themselves. Do we trust this self-oversight or it is inherently flawed? By definition, we have to trust accreditors. They are the gatekeepers and the clearinghouse of approvals and standards. But who do we place this blind trust?

Accreditation is about maintaining certain minimum standards of service. Does accreditation stifle innovation and encourage the status quo? Is accreditation the most effective oversight mechanism for highly dynamic industries with an ever-increasing velocity of change?

Could accreditation in the financial industry benefit from being more precise without unnecessarily restricting all the market participants in their actions?

Some accreditation specialties lag behind in their industries and are viewed as restrictive, hence, limiting progress and commercial freedom. Is there a compelling reason to abandon accreditation for these fields altogether?

The decision of how much accreditation is necessary should be based on careful consideration of the costs and benefits and should be tailored to the specific needs of each industry or sector. While some industries, such as healthcare and finance, may benefit from more accreditation to ensure quality and safety measures, other industries, such as hospitality and technology, may benefit from less accreditation to promote flexibility and innovation.

This post is not designed to provide clear answers but rather encourage debate. We would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Do you believe that certain industries or professions should have more or less oversight requirements? Will less accreditation lead to greater flexibility and innovation? Or will it lead to a corrupt system of distrust?

We look forward to having your comments and hope that a healthy debate should enrich us all.

How to Build a Successful Accreditor

Accreditors abound! Our children go to accreditors schools. We receive care at accredited hospitals. We take our children out to an accredited zoo or an accredited park. Our apartment building safety is reviewed by an accredited surveyor. A military jet flying overhead has parts that were provided by an accredited supplier. In all, the US has over 150 accreditors providing their stamp of approval to very diverse organizations. Accreditors are non-profit organizations that have the potential to generate high revenues and often do it in a captive manner.

We asked a diverse group of accreditors what would make an accreditor successful. This is the summary of their thoughts.

1. Vision and drive of a founder who came up with the idea and received a blessing from an existing body which could be a government agency. Just like any entrepreneur these founders relentlessly drive the organization forward to add new members, expand and strengthen its ecosystem, and dream up new member services.

2. A small market usually means that there is no competition, at least, for now. Outside of education and healthcare markets which are very large and competitive, many accreditors focus on very specific areas which simply do not have any space remaining for a possible competitor to emerge.

Building an ecosystem of members, supporters, and stakeholders builds a framework of interdependency. Disrupting an ecosystem by a few bad decisions can jeopardize even the most captive accreditor and give rise to an idea of a replacement, while for accreditors in the competitive accreditation fields of education and healthcare, the impact could be member loss which may be difficult to reverse.

1. Relentlessly offering new products and services is the path to strengthening member bonds and increasing revenue. Increased revenue is important as it gives an accreditor the freedom to continue innovating.  

2. Digitization of all the routine functions to achieve member intimacy, operational ease and transparency, and increased service speed could be the most critical success factor. Some of the early technology adopters are successful today because of their embrace of digitization AND either retraining their staff or attracting new employers with a digital skill set. Examples of failures are many, as some accreditors let their existing systems deteriorate due to lack of proper management, bought into expansive and expensive visions offered by unscrupulous technology partners, allowed silent sabotage by their long-term staff threatened by the rise of technology, or over-hired developers thinking that this is all that was needed for the project’s success.

3. Pragmatism is my favorite feature of a successful accreditor. Taking into account all the above considerations in a pragmatic manner, building a model and mapping out the processes accordingly remain the key success factors for an accreditor.

Stratuspeer invested heavily in building out our accreditation specialty. Our pragmatic, member-focused, and ecosystem-anchored approach to building accreditation platforms has been winning loyal followers, and to them, we are deeply thankful. We hope our posts may spur discussion or debate which may benefit us all.

Please visit our website for more information or contact @Pavel Karelin on LinkedIn for an introduction and demo.

Accreditation Agency: Valuable Tool or Political Pawn

The role of accreditors in American higher education is often overlooked as few of us bother to check the bottom of a university’s web page for the list of accreditations. Yet, their work is essential to ensure that colleges and universities provide quality education.

In recent years, however, accreditors have faced increased scrutiny and pressure from both federal regulators and political forces. This has led to a difficult struggle for accreditors as they attempt to balance the need to improve institutions with the need to safeguard federal student aid while navigating a fiercely partisan political environment.

Accreditors may be the only systemic bodies to provide independent evaluations of educational institutions, ensuring that they meet rigorous standards of academic excellence and accountability. In doing so, they help to safeguard the integrity of the degrees that American students earn and ensure that these degrees hold value over time. At the same time, accreditors can often be easily blamed for unsuccessful student outcomes or student debt defaults.

Accreditors’ unique role of being a focal point of an educational field – it is much easier to attack one organization which can channel the pressure to many more versus attacking a large number of educational institutions one by one – makes them a unique target for their critics who argue that accreditors are too focused on compliance and paperwork, rather than on student outcomes which are poorly documented and measured. Failure to hold institutions accountable for poor graduation rates, low or inadequate workforce absorption, and a wide mismatch between incomes and student debt are the most frequent and potent arguments.

The increased intensity of American politics has not left accreditors unscared, and, with education becoming a key election issue, the scrutiny is likely to intensify. Political forces on both sides of the aisle have taken aim at accreditors, seeing them as a barrier to innovation or as a tool for enforcing ideological conformity. Some argue that accreditors have stifled innovation in higher education by enforcing traditional academic standards and preventing alternative models of education from emerging. Others contend that accreditors have been complicit in perpetuating systemic inequalities in higher education and failed to hold institutions accountable for addressing issues of race, equity, and social justice.

The struggle facing accreditors today is complex and multifaceted. While more than ever, they play a crucial role in ensuring the quality of and accountability in American higher education, they face criticism and pressure from all sides, with competing demands for compliance, outcomes, and innovation. As we debate the future of American higher education, it is essential that we consider the role of accreditors in this landscape and how we can support them in their efforts to improve institutions, safeguard federal student aid, and navigate political pressures.

Can technology innovation and digitization be the answer to this tsunami of diverse criticism?

Accreditation Agencies: A Valuable Tool for Industry Improvement or A Pawn In Political Battle.

The role of accreditors in American higher education is often overlooked as few of us bother to check the bottom of a university’s web page for the list of accreditations. Yet, their work is essential to ensure that colleges and universities provide quality education.

In recent years, however, accreditors have faced increased scrutiny and pressure from both federal regulators and political forces. This has led to a difficult struggle for accreditors as they attempt to balance the need to improve institutions with the need to safeguard federal student aid while navigating a fiercely partisan political environment.

Accreditors may be the only systemic bodies to provide independent evaluations of educational institutions, ensuring that they meet rigorous standards of academic excellence and accountability. In doing so, they help to safeguard the integrity of the degrees that American students earn and ensure that these degrees hold value over time. At the same time, accreditors can often be easily blamed for unsuccessful student outcomes or student debt defaults.

Accreditors’ unique role of being a focal point of an educational field – it is much easier to attack one organization which can channel the pressure to many more versus attacking a large number of educational institutions one by one – makes them a unique target for their critics who argue that accreditors are too focused on compliance and paperwork, rather than on student outcomes which are poorly documented and measured. Failure to hold institutions accountable for poor graduation rates, low or inadequate workforce absorption, and a wide mismatch between incomes and student debt are the most frequent and potent arguments.

The increased intensity of American politics has not left accreditors unscared, and, with education becoming a key election issue, the scrutiny is likely to intensify. Political forces on both sides of the aisle have taken aim at accreditors, seeing them as a barrier to innovation or as a tool for enforcing ideological conformity. Some argue that accreditors have stifled innovation in higher education by enforcing traditional academic standards and preventing alternative models of education from emerging. Others contend that accreditors have been complicit in perpetuating systemic inequalities in higher education and failed to hold institutions accountable for addressing issues of race, equity, and social justice.

The struggle facing accreditors today is complex and multifaceted. While more than ever, they play a crucial role in ensuring the quality of and accountability in American higher education, they face criticism and pressure from all sides, with competing demands for compliance, outcomes, and innovation. As we debate the future of American higher education, it is essential that we consider the role of accreditors in this landscape and how we can support them in their efforts to improve institutions, safeguard federal student aid, and navigate political pressures.

Can technology innovation and digitization be the answer to this tsunami of diverse criticism?

Series: The Value Beyond Accreditation

As we are continuing our ACCREDITATION VALUE – MEMBER PERSPECTIVE series, we want to dive in into the forth item Value Beyond Accreditation.

 Many accreditors, especially, in education and healthcare compete with each other. While an “accredited” stamp could be vital for an organization's survival, an accreditor can, or even must, deliver value to their members beyond the accreditation itself. By doing so, the accreditors can better retain their members and build a relationship of mutual beneficial partnership.

 On the member side, many organizations lack the resources to chart their path to innovation unassisted. Accreditors, armed with diverse deep knowledge of their field, can assist members with best practices and new ideas to help them innovate and stay ahead of their competition which may be accredited elsewhere. Accreditation should serve not just as a mere stamp of approval but rather as a sign of connection to a fountain of new thinking and ideas.

 The often forgotten invisible stakeholder in the accreditation process is the sponsoring body, such as US Department of Education of Department of Health and Human Services. Accredited organizations, driven by their own interests or profit, should not be expected to implement some practices which are in the public interest but can be costly. Accreditation offers a very convenient path to forcing implementation of process improvements desired by sponsoring bodies.

While accreditation is often essential for a business, there is significant value beyond accreditation that should not be overlooked. Assisting providers with best practices and new ideas during challenging transitions can lead to strong, intimate, and mutually beneficial relationships. This level of involvement fosters increased trust and confidence between the member and accreditor, which ultimately benefits both parties, and delights the sponsoring bodies.

The Curse of the Underutilized Software

Today’s software is expensive. Once a solution is implemented to do what we originally envisioned, it is often somewhat forgotten, steadily diminishing the solution’s value to an enterprise. How can a business increase the value of its software purchases, decrease its spending, and, consequently, simplify its architecture?

The most typical start of the overbuying and underutilization cycle is a purchase driven by a limited understanding of the organizations’ needs and software capabilities. This reality manifests itself in not asking open-ended questions and, thus, not exploring the capabilities that lie beyond the original scope which could be limited or, should we say, overly focused.

Once deployed, further integration and training fall behind. As the software capabilities increase over time, the organization falls behind, often hopelessly, taking advantage of the full potential that a solution can offer.

Some software purchase decisions have a symbolic component to them – at times, complex, highly capable purchases are viewed as status symbols. The organizations are not equipped to take full advantage of their capabilities and lack the internal knowledge, resources, and management resolve.

To address this curse of underutilized software solutions, complex businesses need to start viewing themselves as a framework of interconnected processes that need to be cataloged and represented by dynamic models. This approach would make it very simple – after all the complex work has been completed – to map the organization’s needs to the solution’s functions. A technology partner should be able to inject their digital knowledge into this mapping process which should lead to the discovery of new or more efficient processes or brand-new ways of engaging with the organization’s stakeholders.

From the start, Stratuspeer has been honing its ability to build effective organizational models which then are translated into efficient, effective, and dynamic solutions exploiting every possible bit of value in the underlying software packages. The ongoing process of mapping and matching the organization’s needs and evolving software capability is the more reliable path to avoid underutilization and increase, rather than watch it decline, the solution’s ROI.

Trends in Accreditation (again!)

Accreditation is continuously evolving to keep pace with changes in education and the workforce.

1. Online and hybrid learning. With the growth of online and hybrid learning, accreditors are adapting to evaluate and accredit newly launched programs and institutions and are advising on the best delivery methods.

2. Competency-based education. Competency-based education, which focuses on students demonstrating their knowledge and skills through assessments, is becoming increasingly popular. Accreditors are exploring new approaches to evaluate competency-based programs and ensure they meet rigorous standards.

3. Interdisciplinary programs. Interdisciplinary programs combine multiple fields of study and are becoming more common.  Accreditors, in partnership with educational institutions, are developing new methods to establish measurable standards for these more complex educational processes.

4. International accreditation. As education responds to the needs of a globalized workforce, it is becoming a truly global field. Effective online delivery has accelerated this trend. Accreditors are expanding their reach internationally and working to develop standards and processes for accrediting institutions and programs outside of their home countries.

5. Data-driven accreditation. Accreditors are using data and analytics to improve the accreditation process and to evaluate institutions and programs more effectively and efficiently. This, in turn, is changing the type of data that accreditors collect from their members and the systems that support the accreditation process itself.

6. Student-centered accreditation, Accreditation is becoming more focused on student learning outcomes, which are measurable and easily demonstratable and can help prospective students with making their choices of a learning institution or future career.

Overall, these trends reflect a broader emphasis on quality, innovation, globalization, student success in accreditation, and a commitment to adapting to the changing needs of education and the workforce.

Why do we need accreditation?

As we continue focusing on helping accreditors worldwide advance their missions, we wanted to take a step back and ask a question – why do we even need accreditors? We discovered that our answers are the guiding principles for our work!

Starting with the definition, accreditation is a process by which a third-party organization evaluates and recognizes the quality and credibility of institutions, programs, or professional certification bodies in education, healthcare, and many other industries, including summer camps, parks, and zoos. Accreditation is intended to ensure that the institutions and programs meet certain standards of quality and that the degrees or certifications they award are credible and valuable.

The value of accreditation can be summarized as follows:

1.       Quality assurance. Accreditation provides a means of evaluating and verifying the quality of educational institutions and programs, helping students and employers to identify those that meet high standards of academic excellence.

2.       Credibility. Accreditation gives credibility to institutions, programs, and certifications, and signals to employers, clients, and the public that these have been evaluated and recognized as meeting high standards of quality.

3.       Improved reputation. Accreditation can enhance the reputation of institutions, programs, and certifications, making them more attractive to students, clients, and employers.

4.       Access to resources. Accreditation can open up access to resources, such as student financial aid, healthcare reimbursements, or government grants, and opportunities for collaboration with other accredited institutions and programs.

5.       Better career outcomes. Accreditation can lead to better career outcomes for graduates, as employers often prefer to hire individuals who have received degrees or certifications from accredited institutions and programs.

 In summary, accreditation provides assurance of quality, credibility, and value, and can play a key role in ensuring continued improvement of service outcomes.

Series: Positive Culture

As we are continuing our ACCREDITATION VALUE – MEMBER PERSPECTIVE series, we want to dive into the second item, Positive Culture.

Being pleasant and positive is an important part of attracting, retaining, and consistently delighting members. Creating an environment where this culture of positivity can develop and flourish falls on accreditor management – consistently successful accreditors excel at that challenge.

However, in our fast-moving and ever more complex world, this positive culture must be supplemented by a commitment to member empathy. We collectively must excel at appreciating a point of view that is different from ours or simply not visible to us at the moment. We need to recognize that the issues we encounter in our daily interactions are not caused by people but rather by circumstances beyond their control, such as insufficient training, unrealistic deadlines, and lacking support. The organizational process may make it difficult for the accreditation director to obtain required data or provide access to that data when needed.

Conveying this empathy will go a long way to frame accreditation as a process of mutual improvement and shared organizational and personal growth and an opportunity to achieve a valuable outcome together in an environment built on trust.

Series: Digital First

As we are continuing our ACCREDITATION VALUE – MEMBER PERSPECTIVE series, we want to dive into the first item Digital First.

Having an intuitive and easy-to-use member portal has become a must-have for any accreditor. A prospective member’s first interaction with an accreditor is usually through an inquiry part of the portal. There is an expectation that this first and subsequent interaction will go exceptionally smoothly and, using industry vernacular, will delight the member.

The digital first expectation is not limited to member interactions only. Transparency, proactive alerting, rich reporting, and automated process guidance are now expected. Clients simply want to have this data at their fingertips without picking up a phone to speak to a human. Replacing a human being who used to carry out these manual tasks with intelligent software not only reduces the accreditor costs but also dramatically improves the quality and consistency of delivered services.

Digital does the high-volume, manual work and does it better, leaving accreditor staff with the opportunity to advise their members and establish a true business partnership based on shared success.

Series: Five Simple Ways Accreditation Can Attract Members

Faced with an increased pace of societal change, the public and regulators rely on the process of accreditation more than ever. In response, the accreditation as a thought area – I am hesitant to call it a “market” in this context – has been expanding. Existing accreditors have grown, and new ones have been established often increasing the competition exponentially. What will attract and help retain members?

1. Digital First. Members’ first interaction with an accreditor will be through a portal. The portal’s ease of use, intuitiveness, and ability to provide real-time insight into the process of accreditation may be the “must” without which a mutually successful relationship between the accreditor and member may not be possible.

2. Positive Culture. Accreditation can be a tedious and stressful process. Many institutions will be challenged to gather the required data, carry out prescribed changes, and communicate succinctly and effectively with an accreditor. Empathy will go a long way to convey that this is a mutual process of change, and improvement, rather than regulatory oversight.

3. Commitment to Mission & Outcome. Few can argue that the focus on the service outcome is increasing. The public demands it, regulators work to encourage and incentivize it, and institutions use it as a catalyst for change. A modern successful accreditor, and one which will be a strong competitor, must convey its commitment to the service mission and outcome in every interaction.

4. Value Beyond Accreditation. All organizations must be accredited but only a few of them have ample resources to chart their path to innovation unassisted. Most vendors lack such resources and would like their accreditors to help with best practices and new ideas. Assisting a provider with a challenging transition will ensure that your relationship is strong, intimate, and truly mutually beneficial.

5. People First. You have, certainly, noticed that we started with Digital First and are finishing with People First, which would sound like a totally incongruent circle of thought. It is not! As the relationship progresses, the technological ease is likely to be taken for granted, while the accreditor’s staff's ability to advise and advance their members in a thoughtful and positive manner will determine their satisfaction with the accreditor’s services. Technological innovation will also free people up from taking up more complex and analytical tasks, making their job much more interesting and valuable to the institutions in the process.

Without doubt, accreditation is increasing in importance to every stakeholder. Following these five simple principles would allow an accreditor to attract and retain their members.

Look for more on this series coming soon.

Accreditation's Culture of Continuous Improvement

The field of education is undergoing one of the most significant transformations of our time driven by students, parents, and a general populace who want to see a concrete and measurable return on their investment of money, time, and effort. As prospective students evaluate their many options, they struggle to connect their learning experiences to specific learning outcomes, assess the quality of an academic offering, and fully size up their expected commitment as aspiring learners. Few systemic tools exist today to assist prospective students with making informed decisions. However, these tools are rapidly evolving, although they remain largely obscured from the general public.

Not too long ago accreditation, largely invisible to consumers of educational services, served one single purpose for academic institutions – ensure their students’ access to federal funds. Today, progressive academia sees accreditation as an opportunity to collectively improve the delivery of educational services. Accreditation is a communal affair as institutions coalesce under an accreditor’s umbrella to establish and advance the accreditation standards that would govern them. As universities strive to prove their worth to the increasingly skeptical public, they look to their accreditors to come up with innovative ways to enable the processes, systems and reporting that could make it easier to demonstrate the value of learning as measured by students’ progress and learning outcomes. This, in turn, will support and further the culture of continuous improvement in education

The concept of continuous improvement has been coming up in today’s academia with increased frequency. Some institutions have made substantial progress in instilling this culture institution-wide, while others are struggling to define what continuous improvement means to them and how it can be enabled. Accreditation applies to all and can serve as an industry-wide, or field-wide, platform to define the concept of continuous improvement, “sell” it too often skeptical and change adverse academia, and devise the processes to enable the transition to such a highly dynamic approach to advancing education.

Accreditors are stepping up to the task and are hard at work to advance their thinking and approach, innovate their systems, and redefine their collaboration with accredited institutions. We should all look forward to new exciting developments in the accreditation field as accreditors work to make continuous improvement in education a reality.

CISO’s Biggest Challenge – How to Recruit Non-IT Colleagues to Become Cyber Advocates

Much has been written about how cyber security has become the ubiquitous C-level concern. As organizations reduce their IT budgets, the cyber budgets continue to grow. Having an inelegant user interface may be embarrassing but missing a key cyber consideration has become career altering, or worse. On top of that, cyber security is no longer relegated to a few members of the cyber security team – every employee now can play a role in putting up cyber defenses. Few of us HAVE NOT received a totally legitimate email from our boss with a perfectly normal request. White hat hackers routinely succeed in gaining access to corporate networks while performing annual penetration test.

As the access is gained at the end point level, the individual employee becomes the front line fighter in the raging cyber war. How can a CISO recruit their non IT colleagues to fight in this war?

The modern CISO cannot be focused on the technology alone any longer. A thorough understanding of all enterprise functions is now required to ensure cyber health and readiness. A CISO must recruit champions who will help drive the cyber awareness throughout their departments. This is often accomplished by building a security council which owns the enterprise cyber security agenda.

A detailed communication plan, which may have to be customized for each department, will be necessary to build awareness and sense of personal responsibility and even pride for the company’s cyber efforts. Every communication must emphasize the business value of each cyber step, especially, if a step restricts or complicates an important business function. This may call for an experienced internal communication partner who is skilled in the company’s culture and politics.

A modern CISO must combine an unsatiable thirst for knowledge to maintain its cyber credentials, an aptitude to absorb and understand multiple corporate processes, and an ultra pleasant attitude to convince an often skeptical audience to be their champions. This is a tough but incredibly exciting lot!