World University IT: Issues, Solutions, and Social Media Strategy

This report analyzes the IT management issues facing World University, a proposed online educational institution. It identifies problems such as the lack of a suitable online learning platform and student management system. The report suggests solutions including the implementation of a cloud-based CRM system for efficient data storage and management, as well as the adoption of business analytics to forecast student enrollment and optimize resource allocation. Furthermore, it emphasizes the role of social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn in promoting the university's business model and attracting students. The report concludes with recommendations for successful implementation and sustained growth.

Running Head: IT MANAGEMENT ISSUES
IT Management Issues
Name of the Student
Name of the University

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Executive Summary
World University is a proposed online university that will provide students from various parts of
the world online learning courses in various subjects. In addition to getting access to the course
from any location, the student will also be able to gain a degree from a country of his course. For
supporting this goal, several recommendations have been made in the report including the
implementation of cloud based CRM system and business analytics. In addition, several issues
with the existing system have been identified and the possible solutions have been provided
accordingly.

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Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Analysis of the Case: World University....................................................................................3
2.1 The Proposal..........................................................................................................................3
2.2 Analysis of the Proposal........................................................................................................4
2.3 Identification of the Problems...............................................................................................5
2.4 Suggested Business Processes / Solutions.............................................................................6
2.5 Role of Social Media in Promotion of the Model..................................................................8
3.0 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................9
4.0 Recommendations....................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11

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1.0 Introduction
In this scenario, a number of private education institutions from different countries of the
world have come together with the proposal for developing a World University that will provide
online courses to the students around the world (Schwalbe, 2015). In this university, all the
learning courses as well as the registration processes for the students will be conducted online.
Furthermore, the students will be able to register from any country and they will also be able to
choose the country that they prefer to graduate from (Schermerhorn et al., 2014). All other
features like providing course details, reference study materials, admission forms and others will
be provided online whereas the students will be provided with necessary devices like laptops
loaded with all required software will be delivered to the students’ addresses.
This report is based on the analysis of this proposal made by the institutions and
identification of the problems associated with the proposal as well as possible solutions.
2.0 Analysis of the Case: World University
2.1 The Proposal
According to the proposal made by the institutions, the World University will be set up
for providing online education to the students around the world. In addition to the online
university as proposed, there are some additional features that will be incorporated within the
system (Boud, Cohen & Sampson, 2014). These features are as follows.
Study Together Loyalty – The senior management wants to introduce a student loyalty
scheme in which, if a student introduces the university to another student, the student will

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receive fee credits that will be added directly to his account. However, the exact value of the fee
will depend on the course selected by the student (Laudon & Laudon, 2015). Furthermore, the
management also wants to use different agents to sell the offerings of the university to the
employers. The payment system will also be through online gateway using PayPal and other
credit cards.
Study Resources – As a part of the course, the students will be provided with laptops and
online e-books of study resources. The laptops will have all the required software for the course
installed within it when delivered (Eason, 2014). The students who have registered for any
course will have to pay for both of the resources and will not be able to opt out of these resources
after his registration for a course is complete. The laptops will be delivered to the students’
addresses once the registrations and payments are complete.
2.2 Analysis of the Proposal
From the proposal, it can be said that the World University has a lot of business potential
if the implementations are done in the correct manner. Some of the main benefits and advantages
of the proposed system are discussed as follows.
Online Learning – Due to the entirely online learning, the students will not have to visit
the classrooms for the lessons. They will just require a laptop and a good internet connection to
access the learning portal where they will able to watch the teaching videos posted by various
lectures (Avgerou & Walsham, 2017). Furthermore, the students will be able to access the portal
from any location in the world. Hence, it is expected that more and more students will be
interested and will sign up for the courses and the business will continue to grow over the years.

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Loyalty Scheme – The loyalty scheme will significantly benefit the business of the
university. As per the loyalty scheme, a student has to refer more students in order to receive fee
credits (Van Der Aalst, La Rosa & Santoro, 2016). This will work as a chain and will
exponentially increase the number of new admissions to the university, effectively increasing the
overall revenue of the university within a very short period of time.
No Physical Operational Costs – The online university will not have any physical
operational costs like maintaining classrooms, providing utilities and electrical connections to the
classrooms, installation of workstations, desks, study materials and others. Instead, it will only
require the lecturers to conduct video lectures and post it in the learning portal using an internet
connection (Figliola & Fischer, 2015). It is evident that the overall operational costs will be
reduced significantly thus effectively increasing the profit margin. In addition, this system will
be able to reach more students than physical classrooms where there are limited number of
students.
2.3 Identification of the Problems
In spite of all the benefits, there are certain problems associated with the World
University. These problems are discussed as follows.
No Appropriate Medium Selected – The first problem that has been identified is that no
appropriate medium has been selected by the senior management for undertaking the learning
courses (Bryson, 2017). No proposals have been made regarding the development of an online
portal for the education and the use of database for storing all the student data and course
materials. It is to be noted that the university wants to reach students from around the world and
not just limited to a specific country or area. As a result, the amount of student data to be stored

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by the company database is enormous and requires a suitable medium for storage that will also
have accessibility from various locations around the world (Kramer, Kinn & Mishkind, 2015). In
addition to the storage, there is also the problem of data management. Manually managing all the
student and course data in enormous volumes will require high manpower for which, the
company will have to incur heavy costs. Thus a system is required for effective and efficient
storage and management of enormous volumes of data.
No Planning on Student Management – It is expected that a large number of students
will join the different course of World University. However, there is no proper student
management plan developed for the university (Ptak & Schragenheim, 2016). In addition, the
company has only estimated the number of students that will join the courses in the next few
years and have developed initial plans for the same. However, in order to maintain business in
the current market, the company needs to forecast the number of new students accurately and
prepare management plan for the same accordingly (Galliers & Leidner, 2014). For instance, let
the company has projected there will be 700 new students in the next 5 months but the actual
value is found out to be 5000. As a result, due to lack of student management system, the entire
online learning course will fail, thus reducing the interests of students in the system. This in turn
will negatively affect the business of the company.
2.4 Suggested Business Processes / Solutions
Based on the analysis of the problems faced by the university, there are two possible
business solutions that will positively affect the business of the university. These two business
solutions are as follows.

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Cloud Based CRM System – One of the main business solution suggested for the
university is the cloud based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. The cloud
based system will provide unlimited storage space where all the student data, administration
data, business data and others will be stored without any limitations and restrictions
(Khodakarami & Chan, 2014). Furthermore, the cloud based system will provide option for
efficient, effective and fast management of large volumes of data without the need for much
manual processing. The cloud based system will also ensure that the database is accessible from
anywhere in the world using internet connection and hence, any student will be able to access
required data from any location (Nyadzayo & Khajehzadeh, 2016). The CRM system will
provide the university with a specific business portal that is aimed to provide the users with a
huge range of benefits. The business portal will be an online portal where the university will be
able to upload all required information, educational contents like videos, online study materials
and others (Navimipour & Soltani, 2016). This portal will reach the students in the form of
university portal. In order to gain access to this portal, a student will have to register with the
university using his email id and his profile will be created. Through this portal, he will be to
view various course information and register for a specific course. The portal will also have the
option to pay for the course online as it will have payment gateways through which the students
can pay using credit card or PayPal. The overall implementation cost for this entire system will
be very high but the operational costs will be much less compared to the manually managed
system.
Business Analytics – Another important business solution that will be useful for World
University is business analytics. Business analytics is a useful business tool that is used to make
predictions and forecast based on the changes in the market and other pre-set conditions. Using

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business analytics, the university will be able to predict an estimated number of students who
will register for learning courses in the near future (Eichorn, 2018). While these values are
known, it will be easier for the company to prepare suitable management and resource plan for
all the students registering for learning courses with the university.
2.5 Role of Social Media in Promotion of the Model
Social Media can play a major role in the promotion of the model to be used by World
University. Social medium is a platform where millions of people are connected from around the
world. Hence, it is a very good idea to use social media for promotion of the business model of
the university. The promotion of the model through social media can be done in a number of
ways that are as follows.
Creating Facebook Page – One of the best methods of promotion of the model is by
creating a facebook page for the university and boosting its reach by making certain amount of
payments. The page should contain all the relevant information regarding course details, benefits
and others so that the page visitors can easily know about the university (Greve & Schlüschen,
2018). In addition, through the page, the university can conduct various events and promotions
from time to time with rewards such as fee credits if the winners decide to enroll for the courses
provided by the university. Creating a group in the same medium can also be effective where
existing and new students can interact with each other as well as promote the university among
their friends and family members.
Opening Profiles in Business Social Media like LinkedIn – The university can also use
business social media platforms like LinkedIn where it can promote its business model and
attract students are already active in the same platform (Soltani & Navimipour, 2016). It has

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been seen that in the past, there has been a lot of new course enrolments and job recruitments
through LinkedIn and hence, it can be effectively used as a platform for the promotion of the
model.
3.0 Conclusion
Finally, the report can be concluded with the summary of all the findings from the study.
From the case study, it is seen that different private institutions are joining hands to develop a
World University that will conduct learning courses online. Students from various parts of the
world will be able to enroll for the courses and choose the country through which he wants to
graduate. The senior management has already made plans for several schemes and strategies that
include loyalty scheme, student referral system, providing study materials and equipments and
others. However, the management has not come up with a suitable plan for overall business
framework that will be following for a sustainable growth in business of the company. In order
to achieve that goal, the company also needs to consider several business related issues that must
be addressed before a suitable business framework is implemented. Some of the proposed
business solutions provided for World University include cloud based CRM system and business
analytics. Using the CRM system, the company will be able to establish a cloud based database
server in which all data and information include student, business, course and other data will be
stored. Due to use of cloud, any student or management team member or a lecturer will be able
to access the required data from any location on the earth. The CRM system will also provide
with a much better and efficient business management system as all the operations will be
conducted through the cloud based system. Using business analytics, the company will be able to

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forecast future of the business and will be able to undertake suitable management plans
accordingly.
4.0 Recommendations
Based on the analysis of the case study, certain recommendations can be provided as
follows.
Develop a Suitable Business Framework – The first initiative that the management
needs to take is to develop a suitable business framework for the proposed World University.
Although the management has already decided upon certain schemes like loyalty scheme,
resources for students and others, they also need to invest more ideas in developing the actual
business procedure. This includes promotion of the university through various media, structuring
course fees, hiring of lecturers for online teaching of various subjects, procuring online technical
resources and equipments and others. This also requires the development of a suitable budget
plan so that the company makes the right investments and gain suitable cost benefit from the
same.
Development of Cloud-Based CRM System – A recommended model for the university
is the cloud based CRM system that will help it develop a suitable IT framework that will also
play a significant role in the business of the company. Using the cloud based system, the system
users like students, lecturers and others will be able to access course data whenever needed from
any location. The CRM system will also provide with a much better and efficient business
management system as all the operations will be conducted through the cloud based system.

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References
Avgerou, C., & Walsham, G. (Eds.). (2017). Information Technology in Context: Studies from
the Perspective of Developing Countries: Studies from the Perspective of Developing
Countries. Routledge.
Boud, D., Cohen, R., & Sampson, J. (Eds.). (2014). Peer learning in higher education: Learning
from and with each other. Routledge.
Bryson, J. (2017). Effective library and information centre management. Routledge.
Eason, K. D. (2014). Information technology and organisational change. CRC Press.
Eichorn, F. L. (2018). Internal customer relationship management (IntCRM) a framework for
achieving customer relationship management from the inside out. Management, 2, 1.
Figliola, P. M., & Fischer, E. A. (2015). Overview and issues for implementation of the federal
cloud computing initiative: Implications for federal information technology reform
management. US Congressional Research Service (CRS), 1.
Galliers, R. D., & Leidner, D. E. (Eds.). (2014). Strategic information management: challenges
and strategies in managing information systems. Routledge.
Greve, G., & Schlüschen, A. (2018). From Customer Relationship Management to Influencer
Relationship Management. In Diverse Methods in Customer Relationship Marketing and
Management (pp. 80-91). IGI Global.