Tambellini’s Student System Insights in Higher Education

In June, The Tambellini Group published its highly anticipated 2019 Student Systems U.S. Higher Education Market Share, Trends, and Leaders Report, which focuses on student product trends and adoption and provides details unavailable from any other single source. This is the report’s 11th year in publication, and over the past 10 years, Tambellini has seen tremendous change in higher education student systems, evolving from once common on-premises models to today’s largely popular cloud deployment.

Our research shows that an estimated 86 percent of the institutions that made student selections in 2018 chose to deploy in the cloud via either SaaS or hosted/managed models. Conversations have shifted from whether institutions want to move their student systems into the cloud, to when they will migrate to the cloud, what the right strategy is to get there, and whether they want to use a SaaS or hosted/managed deployment model. Tambellini is seeing a significant increase in the number of institutions that are either evaluating or preparing to evaluate modern cloud solutions for student, finance, and human resources.

The 2019 Student Systems U.S. Higher Education Market Share, Trends, and Leaders Report focuses on U.S. student systems selected in 2018. It provides the reader with insights into the total U.S. student vendor market share, 2018 purchasing trends, the most-often selected student systems across each of the types and sizes of institutions, and which vendors are growing the fastest. Tambellini tracks all student system vendors selling to U.S. higher education institutions and regularly briefs with these vendors and the institutions using the solutions. This report provides unbiased data that can enable institutions to better navigate the complex student system vendor landscape.

Research for this report is conducted from the perspective of the decision-maker within a higher education institution and is designed to answer questions such as, “Which vendor solutions have my colleagues recently selected?” and, “How many other institutions with our basic profile have made the decision that I am considering?” In the report, Tambellini provides details of the leading student system vendors’ offerings, coupled with analysis of how various types of institutions are making cloud purchase decisions.

Leading student system vendors reviewed in this report include Campus Management, Ellucian, Jenzabar, Oracle, Unit4, and Workday. Since 2014, these vendors have committed to developing products for cloud deployment to meet higher education goals of streamlining and automating business processes. Institutions are working to integrate third-party software solutions, to consolidate disparate data sources, and to centralize workflows into single systems. Further, institutions are seeking modern student systems that provide constituents improved user experiences with modern and consumer-like user interfaces, mobile and social engagement, and support of self-service business processes. Institutions also cite the need to strengthen data governance and stewardship to leverage data assets for business intelligence and decision-making.

As part of their decision-making process, higher education institutions are looking for systems that can be configured to meet their changing needs and vendors whose corporate culture supports higher education. Institutions favor open standards that enable interoperability between vendor and third-party solutions, and they desire easy-to-use, modern interfaces. Decision-makers consider ease of ongoing maintenance and total cost of ownership. As part of this report series, Tambellini will be releasing individual student system vendor profiles with more in-depth overviews of leading vendors and their products.

Contact The Tambellini Group today to learn more about planning your institution’s student, finance, or HR/HCM system replacement and to gain access to the 2019 Student Systems U.S. Higher Education Market Share, Trends, and Leaders Report and subsequent vendor profiles.