Tools
Even though there are many vendors and solutions provided in the market, after initial and high-level analysis and considering multiple factors like robustness, flexibility to work in multiple languages, ability to provide resources, interoperability with other systems, and so forth, we came up with the data lakehouse from Databricks, Inc. as
a possible technical platform solution. This will provide self-analytics solutions for analysts, teachers, and leadership across the organization; provide current and cleaned version of source of truth across all departments; and get the organization future ready for the next decade in view of AI, automation, and predictive modeling capability.
Cost
At a high level, the estimate of implementation of these tools, and including skilled resources, is around $450,000 to $500,000. This central cost component is a one-time technology and tools implementation cost; hiring skilled staff, and governance implementation.
Proposed Tools: Data lakehouse/data warehouse from Databricks
Financial Benefit: High
Medium: Benefits* mentioned next
Long-term benefits: Cost optimization through business processes, accelerated time to development through automation and artificial intelligence, customer responsiveness, risk and compliance effectiveness, trust and governance effectiveness, and increased trust in data and governance.
Short-term benefits: Will recover the cost by removing inefficiencies and redundancies, removing dual licenses, and time saving of resources.
The major benefit would come through cost saving. There are many indirect benefits, like leveraging data for better decision-making through analysis regarding students, creating future-ready curriculum, and more.
Example of Business Case 1: Currently the finance reporting is all manual and takes five months for closure. Having an automated weekly/monthly balance sheet and expense report from platform will provide better control and transparency of costs and expenses for all line items, help close data gaps, and plan and provision finance and budget in a better way. This will reduce the time taken to close the end of financial year from five months to one month.
Example of Business Case 2: Running predictive analytics to see which intervention and recommendation to make to students based on individual needs, life cycle, and performance over time; e.g., educational games, vocabulary lessons, extracurricular activities, etc.