Campus leadership is under increasing pressure to drive student retention, optimize enrollment management, and prepare their institutions for AI-driven innovation. Yet without a deliberate focus on data strategy, institutions may not fully realize the value of their digital transformation investments or achieve the agility needed to respond to evolving student and institutional needs.

Forward-thinking campus leaders are taking a foundation-first approach by establishing strong data governance, cloud data architecture, and security practices before or alongside major enterprise initiatives. Whether institutions are leveraging data from ERP, SIS, CRM, learning, advancement, and other enterprise systems, one reality remains constant: data is spread across the institution. As colleges and universities continue advancing modernization initiatives, creating a connected, trusted foundation for insight has become a strategic priority.

This session, moderated by The Tambellini Group, will explore the importance of building data readiness across the ERP lifecycle. Avaap will share firsthand insights and implementation perspectives, along with practical strategies for establishing a trusted data foundation that supports operational excellence, institutional effectiveness, and AI readiness.

Key Discussion Topics

• The Foundation-First Strategic Advantage: Driving analytics ROI, trusted decision-making, and institutional agility before ERP selection, migration, or go-live.
• Higher Education Data Governance & Security: Ensuring compliance, data integrity, and trusted insights across campus.
• Campus AI Readiness: Building the modern data infrastructure needed to support predictive and generative AI use cases.
• Xavier University Case Study: Practical lessons from a parallel-track ERP and data modernization initiative focused on student success, retention, and institutional insight.
• Strategic Outcomes: Leveraging advanced analytics to strengthen student success, retention modeling, enrollment planning, resource allocation, and institutional effectiveness.