This week, we offer a practical business case framework for higher education digital transformation, covering challenges, benefits, risks, costs, and implementation that you can use to align your digital initiatives with strategic goals to secure leadership buy-in to stay competitive.
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Sample business case for digital transformation

Content strategy Digital marketing Higher education challenges Tips & advice Web development

In Part I of this blog post, we talked about how you can build a compelling case for digital transformation at your university or college with a practical roadmap to present digital projects in a way that resonates with your leadership teams.

But now that you’ve captured their attention, what’s next?

A business case is your opportunity to turn ambition into action and show decision makers what digital transformation can look like.

With a business case, you can connect digital innovation to the institutional priorities that matter most: student engagement, enrollment growth, operational efficiency, and brand strength.

So where to get started?

In this week’s article, we offer a sample business case framework that you can tailor to your own higher education digital transformation journey.

1. Executive summary: Setting the stage for change

The Executive Summary is the place to provide a clear, compelling snapshot of the challenge and opportunity, and to lay out the action plan.

The challenge

The challenge often revolves around pain points from outdated web content management and digital engagement platforms that are slowing down publishing, not mobile-friendly, that put universities at risk for non-compliance with outdated content, and make it harder to engage with target audiences (students, parents, donors, staff, etc.).

The challenge could include common pain points (expanded on below)

The opportunity

This opportunity is ultimately to invest in a modern digital engagement platform/web CMS to improve the student experience, increase conversions, reduce operational costs, and future-proof your digital ecosystem.

Simply put, the opportunity is to implement a cloud-based, headless CMS to deliver faster, more personalized digital experiences.

The action plan

The action plan section shows how to implement a scalable, integration-friendly digital engagement platform that empowers content teams, enhances analytics capabilities, and supports omnichannel engagement.

The action plan could include selecting a vendor, migrating priority content, training your teams, and setting a launch deadline.

2. The current situation: Why act now

In this section, you can outline the pain points and the risks of inaction.

Today’s students expect seamless, personalized digital experiences. Outdated CMS platforms limit your ability to grow and serve your community with:

  • Painful publishing bottlenecks
  • Poor mobile responsiveness
  • Frustration among developers, editors, and users
  • Inability to personalize or optimize content by audience
  • Risk of falling behind competitors with more agile digital experiences

[Example] Pain points 

  • Our website updates take an average of 14 days due to bottlenecks between marketing and IT.
  • Mobile bounce rates have increased by 23% in the past 12 months, indicating a poor mobile experience.
  • The CMS lacks personalization capabilities, limiting our ability to tailor communications for prospective students from different regions or programs.
  • Our current vendor’s roadmap shows no major improvements planned, suggesting future stagnation.

[Example] Risks of inaction: Inaction on digital transformation puts us at risk of falling behind competitors, losing students, wasting resources, and damaging our reputation in an increasingly digital-first education landscape.

Without modern systems, we could face declining enrollment, inefficient operations, and missed opportunities for growth and engagement.

3. Benefits and limitations: The value equation

Digital transformation offers powerful benefits for higher education institutions, from streamlined operations to enhanced student engagement, but it’s not without its limitations, and it’s important to list both so your leadership team can make informed, strategic decisions.

Benefits

These would often revolve around improving website performance and SEO, driving more organic traffic, increasing conversions through personalized content and better UX, streamlined workflows, scalability, freeing up IT and marketing resources, and strong compliance with accessibility and data privacy regulations.

You can get very specific and list, for example, the percentage increase in organic traffic you wish to have, or the percentage of reduction in IT support time.

Acknowledged limitations

Common limitations are the initial investment in licensing, implementation, and training; the need for cross-department collaboration during migration, which is not negligible, and change management to support the adoption of your new platform.

[Example limitations]

  • Initial implementation will require a six-month adjustment period for staff to become proficient in the new platform.
  • Integration complexity with our legacy CRM will require an additional $20,000 in custom development during Year 1.
  • But compared to the costs of inertia—losing prospective students, damaging brand trust, and mounting inefficiencies—the ROI is compelling.

4. Proposed solution

This section outlines the recommendation to move to a modern, cloud-based digital engagement platform.

You could list the top vendor platforms with strengths and weaknesses, along with a couple of alternative platforms, that respond to the pain points you listed above.

This would be followed by the recommended action, which could be to get a demo or pilot the new system in one department, for example.

5. Impacts: Who will feel the change?

This section lists the affected stakeholders (e.g., Marketing, Admissions, IT Department, students and prospective students) as well as the processes that might be impacted (e.g. content publishing workflows, personalization strategies, data analytics reporting, etc.).

You can go into more details and list how the teams will benefit, and what the improved digital experience will look like for them and the affected processes.

6. Implementation plan: How we get there

The next section is to divide the digital transformation journey into phases and timelines.

For example, you could organize this section into phases:

  • Phase 1 (Discovery and selection): Assess needs, finalize CMS vendor, and define KPIs
  • Phase 2 (Implementation and migration): Set up infrastructure, migrate content, and train teams
  • Phase 3 (Launch and optimize): Go live, monitor KPIs, and implement continuous improvements

You can also add the estimated timeline for each of these phases, depending on the scope.

7. Financial overview

The Financial Overview section should provide a clear picture of the investment required for digital transformation and the expected return.

You should outline costs, potential savings, and long-term value to help your leadership team make informed, budget-conscious decisions that will serve your university or college in the long term.

In the costs section, add:

  • Upfront costs: Licensing, implementation services, and initial training
  • Ongoing costs: Annual licensing, support, and incremental enhancements
  • Expected benefits: E.g., increase in revenue due to higher enrollment rates
  • Expected ROI: Increased enrollment, reduced operational costs, and improved conversion rates

Then add an additional section on how long you estimate it will take for the Payback period.

8. The risk assessment

All business cases should have a Risk section that highlights the potential challenges and consequences of not pursuing digital transformation.

You can address both the risks of inaction and the uncertainties associated with implementation, helping leadership weigh their options with a balanced perspective.

The risks should always have a mitigation strategy listed as well.

For example:

  1. Risk: Content migration delays
    Mitigation strategy: Assign a content migration lead, phased migration
  2. Risk: User resistance to a new platform
    Mitigation strategy: Training and early adopter initiatives
  3. Risk: Integration challenges of our systems
    Mitigation strategy: Engage IT early and choose an integration-friendly platform

9. Final statement

The closing argument should reinforce the urgency and strategic value of your digital transformation, tying together the key benefits, risks, and financial rationale.

It’s a final call to action that emphasizes why investing now is critical for your school to stay competitive, meet student expectations, and secure the institution’s future.

Discuss how investing in a modern CMS now will position your institution to compete more effectively for students, improve operational efficiency, and future-proof your digital strategy.

A modern digital platform isn’t just a tool — it’s a strategic enabler. By investing in a scalable CMS and embracing a culture of digital agility, we’ll not only improve today's experiences but also future-proof the institution for tomorrow’s challenges.

The higher ed institutions that act now will lead the next era of higher education. The question isn’t if you should transform — it’s how soon you can get started.

Have you recently started a digital transformation journey? Share your tips on creating a strong business case that got results.