Powering Resilience in Education: Insights from ASBA 2025
At ASBA 2025, School Business Managers (SBMs) from across the country gathered under the theme “Resilience at the Top End.” It was a timely reminder of the pressures schools are navigating—from growing compliance and funding challenges to evolving security threats and staffing demands. The conference created space to explore how leadership and operational resilience can shape a stronger future for Australian schools.
Technology featured prominently in this conversation, not just as an enabler of efficiency, but as a strategic foundation for connected, sustainable school operations.
What Matters Most to School Leaders?
Through conversations with delegates and responses to our on-stand survey, it was found that education leaders are prioritising solutions that help them work smarter, reduce risk, and relieve pressure on staff. Interest was strongest in areas like Managed IT Services, Digital Forms and Workflow Automation, and Document and Records Management. This reinforces a growing appetite for practical digital tools that seek to make day-to-day operations simpler and more secure.
While each school has its own context, a shared focus emerged: finding technology that helps free up time, reduce administrative load, and build more responsive, resilient environments for students and staff.
Industry Insights: Resilience Begins with Secure, Smarter Systems
Research continues to highlight the critical role of technology in strengthening school operations1. A recent study published in Future Internet explores how emerging technologies—such as AI, automation, and blockchain—can improve administrative efficiency, protect sensitive data, and support more resilient infrastructures in education settings.
These findings appear to mirror what we heard from school business managers at ASBA 2025: cybersecurity and information management are no longer back-office concerns. They’re viewed as foundational to continuity, compliance, and confidence across the school community. As schools embrace digital transformation, ensuring the security and reliability of core systems becomes an essential consideration —whether that’s protecting student records, enabling remote access to key documents, or proactively managing IT risks.
Technology that Strengthens Leadership Resilience
At FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia, we’re focused on helping schools create connected, future-ready environments—where people, not paperwork, come first. Our education solutions are built with the view to support school leaders with the right mix of flexibility, scalability and security.
We partner with schools to:
- Digitise key processes such as enrolments, HR forms and excursion approvals.
- Automate document handling and recordkeeping with the aim for greater efficiency and compliance.
- Strengthen cyber resilience and enable continuity through robust IT services and backup solutions.
- Improve onboarding and communication with integrated digital platforms.
- Reduce day-to-day admin burdens with tools that work behind the scenes.
- Optimise print and device fleets to help reduce cost and complexity.
Whether you’re just starting to explore digital transformation or already working towards bigger change, we’ll meet you where you are. Our team works closely with schools to tailor solutions that reflect your needs, goals and existing systems.
A Trusted Partner in Education
We’re proud to have supported more than 3,000 schools across Australia—from small primary campuses to large multi-campus colleges. What we’ve seen is that resilience isn’t just about responding to disruption, but proactively shaping systems that support people. That’s why we take the time to understand each school’s environment and aim to co-design solutions that truly work.
Our team brings deep expertise in education technology, supported by a national service network and strong partnerships with government and independent school communities. We’re not here to sell off-the-shelf platforms—we’re here to build solutions that make a difference.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If you joined us at ASBA 2025, thank you for the meaningful conversations. If we didn’t get the chance to connect, we’d still love to hear from you. Whether your priority is automation, IT support or simply easing the load on staff, we’re here to help you build resilience into the everyday.
Explore our education solutions
References
1. MDPI. A Systematic Review and Multifaceted Analysis of the Integration of Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain: Shaping the Future of Australian Higher Education, 2024 – https://www.mdpi.com/1999-5903/16/10/378