The responsibilities placed on school business managers are vast and varying. You’re expected to have a level of specialist knowledge about every non-teaching function that makes a school run smoothly and successfully. At the same time, you lead management, support and administrative staff, ensuring their wellbeing and professional development.
The school business manager must balance the urgent (today’s needs and issues) with the important (security, sustainability and scaling for future viability).
We have good news: it’s not mission impossible!
The accountabilities of the school business manager’s portfolio can feel overwhelming at times. But you’re also in a unique position to gain all-round management versatility. We’re here to assist you to make an otherwise difficult job just that bit simpler – partnerships can make all the difference.
Use our checklist to identify weaknesses in your education ecosystem, and then find solutions to the problems you’re experiencing. We’ve developed resources and answers to help you create sensible, sustainable pathways customised to your school.
This diagram visually divides the education ecosystem – the journey of students from pre-enrolment to alumni – into five levels. School business managers must address how non-teaching functions at each level can best support the relationships of students, teachers and parents and how they contribute to the best possible learning outcomes.
The pressure’s on to do more with less at each stage. You’re aiming to build systems and processes that solve staffing and logistics issues now, and will also be expandable and scalable for the school’s medium to long-term growth plans.
Using technological solutions to replace slow, manual tasks seems sensible and intuitive.
But navigating the possible pathways, multiple vendors and comparative benefits can swallow huge amounts of energy and time for relatively small gains. Here’s how we can help.
With maintaining and increasing enrolment numbers always top of mind, FUJIFILM Business Innovation is focused on ways to help you stand out from the crowd.
We help by facilitating:
- Personalised prospectuses
- Engaging, branded marketing material
- Customised, dynamic forms
When the decision is made to enrol, we make it easy for students and parents to provide
information online and keep all the data secure.
We help with:
- Automated, integrated workflows
- Customised, digital forms
- Data security and governance
- Regulatory reporting
We streamline your operations with integrated workflows so you can focus on the student experience.
We help with:
- Digitised document archiving
- Visitor management and contractor compliance
- Automated, integrated workflows, including accounts payable
- Smart multifunction devices that can be linked to your workflows
- Managed print services
- Staff and volunteer onboarding
With FUJIFILM Business Innovation, you can bring innovation into the classroom and future-proof teaching.
We help with:
- Unified, collaborative display screens
- 3D desktop printers
- Mobile and cloud printing
- Integration with school management systems
After graduation, our communication solutions make it easy for you to stay connected with your most valuable promoters and funders – alumni.
We help by facilitating:
- Personalised communications
- Digital fundraising forms
Read through this checklist to identify the business responsibilities that need updating for:
- increasing efficiency – reducing time taken in tasks or processes, or producing better results
- improving transparency – for faster management intervention, or data error correction
- timely strategic decision-making ability
- reducing errors in record keeping
- minimising delays in the supply chain
- improving communications between school community stakeholders
Business Manager responsibilities
- strategic marketing planning
- budgets
- marketing collateral and events
- accreditations
- capital funding applications and management
Business Manager responsibilities
- student enrolment
- HR sourcing, induction, performance management, PD
- mandatory external reporting
- financial management
- internal and external communication channels
- record-keeping
- privacy and data security
Business Manager responsibilities
- policies and procedures
- internal and external reporting (Board, State and Federal bodies)
- accounts, cash flow
- travel (students and staff)
- professional development
- administrative processes
- school management systems and integrations
- contractor management
- procurement and supply chain logistics
- mandatory external reporting
- risk management
- internal and external communication channels
- record-keeping and data management
- privacy and cybersecurity
Business Manager responsibilities
- facilities management
- capital works, maintenance and repairs to facilities
- teaching space fitouts
- teaching space technology and equipment
- teacher administrative load management
- HR for support staff – aides, IT, library, laboratories, bus service
- student and staff health and safety
Business Manager responsibilities
- parent/teacher communication
- parent/other staff communication
- alumni connections
- fund-raising and events
- community involvement and support
- volunteer staff onboarding and oversight
- staff mental health oversight
- reputation management
The growth trajectory in Australian K-12 schools and tertiary colleges is strong for the foreseeable future. Many private institutions are experiencing exponential growth. The education industry’s also experiencing labour shortages - new staff are difficult to find and retain, putting more load on existing resources.
If your non-teaching staff is overloaded with repetitive or time-intensive tasks, talk to our experienced team to customise time-saving strategies. Here are a few examples of what’s possible.
Accounts Payable is the powerhouse of people and processes that ensure the pipeline of supplies and services flows to all users at the school. Find out how FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia’s integration and automation solutions can reduce the administrative burden and ensure smooth, fault-free delivery.
Schools must prioritise their digital communication and marketing efforts to effectively engage with prospective parents and students, showcasing their unique offerings and increasing enrollment rates. By leveraging our DigiComms solution schools can foster a stronger sense of community, facilitate seamless parent-school interactions and enhance the over all educational experience.
EdInduct is an automation solution that manages staff, volunteer and casual worker induction documentation in a way that is seamless, collaborative and compliant. Save time and the ‘annoyance factor’ for everyone. Find out more here.
Doing more with less. Easy to say – difficult to execute. People and income are finite resources, yet educational institutions from K-tertiary must operate under stringent regulatory compliance and duty of care limitations – which cost money to implement, control and report. Evaluate these trends and solutions in emerging technology and management that our Education team has worked with to help reduce educational costs.
Transforming the back office to streamline systems and consolidate data sets makes focusing on the student experience an entirely possible priority, without adding extra cost and complexity. Think about how your institution could do more with less.
Freeing up staff time to engage them in more creative and income-producing tasks is a growing trend – made possible with clever technology and use of budget-friendly ‘As-A-Service’ outsourcing. Record-keeping and regulatory archiving is a traditionally labour-intensive for education institutions. Find out how FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia can save you money in this area.
In many industries, printing hard copies has decreased somewhat over time. But educational institutions are a different breed in this regard. From Yearbooks and Annuals to events, marketing materials and classroom posters and signage, printing can be both time-consuming and costly. FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia’s Anytime Print solution gives customers access to our extensive range of world-class print devices and finishing equipment, fully managed by a professional team of print experts. All through one secure portal.
We understand that education managers inherit and manage unique IT infrastructure and a fleet of devices, systems and applications. Every institution is different, and definitely won’t start with a clean slate when considering upgrading and digitisation strategies.
That’s why our Education team at FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia takes time to analyse each school or college’s assets, staffing and strategic directions before partnering with you to customise and integrate technology solutions. Talk to our team today.
At some point in your school’s growth, digitising records will become a necessity for compliance, cybersecurity and disaster recovery capabilities. EduScan is a tailored digitisation service that we offer with three different solution levels. Secure your institution’s historical and regulatory records and save staff time and hassles with a customised service. Read more here.
FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia’s Anytime Print service removes the capital burden, time and ongoing costs incurred with high quality printing on site. Using our remote service under predetermined Service Level Agreement gives you the flexibility to manage budgets, understand the school’s print spend with full visibility and scale your printed material needs as required.
Instead of continually upgrading legacy printing facilities, find out how the Anytime Print alternative can set you up for success, wherever you are.
With fast, dependable document processing and monitoring taking care of business in the background, non-teaching staff can be deployed where they can do what computers can’t. With more than 60 years supporting Australian educational institutions, we’re able to help you enable growth with scale. Let us partner with you to secure your school’s digital future step by step. Read more here about how to get started.
Freeing up staff from content-intensive workflows makes sense. In a world where personal isolation is becoming a real issue, anything that managers can do to help staff interact with the school community to build relationships, use their experience and skillsets for creative improvements or expand their roles is beneficial to a purposeful life.
That’s why our Education team at FUJIFILM Business Innovation Australia takes time to analyse each school or college’s assets, staffing and strategic directions before partnering with you to customise and integrate technology solutions. Talk to our team today
Download and print for great conversation starters about operational efficiency, standout communications and digital transformation.
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