Experience is the strategy now
Why universities are struggling to deliver their own ambitions - and what to do about it.
Let’s start with what we're seeing today.
In many institutions, simple services such as changing a tutorial group or obtaining financial aid require students and staff to navigate multiple disconnected systems. The friction is often invisible at the leadership table, but is patently evident at the frontline.
This issue goes beyond technology and should be anchored in operating model design. One that’s quietly eroding trust and performance across the sector.
Most universities are attempting to implement a 2025 strategy using 2015 tools. And while ambition is high, delivery remains constrained by legacy structures, unclear ownership, and capability gaps. These gaps slow execution, dilute outcomes, and leave students and staff carrying the load.
“The new competition isn’t just online learning. It’s service intelligence. Institutions that understand, design, and deliver around lived experience will lead.”
The real shift: From digital infrastructure to human experience
Much of the sector’s attention has gone to digital platforms and online competitors. But the fundamental shift is behavioural.
Students expect frictionless, on-demand services. Academics expect more flexible systems. Employers expect readiness. Policymakers expect responsiveness. Users don’t see your structure. They only experience your service, and they judge it by how well it meets their needs in the moment.
As the original article put it: “People expect services to be connected, intuitive, responsive… They care if they can get what they need, when they need it, with as little friction as possible.”
That expectation is rising. And most institutions aren’t presently set up to meet it.
The real bottleneck is the operating model
Strategic plans in higher education are rarely the problem. Most are full of vision: be more student-centred, lead on digital, and improve research impact. The issue is execution.
Disconnected systems, siloed teams, fragmented governance, and under-invested platforms are structural inhibitors. They embed latency into every decision and delay even the most straightforward improvements. Until these constraints are addressed, transformation efforts will continue to underperform due to misalignment at the core.
The consequence is a growing gap between intent and reality. What we might call experience debt: the cumulative lag between what’s promised and what’s delivered. It adds up, quietly but quickly.
A shared model for service design
In 2016, FromHereOn released the Higher Education Reference Models (HERM), open frameworks to help universities define capability, technology, and data architecture. These gave institutions a shared language for transformation.
But we need more than capabilities.
So this year, in partnership with King’s College London, CAUDIT, Jisc, and UCISA, we launched the Higher Education Service Reference Model.
It maps:
170 core services across the student, academic, and professional lifecycle
46 service consumers (students, researchers, alumni, governments, etc.)
1,600+ features, including over 1,200 mapped to AI maturity
This framework is a working tool, built to connect services to the platforms, capabilities, and decisions that enable them.
What this enables (When put to use)
Here’s what this model is already supporting across the sector:
Service strategy grounded in lived experience. Rather than starting with internal functions, teams are framing work around the people they serve, and defining success in terms of service outcomes.
Digital roadmaps built on real capability. Institutions are starting with a clear understanding of what needs to change, and then allocating investments where they can be most effective.
AI adoption is staged by readiness. With 1,200+ features mapped to AI maturity, leaders can make targeted, phased decisions, avoiding the trap of experimenting with AI on fragile services.
It’s a way to move faster, with less friction and more clarity.
Lessons for other sectors
While this model was built for higher education, the design principles apply more broadly. In fact, the original article directly calls this out: “Whether you serve students or customers, patients or citizens, the imperative is the same: design services around people, not processes.”
In our work across sectors we’re seeing the same constraints: Legacy structures. Siloed delivery. Ambitious strategies are struggling to land.
What makes higher education a proving ground is its complexity: more diverse audiences, tighter margins, and broader mandates. If a model can help cut through here, it’s likely to hold up in other pressure-tested environments too.
What leadership teams need to do
If you’re a Vice Chancellor, Deputy Vice Chancellor, COO or CIO, this model offers practical traction:
Clarify which services matter, and why
Align teams that don’t usually speak the same language
Modernise without blowing everything up
Justify change with evidence, not anecdotes
And if you’re leading in another sector, ask yourself:
Do you have this level of clarity in your service?
Can you articulate the experience you want to deliver, and the operating model that enables it?
Experience is the strategy now. And strategy without execution is just ambition.
FromHereOn is proud to contribute the Higher Education Service Reference Model as an open standard for the sector.