Critical Digital Services & Application Resilience

Protect the digital services that keep the university operating.

Universities depend on an increasingly complex ecosystem of enterprise applications, SaaS platforms, data, integrations and suppliers to deliver teaching, research, student services and institutional operations.

A critical service is rarely dependent on a single system.

Expede helps universities understand those end-to-end dependencies, identify material risks and strengthen the applications, platforms and operating arrangements required to keep critical digital services available, secure and recoverable.

The Challenge

**Understand the service, not just the system.**
Digital services often cross organisational and technology boundaries.
A single institutional service may depend on multiple applications, identity platforms, integrations, infrastructure components, datasets, suppliers and operational teams.
Ownership can be fragmented. Dependencies may be poorly documented. Legacy applications and technical debt can accumulate. SaaS platforms can introduce concentration and supplier risk. Recovery arrangements may exist for individual technologies without demonstrating that the complete service can actually be restored.
Effective resilience therefore starts by understanding the service from end to end:
**What does the institution depend upon?**
**Which services are genuinely critical?**
**What technology, data, suppliers and people support them?**
**Where are the material points of failure?**
**How quickly could the service be restored?**
Expede helps institutions build that view and turn it into clear priorities for improvement.

Service & Application Resilience

**Establish an evidence-based view of critical digital services.**
We work with service owners, technology teams and institutional stakeholders to understand how important services are delivered and where their resilience depends on applications, platforms, data, integrations or external providers.
This can include:
**- critical service identification and prioritisation;**
**- business and technology dependency mapping;**
**- application and SaaS portfolio assessment;**
**- ownership and accountability;**
**- architecture and integration analysis;**
**- lifecycle and technical-debt assessment;**
**- supplier and third-party dependency;**
**- resilience and recovery requirements;**
**- data dependencies; and**
**- evidence of current controls and capability.**
The result is a service-centred view of resilience rather than a collection of disconnected application assessments.

Improvement & Transformation

**Modernise services without creating new risk.**
Application modernisation, SaaS adoption and digital transformation can significantly improve institutional capability - but they also change dependencies and risk.
Expede helps universities design and deliver application and service improvements with resilience built into the programme from the outset.
Our work can include:
**- application rationalisation and lifecycle planning;**
**- SaaS and cloud-service transition;**
**- enterprise and solution architecture;**
**- integration strategy and improvement;**
**- data migration and transition;**
**- supplier selection and management;**
**- resilience requirements for new services;**
**- service transition and operational readiness;**
**- programme leadership; and**
**- recovery and continuity planning.**
We combine technical understanding with programme and organisational change experience so that new capability is not only implemented, but can be operated and sustained effectively.

Critical Services, End to End

Resilience depends on the whole chain.

Understanding an individual application is not enough.

A critical institutional service can depend on users, processes, applications, data, interfaces, identity, infrastructure, suppliers and operational teams working together.

Expede helps institutions build a clear view of these relationships so that resilience investment can focus on the dependencies that matter most.

Service Mapping

Identify the people, processes, technology, information and suppliers required to deliver a critical institutional service — and expose dependencies that may otherwise remain hidden.

Application & SaaS Assurance

Assess whether the applications and externally provided services supporting critical operations have appropriate ownership, lifecycle management, security, continuity and recovery arrangements.

CASE-STUDY

Portfolio Showcase

Improving Digital Services & Applications

Expede has supported The Open University in taking a number of digital-service initiatives from concept through to implementation.

The work included projects designed to improve how students accessed institutional services, learning resources and academic support through digital platforms.

Examples included:

targeting support services according to the stage of the student journey;
making existing learning resources accessible through mobile devices and assistive technologies;
adapting open educational resources for digital education platforms, including MOOCs; and
implementing tools designed to improve consistency in the academic support provided across programmes.

These programmes required technology, information, institutional processes and user needs to be considered together rather than treating applications as isolated systems.

They demonstrate an approach that remains central to Expede's work today: understanding the service being delivered, the technology that enables it and the organisational capability required to sustain it.

Underpinned by the Unified Digital Resilience Framework

Critical-service resilience sits at the intersection of technology, information, suppliers, people and institutional governance.

The Expede Unified Digital Resilience Framework (UDRF) provides a consistent way to assess those interconnected capabilities and relate them to evidence, maturity, material risk and prioritised improvement.

This enables institutions to move beyond application inventories and understand which digital-service dependencies create the greatest exposure — and where investment will make the greatest difference.

Discover the UDRF

Digital service and application capabilities we help strengthen

Critical Service Mapping

Identify the technology, information, suppliers, processes and people supporting services the institution cannot afford to lose.

Application Portfolio Resilience

Assess the resilience, ownership, lifecycle, supportability and risk associated with critical institutional applications.a.

SaaS & Cloud Service Resilience

Understand dependency on externally delivered services and strengthen governance, assurance, continuity and exit arrangements.

Screen Shot 2020-07-23 at 13.43.28.png — Enterprise & Solution Architecture

Create clearer architectural direction and ensure individual technology decisions support wider institutional and resilience objectives.

Integration & Dependency Management

Understand and strengthen interfaces, APIs, data flows and other dependencies connecting critical systems and services.

Application Lifecycle & Technical Debt

Identify ageing, unsupported or strategically weak applications and create pragmatic plans for renewal, rationalisation or replacement.

Data Resilience

Understand the information required to operate critical services and ensure appropriate protection, availability, integrity and recoverability.s

Supplier & Third-Party Resilience

Strengthen visibility, accountability and assurance across strategic technology providers and critical digital supply chains.

Service Continuity & Recovery

Define appropriate recovery requirements and demonstrate that complete services — not merely individual technologies — can be restored.

Resilient Digital Transformation

Build resilience requirements into new applications, services and transformation programmes before they become operational dependencies.

Satisfying 1 of EDUCAUSE’s Top 10 IT Issues

Expede Consulting’s Student Experience services satisfy the following Educause requirements

**Student-Centric Higher Education**

Creating a student-services ecosystem to support the entire student life cycle, from prospecting to enrolment, learning, job placement, alumni engagement, and continuing education.