Nonprofit Higher Education Association’s Data Journey: From Vendor Reliance to Self-Sustaining Growth
Client Background
AACSB International (AACSB) is a global nonprofit association that connects educators, students, and business to achieve a common goal: to create the next generation of great leaders. In addition to providing certifications and a community of professionals, AACSB also provides benchmarking insights for their customers so that they can make informed salary and continuous improvement decisions.
The Business Challenge
Despite holding one of the largest databases of business schools worldwide AACSB faced mounting challenges in leveraging its data effectively:
Vendor Dependency: Analytics teams were tied to a third-party vendor that charged high fees for Business Intelligence (BI) capabilities. This limited responsiveness, slowed delivery, and often produced solutions that missed business context.
Accessibility Barriers: Users struggled to find and utilize data within AACSB’s systems. Even when users found the data they sought, it was often challenging to use effectively. Searching was cumbersome, insights had to be manually extracted, and workflows were time-intensive.
Strategic Gaps: While AACSB’s technical foundation was strong, its infrastructure was not designed for modern insight generation. With a leadership transition underway, uncertainty around the readiness of analytics teams and data maturity made future planning difficult.
The result was high costs, slow turnaround times, and unrealized potential from valuable data assets.
The Komodo Solution
Komodo partnered with AACSB to address both immediate pain points and long-term transformational goals through a phased, hands-on approach:
Building a Transformation Strategy
Partnered with AACSB’s leadership to design a digital transformation strategy aligned with business goals.
Conducted staff assessments, designed tailored curricula, and introduced process automation and a centralized data warehouse.
Trained staff in critical skills while simultaneously delivering immediate improvements, bridging the gap between strategy and execution.
Read more at Rapid Digital Transformation Strategy
Empowering Teams
Introduced a tailored apprenticeship program that replaced vendor dependency with in-house problem-solving.
Delivered immersive workshops, guided projects, and mentoring sessions to build BI and data integration skills directly into the analytics team.
Transformed employee roles from vendor managers to active innovators, driving engagement and long-term self-reliance.
Read more at Transforming Analystics Team from Dependency to Innovation
Improving Accessibility & User Experience
Conducted deep-dive user interviews to uncover specific pain points in data access and search.
Reorganized databases and designed intuitive interfaces with modern visualizations and interactive dashboards.
Built and launched a production-ready application within 6 months, reaching 50% of the target user base in just three weeks after launch.
Read more at Within One Month of Launch, a Nonprofit Reaches 50% of its Target User Base
The Results
Cost & Time Efficiency: Analytics team now solve problems internally in a single day instead of waiting weeks and paying high vendor fees.
User Adoption: The new platform saw rapid engagement, with half the user base onboarded within a month, leading to higher satisfaction and efficiency.
Digital Maturity: AACSB developed a comprehensive data strategy, strengthened internal capabilities, and established an agile culture ready for continuous innovation.
Long-Term Impact: Today, AACSB operates as a self-sustaining R&D organization, capable of conceiving, creating, and deploying new data products that deliver value to its global community.
AACSB's journey stands as a testament to the potential of digital transformation when guided by expertise and a clear strategy. If you're interested in unlocking the full potential of your data and embarking on a successful digital transformation journey, we invite you to reach out and learn more about our services.
