We’ve been privileged to speak with even more edtech and industry thought leaders this term, and the insight they provide us and our community is invaluable.

So thank you Tony Lockwood for talking to us about how companies can improve the performance of their products and develop new solutions.

Thanks to Duncan Baldwin for giving us an insight into teaching, his time at Capita SIMS, influencing government as Deputy Policy Director at ASCL and his current Headship.

We were delighted to welcome Winston Poyton back for a follow-up chat on IRIS Education, especially given how much has changed in the world of school management systems in the last 12 months alone.

It’s great to speak with colleagues from MIS support teams as it gives such a unique and insightful view of the landscape, so thank you Keren Wild for getting involved and giving us your perspective.

Sue Macgregor talked to us about Alps Education’s focus on providing the right analytical tools to schools so they have the power to help every student achieve their full potential, thank you!

And finally, thank you to Ian Koxvold of Supporting Education for talking to us about changes across the education sector, what the future might hold in terms of new solutions, and new strategies.

Sarah and I have thoroughly enjoyed making the series, and already have some great sessions ready to go in the new term with industry thought leaders Andy Kent and Jonathan Coyles – watch this space!

Have a great Christmas and see you in 2022!

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In case you missed it, here’s a round-up of all our thought leader Q&A sessions from last term.

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A few weeks ago Nick caught up with Ian Koxvold, currently Head of Education, Strategy and Corporate Development at Supporting Education Group, but many people might know him better for his years of strategic consultancy work across the education sector.

They talked about the changes across the education sector and what the future might hold in terms of new solutions and new strategies including:

• Ian’s background delivering projects across businesses and educational establishments to make them more effective or efficient
• The insight he gets working for Supporting Education Group as the largest provider of services to schools in the UK
• His perspective on consolidation, and how this has increased from maybe 2-3 players to around 10 in recent years
• What’s a good strategy for acquiring, and has consolidation peaked in his opinion
• The importance of use case analysis in any business, and using it to identify upsell and product integration opportunities
• How different products serve different use cases
• Advice for startups in the edtech space
• The concept of ‘one product for everything’ v ‘best of breed’ solutions
• School support services, the role they play in the evolving landscape, and future consolidation
• The perils of complacency when it comes to servicing your customer, and the potential pitfalls of having a dominant supplier in any given area
• How to measure the impact of solutions on schools and why this is important to success; should we be more ambitious about how we use data?
• The future of the MIS sector given recent changes, and what we might expect to see next
• Three things companies should be doing now to future-proof their business

We’ve split the interview into three parts to make it easier to digest – enjoy!

P.S. We’re aware that some of the audio is a bit rough in places so we’re working on getting a transcript created to accompany this Q&A – we’ll add once completed 🙂