Next in the #FinnemoreFireside series is this brilliant chat I had last month with Mike Donoghue, CEO of John Taylor Multi-Academy Trust (JTMAT). It was a great conversation providing lots of insight into how MATs work and what is important to directors, leaders, governors, staff and learners.

To provide some background on Mike, he was appointed Headteacher at John Taylor High School in January 2010 and oversaw the first change to ‘converter’ academy status of an ‘outstanding’ school in Staffordshire in November 2010. That school plus 14 others now lie at the heart of John Taylor Multi-Academy Trust where Mike is CEO.

In September 2014 he became an elected member of the Regional School Commissioner’s (West Midlands) Headteachers Board, was re-elected in 2017 and elected to the newly-constituted Advisory Board in 2022. Mike has also been appointed to the DfE’s Secondary Headteacher Reference Group, an advisory panel assisting with policy and strategy decision-making.

It’s an insightful conversation which includes, amongst other things:

• What it means to be a teaching school, and how fulfilling and valuable it can be
• The challenges and opportunities that come with working outside your organisation
• Growing into a successful MAT, and how do you define the perfect size
• Equality of entitlement when it comes to professional development
• The sliding scale between autonomy and regulation/structure, and how to create that balance as a MAT: compliance-driven vs excellence-driven
• Co-construction and why this is so important across the Trust
• How the Trust is very similar to a cycling peloton!
• Using evidence in staff appraisals and the concept of quid pro quo and ownership
• What Mike would like to see more of from software suppliers, and how major investment in one area can actually stymie innovation in others
• Where Mike takes his influence from on which solutions to introduce to the Trust and why

How do you know when it’s time to sell your business? Try asking yourself these questions:

1. Do my circumstances allow for the level of financial investment this company needs to keep it going?

2. Is my business model really viable? If not, is it going to be in the future and will I like it?

3. Do I have an amazing team of high performers? Am I willing and can I afford to recruit one?

4. What do I have more of: passion or exhaustion?

5. Will a sale solve my problems, and will someone buy us?

6. What happens if I don’t sell? What are my other options?

Have an honest conversation with yourself and your team. At the end of the day, selling your business is one of the most exciting parts of being a business owner – and it always opens the door for new opportunities.

INVESTOR NETWORKING & MENTORSHIP

Matching the right buyer with the right business is a painstaking process. In conjunction with CJK Associates, we support businesses looking to invest in or potentially acquire in the Edtech sector and can work with you throughout the whole process, from introduction through due diligence, to closure and transformation.

For businesses looking for VCs, investors or other methods of funding, we will get you pitch-ready and connect you to potential investors in the Edtech industry. We act as mentors throughout the process and will advise on how to plan growth strategy and allocate resources.

Get in touch to find out more.

If you’re thinking of moving to one of the cloud-based MIS in the market, the concept of TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) will definitely be on your mind. If not, the cloud suppliers will certainly be making a big point about it. But what’s the real effect on TCO when you make the move?

What does TCO mean?

For a start, it’s worth defining exactly what TCO is so we understand what we’re dealing with. The Investopedia’s definition is:

“The total cost of ownership (TCO) is the purchase price of an asset plus the costs of operation. Assessing the total cost of ownership represents taking a bigger picture look at what the product is and what its value is over time.”

This means that, to understand the TCO of your existing non-cloud based MIS you need to add together the annual software costs, the hardware and networks costs and any training, professional services and hardware support costs.  You also need to take into account the actual time it takes your staff to operate it as a client-based solutions (we’re not talking day-to-day users here, we’re talking running updates and that sort of thing).

Now you have a baseline you can start looking at how moving to a cloud-based MIS will look for you.

Maintaining hardware

Let’s look at the physical environment first. Cloud-based MIS means you have zero need for a server. You just need devices that are able to access the internet using whatever browser that MIS requires. All the decent MIS providers support all the main ones so you will likely already have devices in your school.  The human cost of maintaining servers is also reduced so your IT staff will be free to work on other things.

(As an aside, it’s also worth talking about the fact that, if you go completely cloud-based as a school for all systems, there is a huge energy saving to be had. You’re not running servers in special rooms with aircon so there are massive financial and economical advantages! If you want to understand how much you could save drop us a line as we can point you in the direction of a couple of great companies who can help with this).

Buying your MIS

Cloud-based MIS means you’re also moving to a SaaS model of buying your MIS. SaaS means Subscription-as-a-Service; you’re not having to pay out huge amounts at the beginning for licences, you simply sign a contract for the number of months/years you want it for. A bit like Netflix or a gym membership.

But moving to a new MIS always has a cost associated as you’re ultimately asking people to start using a brand new system they’re unfamiliar with.  You’ll need to factor in training time and costs.

The thing is, your staff may not know the new cloud MIS inside out but they do know MIS!  They just need to find out what’s different in the new system and get used to using it. And the big benefit about tech moving on and cloud-based systems is that they are much more intuitive and easier to use than learning legacy systems.

Overall, the TCO of moving to cloud MIS always reduces and there are lots of schools, academies and MATs out there who will testify to the cost saving.

I think what’s really overlooked is how much you gain. The flexibility of being able to access everything everywhere and the IT/admin workload you take away from staff frees them up to be able to do much, much more for you school.

Just think about it, how many systems do you know of that are not in the cloud?