Abstract:

All twenty- first century organizations all over the nation and the world are functionally dependent on enterprise systems. That observation includes for profit, non-profit, large and small private organization. In addition, governmental organization (local, state, national and international) are functionally dependent on enterprise systems too. Consequently, all such enterprise systems are continuously at-risk regarding threats operational viability both internally as well as externally. Such operational viability threats are subjected to 24 hours and all seven days of a week risks. Further, within that timeframe, enterprise system threats are multiplying exponentially. In this paper, our principal foci are critical risks associated with the operational viability of higher education enterprise systems. The main areas of our investigation are: Cybersecurity attacks, enterprise systems human resources, enterprise system software updates, enterprise system hardware updates, alternative energy, system decentralization and proprietary system software development. Cybersecurity attacks on institutional enterprise systems can severely cripple the basic institutional operations. In addition, enterprise system human resources in higher educational institutions are faced with numerous challenges which severely restrict operational viability. Further, another critical human resource challenge that higher education enterprise system face is employee turnover. Of course, employee turnover is a direct result of the shortage of highly qualified enterprise system professionals. Shortages of full-time employees creates an over reliance on contract and part-time employees. Unfortunately, many contract and part-time enterprise system employees are over worked and under paid. More often than not, those same many contract and part-time enterprise system employees are subject to the high turnover cycle.Some institutions have addressed employee turnover problem by instituting a strong and robust student intern program along with a continuous in-house training program. A robust student intern program along with a continuous in-house training program that effectively managed can address a significant number of human resource needs in the short term and the long term. Overall, funding is the prevailing issue that negatively impacts the viability of higher education enterprise systems. One way to mitigate the lack of funding and current cybersecurity threats in higher education systems would be to develop institution specific proprietary software. A new institutional revenue stream could be an important outcome. Also, the software development could provide additional industry ready training experiences for students, staff and faculty. That entrepreneurial approach could empower the larger institutional community while producing software industry ready expertise as well as new software products on the marketable to open higher education marketplace.

Keywords:

Higher education, Enterprise systems, Cybersecurity attacks, continuous training, operational viability, proprietary software.