By Andrea Marcinkus, Ph.D., Senior Director of Research and Insights

In early October, I joined my colleague Kelly Cocks, Senior Director of Partnership Growth and Delivery, at the Education Strategy Forum in Cheshire. Over three days, we presented together, participated in the Forum’s fast-paced speed round, and held a series of focused business meetings with university leaders from across the U.K.

Those different formats created space for both broad strategic discussion and direct, practical conversations. The institutional contexts varied, but the same questions surfaced repeatedly:

• How can universities expand online and flexible provision without creating additional fragmentation?
• How can they determine where genuine market opportunity exists before committing significant resources?
• Which capabilities should they build internally, and where could a partner help them move faster or operate more effectively?

The conversations reinforced something Kelly and I addressed in our presentation: Institutions are not simply looking for another technology or another supplier. They are trying to make thoughtful decisions about what to build, what to own, where to partner, and how to ensure current investment leaves the institution stronger in the future.

Our session, "Beyond Outsourcing: Building Sustainable Digital Capability Through Strategic Partnerships," began with four forces reshaping online education: Financial pressure, digital acceleration, changing learner expectations, and institutional capability constraints.

Universities are being asked to provide more flexible, personalized, and connected experiences while managing tighter budgets, rapid advances in technology, and finite internal resources. The challenge is not a lack of ambition, but rather that few institutions can build, maintain, and continuously improve every capability required across the digital learner lifecycle.

For that reason, this is not primarily a technology challenge. It is an operating-model challenge.

Online education is not a single platform or product. It is a system that connects institutional strategy, academic portfolio decisions, learning design, technology, marketing, recruitment, admissions, enrollment, student support, retention, data, and continuous improvement. When one part of that system is disconnected or underdeveloped, the effects are rarely contained within one department. They influence the experience of faculty, staff, and learners across the institution.

The learner experiences one university, even though delivering that experience requires many teams, processes, and technologies to work together. A fragmented admissions process, an unclear transition between systems, a missed communication or an inconsistent support model may originate in different parts of the institution, but to the learner they are all part of the same journey.

Universities have traditionally framed capability decisions as a choice between building internally and buying externally. That binary no longer reflects the complexity of digital education or the range of partnership models now available. A more useful framework is “build + buy + borrow + learn.”

Institutions can build and retain the capabilities that are essential to their mission and long-term differentiation. They can buy specialist expertise or infrastructure where speed, capacity, or scale are important. They can borrow from external networks, technologies, and shared ecosystems to extend what is possible. Most importantly, they can use partnerships to learn, transferring knowledge, tools, and repeatable processes into the institution over time.

This does not mean that universities should outsource their strategy or surrender institutional ownership. Ownership and execution are not the same thing. An institution can remain accountable for an outcome while working with a partner to provide specialist expertise, additional capacity, technology, or delivery support.

The goal is not to replace internal capability. It is to strengthen it.

One of the clearest themes from the speed round and business meetings was the need for stronger evidence before committing to growth.

Many leaders were not beginning with the question, “How quickly can we launch?” They were asking, “How do we know where to invest?”

They wanted to understand where learner demand exists, how competitive a market has become, whether a proposed program is sufficiently differentiated, how it aligns with employer and workforce needs, and whether the financial and operating model is sustainable. They were also considering which existing programs should be strengthened, repositioned, redesigned, or, in some cases, reconsidered.

This distinction is important because market interest is not the same as market viability. A subject may appear attractive because it is highly visible or associated with a growing employment field, but that does not automatically mean that a new program will succeed. The market may already be saturated, the intended audience may be unclear, or the proposed offer may not be sufficiently distinctive.

The strongest portfolio decisions combine external market evidence with institutional context. They consider not only where demand exists, but where the institution has a credible right to compete and the operational capacity to deliver a strong learner experience.

International expansion was another recurring priority. Several U.K. institutions are actively considering where they might reach new learners, establish partnerships, or extend existing provision into additional markets.

These conversations made clear that international opportunities cannot be evaluated as one broad category. The viability of a program can change significantly by country, learner segment, price, delivery model, recruitment channel, and qualification-recognition environment.

A program that appears promising in one geography may be much less viable in another because of affordability, regulation, competition, digital access, learner expectations, or local employer needs. International analysis therefore needs to go beyond identifying large populations or high-level interest. Institutions need to understand which combination of program, market, audience, and delivery models offer a credible opportunity.

They also need evidence about whether learners can access, afford, trust, and complete the proposed provision. This includes questions about regional pricing, local payment methods, time-zone support, recognition of qualifications, competitive alternatives, student services, and the practical conditions required for successful delivery.

We hear the same questions from our current partners. For the work our Research and Insights team does, this reinforces the importance of integrating international market intelligence more directly into academic growth strategy and portfolio planning.

Continuing professional development (CPD), lifelong learning, short courses, micro-credentials, and online degrees were represented throughout our discussions, but the institutions considering them were at very different stages.

Some already had substantial portfolios and were trying to create a more coherent learner experience across different program types. Others were still assessing which subjects had sufficient demand to justify development. Several were considering how existing academic content might be repurposed into shorter or more flexible formats, while others were working through the operating model, faculty capacity, and systems required to support online growth at scale.

This variety is why “launching online” cannot be treated as one project or one technology implementation. Sustainable growth may require market validation, portfolio planning, program and course design, faculty development, technology integration, learner acquisition, admissions and enrollment support, student-success services, data operations, and continuous optimization.

Not every institution needs every capability, and not every capability must be provided by the same team or partner. However, the capabilities that are required need to work together as part of a coherent system.

Several leaders described disconnected customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, learning management systems (LMS), admissions, and data environments. Others raised concerns about inconsistent support across different learner populations, difficulty serving international students across time zones, or gaps that leave learners without timely communication and clear next steps.

Internally, these may be understood as separate process, system, or staffing issues. For the learner, they are simply the experience.

Technology can help connect different stages of the learner journey, but it cannot by itself resolve unclear ownership, competing priorities, or insufficient support capacity. A new platform may improve workflows and visibility, but the operating model around that platform still determines whether learners receive timely, coordinated, and meaningful support.

The same is true of data. Institutions may have data across multiple systems without having the visibility needed to make timely decisions. The value does not come from collecting more information. It comes from connecting the right information to decisions about recruitment, learner support, program performance, and continuous improvement.

In our presentation, Kelly and I described a progression through multiple roles: Vendor, service provider, delivery partner, strategic partner, and ultimately capability partner.

A vendor completes a transaction. A service provider supplies expertise that the institution does not currently have. A delivery partner shares responsibility for an outcome, while a strategic partner helps determine what should be done and how priorities should be approached. A capability partner goes further by helping the institution become better able to do the work over time.

That may involve transferring knowledge, building faculty confidence, embedding repeatable processes, improving access to data, strengthening governance, or introducing tools that institutional teams can continue to use and evolve. The highest-value partnership is not necessarily the one that does the most for an institution. It is the one that helps the institution become more capable, confident, and resilient.

The model should also change as institutional needs change. One university may initially need support launching its first substantial online portfolio. Another may need targeted capability to scale provision that is already established. A third may be focused on integration, efficiency, or performance, while an institution with mature internal capability may be looking for specialist support to shape the next generation of digital education.

There is no single “right” partnership model. The right model depends on where the institution is now, where it intends to go, and which capabilities it needs to develop along the way.

Technology does not make a partnership strategic. Governance does. Strong partnerships require shared outcomes, clear accountability, transparent data, joint decision-making, and an explicit commitment to capability transfer. Without those elements, even a technically successful engagement can remain transactional.

Shared outcomes ensure institutional, learner, and commercial priorities are understood together. Clear accountability establishes who owns decisions, deliverables, and escalation. Transparent data allows the partners to monitor progress and act on evidence rather than rely on periodic reporting. Joint governance creates the structure for adapting when circumstances change. Capability transfer ensures the partnership leaves something lasting within the institution.

When governance is strong, partnerships are better able to respond to change, resolve issues before they become structural barriers, and continuously improve the experience they deliver. Strong governance creates trust, and trust creates better results.

The Education Strategy Forum reinforced the value of approaching institutional challenges as connected questions rather than isolated service requests.

Research and market intelligence can help an institution determine where to invest. Learning design and faculty development can translate an opportunity into an effective academic experience. Technology can connect the learner journey, while acquisition and enrollment services can help the right learners discover, evaluate and enter the program. Student success services and data operations can support persistence, institutional visibility, and continuous improvement.

Our role is not to assume that every institution needs the same partnership model or every Boundless Learning capability. The more useful starting point is diagnosis: Where is the institution now? What outcomes matter most? Which capabilities are already strong? Where are the gaps? What would take too long or cost too much to build internally? Which capabilities should remain institutionally owned, and where would external expertise create the greatest value?

Those questions create a stronger foundation than beginning with a predefined product or service. They also allow a partnership to be designed around institutional ambition, stage of development, and long-term impact.

The topics and themes that are contributing most toward education strategy, leadership, and decision-making revolve around resolving today's biggest challenges and anticipating tomorrow's. Here are the key takeaways from our discussions with others at the event.

• Institutional needs go beyond additional technology, platforms, and partnerships. They’re building toward achieving sustainable operations and strengthening capabilities.
• Some of the most pressing concerns for online education today are financial pressure, digital acceleration, changing learner expectations, and institutional capability.
• Market evidence and institutional context must be considered together to inform the strongest portfolio decisions. A decision shouldn’t be based solely on trends and demand but also on an institution’s ability to deliver a strong learner experience.
• Topics like delivering a great learner experience and building a strong online program should be approached not as singular problems but as the product of many considerations behind the scenes. Unifying fragmented systems and approaches can make for a significantly improved product.
• Governance is critical for today’s education partnerships to thrive. Strong governance creates trust, and trust leads to better results.

My main takeaway from our time in Cheshire was not that universities need to outsource more. It was that they need to partner more intentionally. The future of online and digital education will require institutions to make clearer choices about what they must own, what they can access through partners, and how they will build the capability to continue improving after the immediate project is complete.

The strongest partnerships solve today’s problem while also building tomorrow’s advantage. Their value is measured not only by what they deliver, but also by what the institution becomes better able to do next. That is the real opportunity beyond outsourcing: Working together to create stronger institutional capability, more resilient operating models, and better outcomes for learners.

About Andrea Kolasinski Marcinkus, Ph.D.: Andrea Kolasinski Marcinkus, Ph.D., is the Senior Director of Research and Insights at Boundless Learning, where she leads a global team delivering actionable insights that inform academic strategy, product innovation, and institutional growth. Partnering with universities, associations, and corporate organizations, her team analyzes market trends, learner needs, and workforce demands to help partners design educational offerings that are both competitive and learner centered.