The IT Strategy for School Examination Board

The objects of the School Examination Board (SEB) is educational, and includes the
promotion of science, literature, the fine arts and the diffusion of useful knowledge by
conducting school examination through the medium of English. The Board exists solely
for educational purposes and not for purposes of profit.

The Board's Mission

The Board for the Indian School Certificate Examinations is committed to serving the
nation's children, through high quality educational endeavours, empowering them to
contribute towards a humane, just and pluralistic society, promoting introspective living,
by creating exciting learning opportunities, with a commitment to excellence.

This mission is supported by the Board’s IT Vision to facilitate SEB achieve its
objectives by providing a quality and reliable IT service, enabling staff and students to
securely handle their information, wherever they happen to be, delivered by trusted IT
professionals working within best practice quality processes.

This IT vision is achieved by acquiring core IT capabilities achieved through planning

and executing an appropriate IT strategy.

An overview of the IT strategy is presented in the following pages.

The components of the IT strategy are,

a. Identity
Organisation’s mission and vision, core principles, fundamental beliefs, values and
norms. The focus issue is,

- IT Principles underpinning the delivery of IT services

b. Value Proposition
What value SEB brings to its customers and shareholders in unison with its identity.
The focus issues are,

- Stakeholder analysis
- Value Network

c. Capabilities
What business capabilities will realize the value proposition and what IT capabilities
will help realize those business capabilities. The focus issues are,

- IT Systems and Services, to achieve the business capabilities

- IT Capabilities & Sourcing, to realize IT systems and services
- IT Operating Model, to execute the IT strategy

d. Action Plans

A brief discussion of the components is as follows.

Identity

In addition to the SEB mission statement, the ethos of the Board are,
 Trust and fair play
 Minimum monitoring 
 Allow schools to evolve own niche - progressive institution
 Needs of the children - renew their objectives
 Freedom to experiment with new ideas and practices - The Schools must
continuously evolve - 'You won't skid if you stay in a rut'
 Diversity and plurality - the basic strength for evolution of idea.
 Schools to motivate pupil towards the cultivation of:
 Excellence - The Indian experience
 Values - Spiritual and cultural - to be the bed rock of the educational experience
 Schools to have 'Indian Ethos' and strong roots in the national psyche. Be
sensitive to national aspiration.
 Be sensitive to national aspiration.
 The Work

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 Principles underpinning the delivery of IT services in unison with the above are,
 IT is a service delivered for our member schools, researchers, teachers, students
and staff
 We will move towards greater user empowerment through self-service and
automation.
 We will explore differing models for delivering our services and evaluate
outsourcing alternatives as one of the means of delivering some of our services.
 We will endeavour to deliver the same service to all staff and students regardless
of location. This will demand investment in our network and remote access tools.
 We will provide appropriate security to safeguard our information assets
 Maintaining this service continuity is crucial and will attract the priority of focus
and investment.
 We will build single organization wide solution that represent best value for
money rather than point solutions for different business units
 We will seek to embrace open standards to ensure interoperability and future
proofing
 We will adopt international best practice as befits a Top institution, particularly
the ITIL quality management regime.
 We will strive for the IT Infrastructure and systems to be periodically refreshed to
ensure it continues to be capable of delivering to our stakeholders requirements.
 We will seek out and embrace effective, focused and appropriate innovations and
aim to be a close follower in our adoption of new technology.
 We will endeavour to develop our IT staff so they are seen as knowledgeable and
trusted professionals.

Value Proposition

The stakeholders, partners and customers of SEB are,

1. Member Schools
2. Students
3. Staff
4. The Board itself
5. Ministry of HRD, Government of India
6. Public in general

The key areas wherein improvement sought are,

 Affiliation process
 Examination System with interface to the outsourced work for marksheets
 Back Office operations
 Dispatch
 Finance and Accounts
 Stores
 HR

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 The key values sought by the shareholders are,

1. Making a positive contribution to running and transformation of the Board

2. Responsive to student and staff needs
3. Highly available and resilient so that IT infrastructure becomes invisible
4. Global community of Staff and Students
5. Risk Minimization
6. Demonstrable value for money
7. Compliant with Standards set by the authorities
8. Striving to lower the environmental impact of IT services

Capabilities

Key business capabilities, required to support the above value network and which will
determine the IT Systems and Services Portfolio, are

1. Mobility
2. Transformation of Business Processes
3. Information Security and Integrity
4. Alternative mode of delivering software applications
5. Self service
6. Business Continuity
7. Sustainability considerations

An IT Systems and Services prioritization matrix of Strategic importance (Basic

support, Competitive Necessity, Competitive Differentiator) vs. Sourcing options
(External Service Provider, Standard Package acquisition, External custom
development, Internal Integration, Internal Development) will be required.

Key IT capabilities required to realize the planned IT Systems and Services will be,

1. Applications Environment
 Package/service selection
 Package implementation and Integration
 Application Development and maintenance

2. Information Management
 Data Analysis
 Information management
 Knowledge Management

3. Technology Infrastructure
 Systems management

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  Planning and Design
 Implementation
 Architecture Design

4. Common Capabilities
 Project Management
 Security administration
 Relationship Management
 Strategic Planning
 Lifecycle management
 Change Management
 Supplier/Vendor Management
 Partner management
 Value Management
 Help Desk
 Testing, QA etc.
 Business Analysis
 Training
 Technical Documentation

A Current/Future State – IT capabilities matrix of Strategic Importance (Basic

support, Competitive Necessity, Competitive Differentiator) vs. Ability to meet
Enterprise needs (Weak, Sufficient, Strong) for both as-is and to-be state will be
beneficial to plan the acquisition of the IT capabilities

An IT operating model is essential for the delivery and management of the IT

strategy. A good project management practice such as PMBOK based and an ITIL
quality framework based service management will be quite beneficial. IT risks will be
tracked through a IT Risk Register. Information security and IT service continuity
planning will form part of the governance.

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Action Plans

Based on the both IT Systems and Services Portfolio matrix and Current/Future – IT
Capabilities matrix, an action plan can be prepared for the implementation of the
strategy.

Year 1 action plan - Detailed plans for actions to be implemented in year 1 to

achieve the planned changes in key performance results/ operational indicators.
Probably begin by plucking some low hanging fruits such as Dispatch System.

Year 2/3 action plans - Future years’ action plans will be developed as a result of
 analyzing key performance results and operational indicators, and setting
appropriate targets for these in the year to come
 issues and items deferred for future for any reason whatsoever
 assessing changes in the external environment affecting SEB
 analyzing innovation and learning relevant to SEB

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