ERP Solutions In Education: Academia ERP Date:   Friday , January 23, 2015 Every year, close to 10,000 students attend the choice-based registration process for various subjects at KL University in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh. The process took place over a span of 5 working days with more than 50 people consisting of faculty and administrative members guiding students to register for their subjects. It was two and a half years ago, that the institute was approached by Serosoft, an educational software and solutions company, which introduced Academia ERP, an ERP software catering to the Education industry, to the institute. On implementation of the software, the University was able to complete the entire process in 1 day with less than 20 faculty members, which showed a sharp increase in their efficiency, and a saving of a whopping 230 person days every year. \"We were able to show KL University how Academia ERP would improve their systems and become extremely efficient at the same time,\" says Arpit Badjatya, CEO and Managing Director of Serosoft. Academia ERP takes a 360-degree approach and handles all the aspects of an institution, which range from administrative tasks, academic processes, infrastructural work and assists in repetitive resource-intensive processes through seamless automation. The ERP system creates an educational community where each of its stakeholders/users can get their entire job done on a click. Academia ERP has various modules, which manage the admissions, registration, attendance, timetables, examinations, mark sheets, results, grading, fees, hostel and library at an institution. The information provided by Academia ERP allow the top management of the institutions to make effective managerial decisions leading to better management of resources available in the institutions. The ERP system also ensures better interaction between students, teachers, parents & institute management as it stores all the information on the entire lifecycle of a student, right from the admission to completing their studies in that particular institute. \"The architecture of Academia is designed in such a way that it meets the unique and varying needs - from Pre-admission to Graduation - of various types of educational institutions, across different geographies and education systems,\" says Siddharth Badjatiya, COO of Serosoft. Academia ERP was launched in 2010 to fill the void in the way technology has been deployed in the education sector in developed countries like the U.S. vis-�-vis emerging markets like India and countries in the Middle East, Africa and APAC region. \"By implementing Academia ERP, various educational institutions have been able to increase effectiveness, reach and efficiency,\" says Arpit. The company works with universities, colleges, schools, groups of educational institutions, training organizations, and other educational institutions. It is important to note that the company consults with leading educational bodies for planning and policy making such as the Association of African Universities. The software has been a big success with over 150 clients using it all over the world including institutions in India such as KL University, JECRC University, GD Goenka University, Jaipuria Group of Schools, Apple Group (Dubai) and others. Although Academia ERP was launched about 5 years ago, institutions took some time to warm up to the idea of automation. However, today there has been a change in the mindset among academicians, wherein the stakeholders are adopting automation more aggressively. \"In terms of usage, the stakeholders across our client institutions are reaping the benefits of transparency, efficiency and paperless in a big way,\" says Arpit. He adds, \"They are also seeing substantial cost savings and more speedy decision making owing to automation through Academia ERP; thereby giving them a very high ROI on the product.\" The Team Arpit, Siddarth and their team of 15 members, which has risen to 65, realized the huge opportunities Academia ERP was creating globally and therefore launched their product in the APAC, Middle East and Africa regions. \"While the team was initially small which included business analysts and developers, we also consulted experts from the education domain,\" says Arpit. The company has grown tremendously since then and the teams have expanded. Serosoft has hired Vice Presidents for various purposes such as Implementations, Technology and Business in order to expand their client portfolio and take their business to the next level. The product team behind Academia ERP constantly improves the product based on the requirements for the future, based on the company\'s constant R&D on the evolution of the product and on feedback from the clients. The new version is released on a quarterly basis on the cloud or is personally installed at the clients\' offices by the company. Apart from their headquarters in Indore, the company has a marketing office in Mumbai and various partner offices in Asia, Middle East and Africa. The company possesses two strategic partners, ten sales and implementation partners and five referral partners in these regions. Serosoft aims to make Academia ERP the finest campus management software in the Education Industry on a global platform. It is also working to invest and enhance the team further such that they would be able to solve problems, which are evident on a global level. \"We believe that with Academia ERP our institutions and others in the developing countries could level up with the world\'s best in terms of administration and Academia ERP can contribute significantly to their journey to becoming the finest institutions in the world,\" concludes Arpit. Arpit Badjatya He is currently the CEO and Managing Director of Serosoft. After pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University, USA, he obtained a MBA from the Indian Institute of Management at Calcutta. Prior to founding Serosoft, he worked with Accenture India as business consultant and with JP Morgan London as an investment banker. In his spare time, he loves to play sports and pursue his passion for singing.