Dear Educator,

Let me ask you something: How long did your last vendor payment take from request to actual payment?

If you're like most institution leaders I speak with, the answer is somewhere between "too long" and "I'm honestly not sure—it's still pending."

Here's the uncomfortable truth: while your institution is preparing students for a digital future, you're likely running your operations on a system that would feel familiar to administrators from 1985.

Walk into most school administrative offices today, and you'll see it immediately: filing cabinets overflowing with purchase orders, desks buried under stacks of approval forms, sticky notes reminding someone to follow up on a request from last week, WhatsApp groups buzzing with "Can you check the status of..." messages.

This isn't a sign of poor management. It's the inevitable result of running a complex institution on paper-based systems in 2025.

When I say "paper-based systems," I'm not just talking about physical documents. I'm talking about any process that relies on:

Sound familiar? That's a paper-based system, even if you've "gone digital" with PDFs and email.

Last week, I spoke with a college principal who told me this story:

"Our sports department needed equipment for an inter-college tournament. The request was submitted 15 days before the event. Between waiting for the HOD's approval, my availability to sign, accounts verifying budget, processing the payment, and bank clearance—it took 10 days. By the time we actually paid the vendor, we had just 5 days until the tournament. The vendor couldn't deliver in time. We had to make emergency local purchases at 40% higher cost."

The cost wasn't just the 40% markup. It was damaged vendor relationships, stressed staff firefighting for hours, compromised student experience, and a demotivated department that now hesitates to request anything.

One 10-day delay created ripples across the entire institution.

The true cost isn't just delays—it's the productivity drain across your entire team.

Your Accounts Manager spends daily:

That's 3 hours daily on coordination instead of strategic work—vendor negotiations, budget analysis, or financial planning.

Multiply that across your team. You're losing dozens of productive hours every single day to systemic inefficiency.

I've heard this before: "We just need to be more disciplined about following the process."

But here's the problem—your people are trying hard. They're putting in extra hours. They're creating workarounds. They're doing their best.

The issue isn't effort. It's the system itself.

When your official process takes 2-3 weeks for something that should take 2-3 days, people are forced to choose between:

Neither option is good. The first creates operational failures. The second creates compliance risks and loss of institutional control.

You can't discipline your way out of a structural problem.

A typical procurement process in most institutions:

Days 1-2: Request sits in someone's inbox
Day 3: First reviewer has questions, sends it back
Days 4-5: Department head provides clarification
Days 6-7: Moves through approval chain
Day 8: Reaches accounts, budget verification needed
Days 9-10: Payment preparation and final signatures

7-10 days for a routine purchase. But here's what's striking: the actual work time—reviewing, approving, processing—is maybe 2-3 hours total. The rest? Waiting. Waiting for availability, information, handoffs, and signatures.

Slow systems don't just delay individual transactions—they create ripples across your institution:

If any answer concerns you, your system is holding you back.

Modern educational institutions run on systems with:

The difference isn't magic. It's simply having systems designed for 2025 instead of 1985.

Keep a log this week of every time:

Add up the time. Multiply by 50 weeks. That's how many hours annually your institution loses to systemic friction.

The good news? This is solvable.

Unlike many institutional challenges, operational inefficiency is entirely within your control. You don't need external permission or massive IT projects. You just need better systems.

The question isn't whether digital systems are better than paper-based ones—that's settled. The question is: when will your institution make the transition?

Every day you delay is another day of lost productivity, frustrated staff, missed opportunities, and your time consumed by operational friction.

In our next newsletter, I'll share the exact framework leading institutions use to transition from paper-based chaos to digital clarity—without disrupting ongoing operations.

Until then, hit reply and tell me: What's the most frustrating "slow" process in your institution right now?

To your institution's efficiency,

Sankara Subramanian
Head of Technology, Unity Edu

P.S. - If this resonates, you're experiencing what 83% of educational institutions report as their #1 operational challenge. The encouraging news? It's the most solvable problem you face.