Digital Transformation, Smarter Workflows, and the Student Experience in Higher Ed with Mike Toguchi
Summary
In this episode of Your Customer, Your Success, Gary sits down with Mike Toguchi, Chief Strategy Officer at Tectonic, to discuss digital transformation, smarter workflows, and the student experience in higher education.
Mike has spent more than 25 years helping universities, nonprofits, foundations, and other mission-driven organizations modernize operations. His work connects strategy, technology, data, workflows, governance, and organizational change.
For universities, the stakes extend well beyond administrative efficiency. Students are evaluating the cost, value, and experience of higher education. Mike argues that institutions that fail to provide a good student experience put their future at risk.
The student experience is shaped by how the organization works behind the scenes.
Gary and Mike explore how leaders can determine whether the real problem is technology, workflow, ownership, or staffing. Mike explains why choosing a platform first is a warning sign, and why organizations need to understand their processes and desired outcomes before deciding what to implement.
They also discuss why technology initiatives lose credibility with employees. Repeated launches, abandoned systems, poor communication, and limited staff input can leave people skeptical of the next promised improvement. When leaders fail to listen, employees often create their own workarounds, including shadow workflows and unapproved AI use.
The conversation moves from internal operations to the student experience. Individual departments can be hardworking and well-intentioned while still creating a disconnected experience for students. Mike explains how weak coordination, inconsistent data, and separate processes can force students to navigate several offices to get the support they need.
Mike shares how Tectonic and its Orchestrate platform help institutions improve scholarship applications, reviews, disability accommodations, and other student-support processes.
Better workflows can give staff more time for the work they came to higher education to do: helping students.
Gary and Mike discuss how to evaluate results through cost, capacity, service quality, risk, and scalability. They also explore how these principles apply to nonprofits and associations, where the people being served may be donors, members, or communities.
Gary connects the conversation to his work with Schooley Mitchell and the opportunity to reduce unnecessary expenses so organizations can focus more resources on their mission.
In Does It Hold Water?, they consider why not everything that matters can be measured. In Chip Shots, Mike discusses Die With Zero, leaders he would like to shadow, a difficult lesson from losing a client, and balancing research with decisive action.
What You’ll Learn
- How to identify whether the real issue is technology, workflow, ownership, or staffing
- Why digital transformation should begin with processes and desired outcomes
- How repeated technology initiatives can erode employee trust
- Why leadership accountability must continue beyond implementation
- How ignoring staff feedback leads to workarounds and shadow workflows
- Where internal inefficiencies appear in the student experience
- Why cross-functional collaboration matters in higher education
- How better scholarship and disability-services workflows help staff and students
- How to evaluate ROI through cost, capacity, service quality, risk, and scalability
- Why the same operating principles apply to nonprofits and associations
- Why meaningful outcomes cannot always be reduced to a metric
CHAPTERS
00:00 Cold Open: Why Student Experience Decides Whether Institutions Survive
01:00 Meet Mike Toguchi, Chief Strategy Officer at Tectonic
02:55 Technology, Workflow, Ownership, or Staffing: Which Lever Is Actually Broken
04:03 Why Most Higher Ed Technology Problems Are Really Workflow Problems
06:01 Change Fatigue: Why Staff Stop Believing in the Next Initiative
08:30 Shadow Workflows and Shadow AI: What Happens When Leaders Stop Listening
10:00 How Internal Silos Show Up in the Student Experience
12:27 Why No One Owns the Full Student Journey
14:28 Inside Orchestrate: Automating Manual Work in Higher Ed
17:55 Measuring ROI on Digital Transformation: Cost, Capacity, Compliance, Revenue
19:46 Scholarship Management at Scale: Eligibility, Blind Review, and Awards
22:36 Case Study: Accommodations and Disability Services Across the UC System
25:47 How This Applies to Nonprofits, Associations, and Foundations
27:11 Where Leaders Should Start: Evaluating Process, Workflow, and Collaboration
28:46 Does It Hold Water? Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted
33:29 Chip Shots: Die With Zero, Shadowing Leaders, and Decision-Making
Book Recommendation
Die With Zero by Bill Perkins
Connect with Mike Toguchi
Tectonic:
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/miketoguchi
🔗 Connect with Gary Marra
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gary-marra/
Schooley Mitchell:
https://www.schooleymitchell.com/office/gmarra/
YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@yourcustomeryoursuccesspodcast
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ABOUT YOUR CUSTOMER, YOUR SUCCESS
Your Customer, Your Success is a leadership and business growth podcast built around a simple idea: client focus is a growth strategy.
Hosted by Gary Marra, the show sits at the intersection of customer experience, employee experience, leadership, entrepreneurship, relationship building, and operational discipline. Each episode features practical conversations with founders, executives, advisors, and business leaders about how better relationships, stronger execution, and client-centric thinking create trust, retention, referrals, and sustainable growth.
ABOUT GARY MARRA
Gary Marra is a Strategic Partner with Schooley Mitchell, business advisor, customer experience leader, and host of Your Customer, Your Success.
Drawing on deep experience in financial services, client management, operations, and cross-functional leadership, Gary brings a practical business lens to customer relationships and growth. Through Schooley Mitchell, he works with businesses to identify opportunities to reduce essential operating expenses while maintaining or improving service.
His perspective is grounded in the belief that relationship building drives revenue, client focus creates competitive advantage, and disciplined execution builds stronger businesses over time.
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