Customer centricity concept in Russian higher education: implementation practice and expansion prospects

The article considers the process of digitalization of the Russian economy and the penetration of this process into the sphere of higher education. We show that the digitalization of applicants’ admission to Russian universities takes place within the framework of a global trend aimed at introducing the customer centricity approach in the public administration system. In particular, we consider the results of three-year operation of a special electronic service “Admission to the university online”, which is also called the Superservice. The analytical indices introduced into consideration make it possible to identify major technical and organizational issues that emerge in the course of digitalization of Russia’s social space. These issues can be divided into objective and subjective, which equally hinder the final implementation of the new electronic system. The calculations carried out have shown that the peak load on the Superservice system is from 10.2 to 16.9 million simultaneous actions, which entails persistent technical failures in the operation of the platform. We substantiate an opinion, according to which the figures obtained do not go beyond the limits of modern computing capabilities of information services, which in turn indicates administrative miscalculations in making decisions about the smoothness of functioning of the Superservice. We have found the effect of artificial commotion, when the very options of the Superservice provoke increased activity of applicants during the admission campaign, which leads to technical failures of the system. The calculations have shown that the number of applications submitted by applicants through the Superservice is on average more than three times higher than the same indicator for applicants using the traditional application form. We consider the prospects of gradual weakening and even disappearance of the artificial commotion effect as the services provided by the Superservice are becoming a common thing.