Building Partnerships on Best Practices: New Alliances for the Nineties Copyright CAUSE 1994. This paper was presented at the 1994 CAUSE Annual Conference held in Orlando, FL, November 29- December 2, and is part of the conference proceedings published by CAUSE. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, that the CAUSE copyright notice and the title and authors of the publication and its date appear, and that notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information resources in higher education. To copy or disseminate otherwise, or to republish in any form, requires written permission from CAUSE. For further information: CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301; 303-449-4430; e-mail info@cause.colorado.edu BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS ON BEST PRACTICES: NEW ALLIANCES FOR THE NINETIES David J. Ernst and John R. Fry Coopers & Lybrand, L.L.P. New York, New York Two major changes have evolved in the management of higher education over the past several years: 1.) repositioning, downsizing, restructuring, and reengineering, have resulted in new ways of administering institutions and, 2.) the administrative information systems (IS) needed to support the "new business model" have not been developed "in house" and are not available "off the shelf" from vendors. This paper addresses what to do about the immediate IS support dilemma as well as lay groundwork for an overall strategy for restructuring and the role of information technology. The emerging role of partnerships among institutions and between consortia of institutions and service/software vendors is crucial to leveraging the gains being made through restructuring. Context The impact of business process reengineering is being felt on campuses across the country. In the past two years, many universities have redesigned their core administrative processes and identified dramatic opportunities to improve the quality of service to their customers as well as to reduce the cost of administration. In many of these cases, the successful implementation of the redesigned process will be greatly dependent upon the availability of a new breed of administrative software. Changing Business Models The administrative software in use on campuses today, whether it has been custom developed or a vendor package was designed for the business model of the 1960's, 70's, and 80's. That historical model was characterized by: * large, "back offices" processing transactions in batch or on-line modes; * use of automation technologies to facilitate paper processes; * centralized controls and decision making; * limited information in the hands of customers. The role of administrative systems in this business model has been to provide effective ways to process large volumes of transactions and provide some capability for the end-user to view the impact of the transaction after it has taken place. Process reengineering or "BPR" (as well as other initiatives such as Total Quality Management and Organizational Restructuring) is bringing about a fundamental change in higher education's historical business model that will have a profound impact on the systems that support it. While the creativity that is unleashed by BPR will bring about redesigns that vary by campus and process, there are several central characteristics common to all of these initiatives that will define the business models of the 1990's and beyond. These characteristics include: * placing decisions in the hands of the customer; * eliminating, not automating non-value added worksteps and transactions; * placing information in the hands of the end-customer; and * moving transactions out of the back office and into the customer's without creating an administrative burden. In this new business model, the focus of administrative systems will shift from "back office" processing to "front office" information. The financial, development, student and human resources systems required to support the implementation of redesigned processes must move beyond automated transaction processing to support the central administration and provide the features and functions required by the end-customer. The reengineered administrative system will need to: * provide information, not data to the end-user; * have flexible business rules to enable processes to be customized for different customers; * support new sets of institutional measures which cut across organizational boundaries; and * provide an internal control framework that is invisible to the end-customer. Reengineering, while it seeks to limit the need for technology, still requires a strong set of core administrative systems to support its redesigned processes. These systems however, will be dramatically different tan those available today. The critical question confronting those implementing BPR is what is the best way to develop this new generation of information systems. (The following points outline the key issues to be developed during the presentation and discussion on December 1, 1994 at CAUSE94. A more detailed outline will be available for the presentation including copies of the slides used. In addition, new issues raised during the discussion will be integrated with the final text.) The Emerging "Best Practices" in Higher Education * Restructuring and reengineering * What have we learned in the process areas (financial, student, procurement, etc.) * Where is IS support needed? * The Challenge of the reengineered process confronting the available software The State of IS Support * Status Quo institutions * Institutions in transition * Institutions "on the verge" -- ready for the next step * Client/Server "on the lips" The State of Packages * What is available today * What works and why * How are vendors responding * Is there life in "off the shelf" * Encouraging words Other Options * Home grown * Vendor supplied * Joint institutional development * Joint vendor development * Institution/Supplier partnerships * Resource pooling Strategies for Action * Consolidate and propagate restructuring/reengineering gains * Identify commonalties of interest and administrative practices * Develop partnership criteria and success measures and milestones * The "pooled resource" model * Models for collaboration and project management * How to get started