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Considerations in partnering with both a vendor and peer institutions

As the cost of developing new applications and the pressure to deliver them in shorter and shorter timeframes grows, some institutions are exploring other innovative ways to accomplish the job, for example, creating a consortium of institutions contracting with a vendor to develop from scratch or modify their existing product to the specifications of the consortium. The advantages of this approach are a shared cost and perhaps a greater leverage on a vendor to get the work done quickly.

Vendors do not always have an unlimited supply of the appropriate talent, and the possibility of doing custom work for, say, five or more individual institutions concurrently may be beyond their means. If, however, these colleges and universities can agree on a common set of specifications, then the vendor will get much better productivity out of the collective resources.

A number of such vendor/multiple-institution consortia or partnerships are in the planning stages or under way to develop a financial information system. What is expected to emerge from these partnerships is a vendor-supported system developed specifically for higher education that has the endorsement of a representative group of institutions.

As is the case when partnering with only a vendor, all partners need to share a common goal and project management is more complicated, but the twist on these issues is a little different.

• Need to share a common goal
  If the partnership of a single institution and a vendor is full of challenges, consider the possibilities of a multiple-institution partnership with a vendor! Some skeptics might say that this approach is fraught with peril because of the difficulties of coordinating all the needs into the specifications of the system. However, the advances in technology and the demands placed on the institutions' CFOs to deliver information may motivate the partners to avoid bringing too many "silver bullet" items to the table.

• More complicated project management
  All the issues raised in the previous model of a vendor/single-institution partnership are relevant here to an even greater extent. One suggestion that has emerged is to designate one institution as the agent of the consortium and let its representatives deal with the vendor. This, of course, brings with it a large responsibility for the chosen leader. That institution must have the confidence of its partners and also be willing to subjugate some of its own institutional desires to the will of the consortium on occasion. For some, this may be too large a price. The up side of the designated agent is fairly obvious. The vendor cannot play different institutions against each other as much as might otherwise happen. For its part, the vendor only has to negotiate with one institutional partner on scope creep issues and other areas where decisions must be made fairly quickly and clearly.

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