These days, when Synch-Solutions professionals are talking about PeopleSoft implementations and upgrades for Higher Education, they use the phrase Campus Accelerator. Why differentiate? Why not just say ERP implementation or upgrade?

Synch-Solutions’ Campus Accelerator delivers rapid implementations of Oracle PeopleSoft ERP using our proven experience, methodology and toolset developed specifically for Higher Education institutions. We applied the Campus Accelerator model at the University of Arkansas at Monticello, enabling full implementation of each of three enterprise suites – Campus Solutions, Human Capital Management (HCM) and Financials – within 12 months. Compare that to a traditional implementation, which can take 2 years or more.

Although in UAM’s case, implementation of the three suites was staggered to adjust for the already busy schedules of the institution’s internal IT resources, the success of the project moved the solution from theoretical model to proven reality. Synch-Solutions is excited to have Oracle recognize this offering as a first-to-market solution and to partner with us to promote it.

Campus Accelerator is offered at competitive fixed-fee pricing, and the compressed timeline reduces implementation costs and shortens time-to-value for client institutions. It thus gives small and midsize institutions an affordable means to gain a world-class Oracle PeopleSoft ERP system that can enable a competitive operating advantage in the marketplace.

Synch-Solutions has also applied aggressive timelines to upgrades for PeopleSoft and Oracle E-Business ERP systems. And we can deliver “a la carte” rapid implementations and upgrades of individual suites. All of these services are designed to deliver faster ROI than traditional solutions.

Is it any wonder Synch-Solutions is excited about this offering?

Adrian Sannier, Arizona State’s university technology officer believes, to the depth of his being, that it is.  And he expressed his powerful thought leadership position regarding what the shift is all about and what to do about it in his presentation at Campus Technology’s July 2008 conference.  In an incredibly informative and colorful keynote speech, he laid out six components of the new paradigm that he believes must be elucidated, embraced and executed.  Component #1 is the most controversial but, perhaps, most essential because it enables the other five.  Component #1 “liberates the resources” as Adrian says, to do the rest.

You just have to hear it to appreciate the intensity of his conviction regarding the need for change in how information technology is managed in higher education!  Here is the link to listen to Adrian’s presentation – 73 minutes of transformative and energizing thinking about what the future can hold for institutions that embrace change!  Adrian paints a clear vision of the path that can lead to enhanced learning and educational value through a restructuring of the technology environment – in keeping with a strategy that separates “the core” from “the context.” 

Much more cost effective strategies exist today for maintaining “the context,” – meaning the software applications that have become mere commodities that are essential but not differentiating – than are currently being utilized by the majority of universities.  When they are employed, budgets can be reallocated to take advantage of the host of “core” technologies that facilitate collaboration, informed decision-making for stakeholders, and learning…with the agility to embrace the new and upgraded technologies as they continue to emerge onto the scene.

In this new era of modern technology, Higher Education is in the midst of rapid change in response to environmental, social, economic, technological and political transformations occurring worldwide. As a result, institutions of Higher Education are facing ever more numerous operational challenges. In order to survive these challenges, Higher Education needs new institutional strategies and decision-making processes. For a Higher Education institution to prosper and perform efficiently, all levels of campus staff and administration must collaborate to create a wave of change by implementing Business Intelligence to manage and monitor campus performance. Going one step higher, a digital dashboard provides a view of campus performance that can be directly mapped to campus vision and mission.

So to all Higher Education institutions out there, please take this opportunity to re-strategize your campus performance management in order to gain or maintain a competitive edge!

In our last entry, we discussed the data warehouse’s role in the digital dashboard for Higher Education. In parallel to the data warehousing technology, Business Intelligence (BI) is a system of reports, metrics and dashboards designed to drive decisions that optimize an organization’s performance. Reports, scorecards and digital dashboards are some BI applications that could be designed using data warehousing technology. Business Intelligence components reside on the data warehousing platform to enable end users to access them more efficiently.

BI performance management software for Higher Education enables you to:
• Calculate curriculum costs
• Identify good fundraising programs and sources (e.g., Alumni)
• Monitor student headcount and performance, program outcomes, school reputation, national agendas and other KPIs
• Share secure Web-based information with all stakeholders
• Manage endowments and recruitment through driver-based planning
• Spot high- and low-performance schools or programs
• Map enrollment to attendance and attendance to performance
• Speed compliance reporting

We’ll wrap up with our conclusions regarding the digital dashboard for Higher Education in our next entry.

The City University of New York (CUNY) is a GREEN leader of huge proportions! CUNY presented a very energizing Webinar yesterday that consisted of a discussion – moderated by a representative of the Center for Digital Education – with Ron Spalter, Executive Director for the CUNY Task Force on Sustainability, and Tria Case, CUNY University Director of Sustainability.

CUNY enrolls 400,000 students and, with all of its 10,000 faculty members and employees included, has about 500,000 people moving through the campuses of its 23 colleges in New York City every day. CUNY occupies 29 million square feet of real estate and consumes 1% of the city’s entire energy load. The system is huge and, right now, it is embarking on changes that will make a huge impact on the environment. The goal is to reduce the institution’s carbon footprint by 30% by 2017.

From an IT perspective, CUNY is changing out all legacy systems and deploying Oracle/PeopleSoft as its base for gaining efficiencies and reducing energy usage. But that is only a small part of the plan. It’s comprehensive, with high participation across all campuses. From the sound of it, the initiative is extremely well orchestrated and no stone has been left unturned.

Check out the CUNY Web site to learn more. You may also be interested in checking out their October 30, 2008, Sustainability Conference. CUNY is committed to minimizing its ecological impact and investing the resources to “construct, retrofit and maintain more sustainable facilities,” and they want to share ideas to ensure success. In addition to the October 30 conference, CUNY is forming an advisory board consisting of a broad spectrum of industry leaders from financial services and utility companies, as well as the “new green industry.”

We’re impressed with this undertaking and wish CUNY the highest degree of success. The road to sustainability will certainly require a sustained effort, and it sounds like they have put the foundation in place to move their enormous and highly complex institution successfully along the path toward their vision. GO CUNY!