Issue link: http://digital.corporatepress.com/i/416289
Facilities Manager | november/december 2014 | 29 need to minimize the costs of administrative systems in order to invest in their core missions. Here, seasoned Chief Information Officers talk candidly about three strategies: building-your-own in the modern era; buying and implementing in smarter ways; and joining a higher education consortium that shares processes and software. In 2002, not even a decade into implementing enterprise re- source planning (ERP) software, Robert V. Kvavik and Richard N. Katz estimated that higher education had spent around $5 billion in this effort ("The Promise and Performance of En- terprise Systems for Higher Education," ECAR Research Study, 2002). Some in campus information technology organizations may say: "Well, that's not so much. We spend a lot more than that on facilities." But let's look at this figure from the perspec- tive of how many full-year scholarships it represents at a typical public university: $5 billion could provide 500,000 scholar- ships at $10,000 each to students across the country. Given the financial pressures on students after a decade of tuition hikes, we would hope that everyone in higher ed would be determined to explore ways of avoiding such an expense so that the money could be put to better use. We can only assume that higher education has likely spent another $5 billion in the 12 years since the ECAR study with further implementations and maintenance. Many colleges and universities implemented commercial packages to address Y2K challenges to their legacy systems. These same institutions are now looking to upgrade the software or replace it with products from new providers. Some of these projects are budgeted at more than $50 million at a single institution simply to upgrade what had already been installed. We believe it is appropriate, if not imperative, to ask a simple question: "Are there alterna- tives to spending another $5 billion, particularly given the much greater cost pressures on higher education budgets today?" This article does not present hypothetical arguments for one philosophy over another. These seasoned CIOs talk candidly about what they did with each of these alternative strategies: building-your-own in the modern era; buying and implementing in smarter ways; or joining a higher education consortium that shares processes and software. The hope is that together, these three viewpoints will stimulate a larger discussion around how to minimize the costs of administrative systems so that higher education institutions can invest in their core missions of teach- ing and learning, service, and research. t higher education institutions