Issue link: http://digital.corporatepress.com/i/416289
34 | november/december 2014 | Facilities Manager Our experience thus far suggests that even though these models are not necessarily less expensive in dollar terms, proportionally less management time is needed to manage the accountability of an external service provider than to deliver the service itself. Accountability doesn't change. Offering a reliable and effective set of administrative software services is the responsibility of the CIO, no matter who or what company actually provides the service. With our general strategy set out in the IT@Cornell Strategic Plan, our focus now is on executing and refining the strategy. A current development centers on demand manage- ment and coordination. Our Planning and Program Manage- ment (PPM) team is now acting as a single front-door to all administrative system requests. Working closely with our services division and campus stakeholders, PPM is rolling out a flexible demand-management approach that relies on "just enough" process to match the size and complexity of a given project. As a part of these plans, one of the most important priori- ties for the Cornell IT community is to envision and reshape the skills of our wonderful staff. We have many excellent people who have abundant skills that they apply in service to the university every day. With the IT industry changing more quickly than ever before, the skills that make our organiza- tions successful today may be different from the skills that will be needed tomorrow. We are currently conducting an inven- tory of individual staff members' IT skills so as to develop a database of who has which skills and where they are located across the university. In concert with this inventory, we are engaging campus IT leaders to develop a vision of the skills they will need in three to five years. Those two pieces will allow us to chart a path toward the development of appropri- ate, and sometimes new, skills for providing IT services at Cornell. And so, as usual, after we have considered all the pieces and parts of the wide-ranging topic of administrative systems, it all comes down to people. going forward We started this article by asking whether there are alternatives to spending another $5 billion on ERP software and administrative services, particularly given the rising cost pressures constraining higher education budgets today. As the preceding viewpoints illustrate, the answer to that question is "yes." In fact, we have more than one option for addressing the cost challenges associated with enterprise/administrative systems. We have at least three: build-your-own; buy smart; share processes and software. But each has its advantages and its disadvantages, which IT leaders will need to evaluate in light of their institution's strategy, resources, and priorities. How the software and services are acquired is not the strategic issue. The key is what leaders do with the software and services. The actual cost matters less than the value that an institution can drive out of the investment made. Leaders must work to change business processes, establish strategic contracts for pur- chasing, provide self-service, and redesign service offerings. This is the only way that administrative service systems—whether built, bought, or shared—bring value. As we seek to improve the way we do our work in our colleges and universities, we can learn a lot from each other and can avoid repeating the same mistakes or re-creating the same wheels. Together, we can find ways—including the best way for an individual institution—to reduce the costs of administrative service systems, thereby allowing more resources to be applied to the core academic mission of higher education. Eric Denna (edenna@umd.edu) is vice president for information technology and chief infor- mation officer at the University of Maryland College Park; he is also a past at-large member of APPA's Board of Directors. Steve Fleagle (steve-fleagle@uiowa.edu) is the chief infor- mation officer and an associate vice president at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Laura Patterson is the associate vice president for information technology security services and administrative information services at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Ted Dodds (ted56@cornell.edu) is chief information officer and vice president for information technologies at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. This is the first article for each in Facilities Manager. This article is copyrighted by the authors and has been adapted and reprinted with permission from the July/August 2014 issue of EDUCAUSE Review. And so, as usual, after we have considered all the pieces and parts of the wide-ranging topic of administrative systems, it all comes down to people.