Efficiencies Working Groups Updates

Efficiencies Working Groups: June 7 Update

When the coronavirus pandemic seized the headlines in early 2020, the nation’s colleges and universities confronted a number of daunting business and operating challenges. To address these and to ensure the institution’s long-term viability, Chancellor Jeremy Haefner charged four working groups with analyzing functions essential for the University’s continuity and financial health.     

The working groups focused on event planning and management; IT efficiencies and redundancies; marketing efforts; and organizational efficiency. Those groups have completed their work and prepared a number of recommendations for short- and long-term initiatives, to be developed by special task forces and committees.

In recent weeks, The Bridge has reported on the groups’ recommendations. This week, we focus on the 13-member IT Efficiencies and Redundancies Working Group, led by Rohini Ananthakrishnan, assistant vice chancellor for IT. Members of the IT working group represented a diverse array of departments and units—among them the Office of the Registrar, University Advancement, Student Financial Services, Shared Services, University Libraries and several of the academic units.

The group was charged with reviewing and analyzing software—including cost, risk and capability—currently in use at DU, with an eye toward streamlining and standardizing processes, reducing redundancies, and ensuring approved terms and conditions. The group was also asked to provide recommendations for implementation of governance and education that would lead to a cultural shift toward enterprise applications.

Over the coming months and years, Ananthakrishnan says, “This work will promote equitable access to software across units. It will also help ensure that the software used across campus can be supported by IT.”   

Among the IT group’s suggestions, several are already underway, while others await feedback and evaluation from the University’s Chief Information Officer:

• Identify enterprise software and systems: With enterprise software and systems, the University saves individual units the trouble and expense of researching options and of negotiating and signing individual contracts.
  
  One recent example was to evaluate and purchase project/task-management software. After reviewing the marketplace’s many options and after assessing how many DU groups utilize different project-management tools, the group identified a platform, Wrike, to serve as an enterprise resource for the entire campus. The University has negotiated a single contract with Wrike, and many divisions and units will begin using it this summer.
  
  The IT Working Group also recommends that the campus adopt enterprise tools for email marketing and event planning.

• Develop standardized policies for technology acquisition and use across campus: A proposed technology-acquisition policy will provide guidance for all campus technology acquisitions. Another proposal calls for creating a list of preferred vendors and for establishing an ongoing and sustainable governance model to maintain vendor management and evaluation. By eliminating the prospect of multiple contracts per vendor, this will ensure favorable pricing for every DU unit and create efficiencies with the acquisition process.
• Enhance and promote DU’s software catalog website: Accessible from IT’s homepage, the software catalog supports applications, services and tools available to students, faculty and staff. The catalog provides a listing of software by category and information on acquiring, deploying and utilizing software for intended purposes.
• Create a Technology Solution Center: Drawing on subject matter experts from IT, the Office of Teaching and Learning, Office of the Registrar, Office of Research and Sponsored Programs and other units across campus, this group will provide consulting services when University entities need technical solutions. The staff in the Technology Solution Center will help any technology-requesting unit navigate governance and technology review process. This center is expected to be in operation by late fall.   
• Establish IT Governance: Upon leadership approval, IT governance groups will be established. These stakeholder groups will be consulted whenever new technology needs are proposed enterprisewide or by individual units. The groups will advise on institutional priorities.

“The IT Efficiencies and Redundancies Working Group was tasked with an enormously complex assignment,” Ananthakrishnan says. “DU’s technology needs are always evolving, and every unit has particular needs. This team’s recommendations will go a long way toward allowing DU to better use its resources and better address its technology challenges.”  

Efficiencies Working Groups: April 26 Update

When the coronavirus pandemic seized the headlines in early 2020, the nation’s colleges and universities confronted a number of daunting business and operating challenges. To address these and to ensure the institution’s long-term viability, Chancellor Jeremy Haefner charged four working groups with analyzing functions essential for the University’s continuity and financial health.     

The working groups focused on event planning and management; IT efficiencies and redundancies; marketing efforts; and organizational efficiency. Those groups have completed their work and prepared a number of recommendations for short- and long-term initiatives, to be developed by special task forces and committees.

Over the coming weeks, The Bridge is reporting on the groups’ recommendations. This week, we focus on the 16-member Marketing Efforts Working Group (MEWG), led by Renea Morris, vice chancellor for marketing and communications. Participants represented a diverse array of departments and units—among them the academic units, Office of Undergraduate Admission, Office of Graduate Education and Shared Services.

The group was charged with identifying opportunities and making recommendations for marketing efficiencies. It also was tasked with increasing the reach of currently available resources. The group noted that any efficiencies or cost-saving efforts should not detract from enrollment revenue goals.

While building on current knowledge about data, systems and marketing intelligence campus-wide, this group also based its recommendations on findings from a 2020 marketing analysis by higher education marketing firm Carnegie Dartlet. The MEWG’s review of that analysis concluded that DU must address some systemic issues and take several steps to enhance its marketing and identity. These include:

• Overcoming the perception that DU is expensive and exclusive by becoming a more diverse and inclusive campus.
• Finding ways to tear down siloes in order to project a more cohesive message in the market.
• Leveraging DU’s unique value propositions in its branding and marketing efforts.

In determining how to consolidate and combine marketing efforts, the MEWG identified several areas of opportunity and developed recommendations for each:   

1. Advertising and media placements: DU should review all marketing-related vendor contracts and standardize the list of vendors available for use by individual units. As part of that process, units should determine their key performance indicators for each contract, as well as conduct an overall cost/benefit analysis.
2. Preferred vendors and governance: In addition to developing a list of preferred vendors, DU should establish an ongoing and sustainable governance model to maintain vendor management and evaluation. Eliminating the prospect of multiple contracts per vendor  will help ensure favorable pricing for every DU unit and improved quality of service overall.
3. Lead generation: Defining lead generation as driving all activity that happens up until an application is started, the MEWG recommends the creation of a central communication vehicle that tracks strategy, tactics and contract transparency. It also recommends completion of a lead generation data audit and development of a reporting framework to capture standardized information across units using shared vocabulary.
4. Project management and communication tools: The MEWG recommends an enterprise project management tool paid for and managed by DU’s Office of Information Technology.
5. Communication tools: To ensure collaboration across units, the MEWG recommends a monthly meeting for all marketing/communications teams from the various units. It also urges implementation of Teams file sharing, so that units can share files at the start of each quarter/enrollment cycle, allowing for collaboration on creative projects and for a more cohesive overarching brand narrative.

The MEWG also calls for the immediate creation of a standing marketing and communication strategic governance group for social media. Just as important, the MEWG encourages incorporating social media management into a single platform, using a tool such as Sprout Social.  

To implement these and other recommendations, the MEWG proposed establishing a university-wide strategic marketing governance group. That group, the Strategic Marketing & Communications Council, has already convened, serving as an advisory body to Morris, the Division of Marketing & Communications and the University as a whole.

“After months of spirited collaboration, the Marketing Efforts Working Group offered the University a roadmap for optimizing its marketing and branding efforts and resources,” Morris says. “For an institution as large and diverse as ours and considering how competitive the higher education marketplace is, this work is essential. I look forward to hearing from the new Strategic Marketing & Communications Council and its work groups to help us implement the best ways to harness our many resources and better leverage the strengths of DU’s brand identity.”    

Efficiencies Working Groups: April 15 Update

When the coronavirus pandemic seized the headlines in early 2020, the nation’s colleges and universities confronted a number of daunting business and operating challenges. To address these and to ensure the institution’s long-term viability, Chancellor Haefner charged four working groups, each tasked with analyzing functions essential for the University’s continuity and financial health.     

The working groups focused on event planning and management; IT efficiencies and redundancies; marketing efforts; and organizational efficiency. Those groups have completed their work and prepared a number of recommendations for short- and long-term initiatives, to be developed by special task forces and committees.

Over the coming weeks, The Bridge will report on each group’s recommendations, beginning with the event working group. That 16-member team was led by Amanda Fudala, executive director of Conference and Event Services. Participants came from a diverse array of departments and units, including the registrar’s office, IT, the Newman Center for the Performing Arts, the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and University Advancement.

The group was asked to make recommendations for implementing a centralized, efficient and client-centric approach to event planning and management. Members were also asked to recommend policies and procedures regarding everything from scheduling and space usage to internal re-charges, external sales, contracts, service agreements and event sponsorships.

Here are the group’s five recommendations and status updates.

1. Create an event governance structure to develop one set of well-known policies and procedures for events. With that in mind, an event governance committee will begin work this month.
2. Coordinate event marketing and business development to improve awareness of available venues and grow event revenue for the University. A business development committee, forming in March, begins work on this shortly.
3. Implement enterprise event management software for event planning and order management, marketing and communications, and event registration and billing. The software should be centrally managed and integrated with other campus software. This project has already launched, and stakeholder engagement via surveys and focus groups occurred in January and February. An RFP is due by April 1, and the software is expected to “go live” in June 2023.
4. Centralize event scheduling to eliminate redundancies, streamline processes, utilize one calendar, create equitable access, and integrate event services in one location. An event staff task force is currently reviewing this recommendation.
5. Consider a Shared Services event staffing model to activate a one-stop event portal, standardize the event experience across DU, and implement governance, software and scheduling recommendations using a liaison relationship model with campus units. This, too, is under review by an event staff task force.

“The event working group spent several months considering the University's unique event needs and complex event infrastructure,” Fudala says. “I'm deeply grateful to colleagues from across campus for their collaborative and creative input to help improve conferencing and events for both internal and external audiences.  Our final recommendations are designed to improve the user experience, introduce new efficiencies into event planning and management and to optimize the revenue opportunities associated with our many events.”  

In the coming weeks, the various task forces and committees will evaluate all the recommendations and begin to advance this work. Look for additional updates as work progresses.