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Technology Implementation >> The Power of TWO

5/27/2005

By Matt Villano

Nobody ever said that campus technology implementation were easy, but some schools are finding that for the toughest challenges, two pedaling in tandem are infinitely better than one.

There's no shortage of great pairings throughout history. George Washington and John Adams, James Watson and Francis Crick; Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. In all of these cases, both parties teamed up for a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. Without exclusion, the results were exceptional. The same types of benefits can be seen in academia, where college and universities have similar opportunities to partner with vendors to tackle tough technology implementations. Over the last few years, a handful of schools big and small have greatly benefited from situations like these, partnering closely with vendors to prove that two heads are indeed better than one.

Open Source ROI

Perhaps one of the best examples of a successful school/vendor partnership is the case of the University of Illinois, where an ordinary ERP implementation turned into a groundbreaking partnership with SunGard SCT (www.sungardsct.com). The alliance began back in 2000, when the 68,000-student public university embarked on a project to replace more than 160 of its core administrative systems more contemporary set of applications from SunGard SCT.

The search for a commercial integration solution that could utilize standards such as XML and JMS began with a traditional request for proposal (RFP). When that went unfulfilled, school officials became proactive, approached SCT, and asked the vendor to collaborate on an approach that would expose the data in the Banner system using these standards. The specifics of the deal were unusual: Illinois would pay for the development of the gateway, and in return would receive a royalty for the first ten sales once the product was commercialized. According to Rich Mendola, associate VP for administrative Information Technology Services, the deal would be a “win-win” for everyone involved, provided that the technical staff from both organizations were willing and able to pull it off.

So You Want to Partner?

PARTNERING WITH VENDORS can be pretty much like learning to drive a standard-shift car—getting it right takes time, focus, and coordination. Of course, most things in life are easier with a little inside information. With this in mind, Mike Cooper, program coordinator of the Technology Support Center at West Virginia University, shares some advice for schools thinking about formalizing a relationship with a vendor they already know and appreciate.

Communicate. The first step toward any successful partnership is honesty. Form a committee to state goals and expectations clearly. Put the expectations and goals in writing, perhaps in the form of a mission statement. Openly communicate that statement to the vendor so that everyone is on the same page.



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