Strategic Planning in the
Changing World of ERP
John Gohsman
Bill Wrobleski
University of Michigan
Strategic Planning in the
Changing World of ERP
Copyright John Gohsman, Bill Wrobleski, 2007. This work is the intellectual
property of the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be shared
for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright
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copying is by permissions of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to
republish requires written permission from the authors.
Agenda
• Life is good
• Caught looking at our navel
• Let’s write some shelf-ware
• Let’s not and say we did
• So how did that work out for you?
Life is good
• ERP in place
• Saving some coin
• Lotsa data
• Planning to retire with PeopleSoft
Looking at our Navel then…
BAM!
Lets Write some Shelf-ware
• Found one brave soul (Gartner) to help us
• Started to write the big honkin plan
• Stopped writing a plan, started thinking
Lets not and say we did
• Lets think strategically
– Started with Gartner’s framework, but came
up with our own process
• Small teams
• Motivated experts
• Internal and external scanning
• Iterative
• But tell everyone we’re writing a strategic
plan
IT Governance
& Organization
Service Management
& Sourcing
Risk Management
Infrastructure
Information
Applications
Framework
Business Strategy
IT Governance
& Organization
Service Management
& Sourcing
Risk Management
Infrastructure
Information
Applications
Framework
Business Strategy
IT Governance
& Organization
Service Management
& Sourcing
Risk Management
Infrastructure
Information
Applications
Framework
Business Strategy
IT Governance
& Organization
Service Management
& Sourcing
Risk Management
Infrastructure
Information
Applications
Framework
Business Strategy
IT Governance
& Organization
Service Management
& Sourcing
Risk Management
Infrastructure
Information
Applications
Framework
Business Strategy
IT Governance
& Organization
Service Management
& Sourcing
Risk Management
Infrastructure
Information
Applications
Framework
Business Strategy
IT Governance
& Organization
Service Management
& Sourcing
Risk Management
Infrastructure
Information
Applications
Framework
Business Strategy
IT Governance
& Organization
Service Management
& Sourcing
Risk Management
Infrastructure
Information
Applications
Framework
Business Strategy
Example: Business Strategy
• Interviewed every dean and VP
• Developed 17 key business goals
• Examples included:
– Increase the level of research funding (private and
public)
– Continue to increase the size of the university’s
endowment through private fundraising
– Maintain and increase the excellence of our faculty
– Maintain and increase the excellence and size of our
academic programs and facilities
Example: Application Strategy
• Should we ride PeopleSoft for as long as we can?
• Should we commit to Oracle’s long range vision?
• Should we form a strategic partnership with SAP or
Microsoft?
• Was this the time to move to Open Source?
• Do we want to avoid putting all of our eggs in one
basket?
• How important is best of breed versus integrated
solution?
• Should we build applications ourselves?
• Could our University “stomach” significant change in
these economic times?
We will…
• Let “Best of Breed” trump ERP
• Be expert in both Java and .Net
• Shift resources from transactional
activities to business intelligence
• Shift resources from traditional
applications such as student admin,
finance and human resources toward
support of Research Administration and
Fundraising
We will…
• Build select software from scratch when
appropriate
• Move to Fusion in the long run but be
open to “best of breed” solutions including
open source
• Build our infrastructure out gradually over
the next several years to prepare us for
Fusion
Our Evolution
1995
Build
90%
2005
1995
Plan
Buy
90%
2015
2006
Plan
Build
30%
Buy/Acquire
70%
Do Overs
• Missed things
– Workflow, Portal
• Some assumptions were wrong
– Cost to move to Oracle middleware beyond our
means
– Apple making a comeback
– Business Intelligence is driving infrastructure changes
faster than our applications
• Vendor decision changes
– PeopleSoft Applications Unlimited
Lessons Learned
• Great is the enemy of good
• Concise list of business drivers is crucial
• Small working groups speed the process
• Regular reviews allow you to adapt the
plan (changes come fast: keep up!)
• Annual list of strategic priorities
– Important communication tool
– Alignment drives the right results
Closing Thoughts
Vendor Parties:
Free
Conference Fee:
$280
Food:
$300
Airline Ticket:
$400
Beer:
Not tellin’
Taking Credit for Other’s Good Work:
Priceless
Taking credit for their work…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Barry MacDougall
Rob Thomas
Laura Patterson
Deb Mero
Mike Loviska
Barry MacDougall
Holly Nielsen
Darcy Turner
Pam Fons
Jim Bujaki
Frances Mueller
Kim Rinn
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Peggy Bennett
Terry Houser
Brian McRae
Jon Turbett
Carol Dacko
Dave Holzschuh
Hai Hoang
Nancy Medd
Judy Smutek
Cheryl Van Kirk
Brent Dickman
Shane Fortune
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Pat McCormick
David Sweetman
Judy Shirley
Seth Meyer
Chris Wood
Dave McLaughlin
Dan Drumm
Debbie Gowan
Pat Connelly
(Gartner)
• And more!
Questions?
Just the Facts
• Three campuses
– Ann Arbor (40,000 students, 23,000 faculty/staff)
– Dearborn & Flint (12,000 students, 1,800 faculty/staff)
• Financial Picture
– Financial Annual Budget >$4 Billion (10% from State of Michigan)
– $823M research funding per year (NIH 47%, NSF 9%, DOD 8%)
– Endowment: $6 billion
• Health System
– Includes: Medical School, 3 hospitals, 30 health centers and
120 outpatient clinics (13,000 total employees)
• Michigan values its highly decentralized nature
– “Coordinated autonomy”