http://www.ibm-sap.com - The University of Cincinnati, one of the oldest universities in the United States, had another claim to longevity: a financial system from the 1980s that wasn't keeping up with modern times. This video features the school's vice president and CIO talking about their selection process, which resulted in a very successful working relationship with IBM Business Consulting Services during the installation and training on their chosen SAP system. For more info visit www.ibm-sap.com
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SIFF: I'm Vice President and CIO of the University of Cincinnati. I'm also a Professor of Information Systems in the Business School. The University of Cincinnati is one of the oldest universities in the country.
We have 33,000 students. We have 17 distinct colleges: the medical center, conservatory, law school, engineering school; have two sort of regional campuses that are somewhat remote from us.
We have a very, very sophisticated information technology environment. We have something like 22,000 data lines; 40 percent of the university is wireless data. We're a charter member of Internet II, and I dare say as a leading IT environment within the State of Ohio, which is the seventh largest state in the country.
We had a 1980s financial system, which was inadequate for the sort of growth of the university where we are now. And so we did a selection of a new financial system and came out to the SAP system, and then had a very competitive RFP selection process and very fortunately ended up selecting, quite easily actually, IBM BCS.
IBM differentiated itself considerably in both references and in its management team. The management staff was excellent to work with and talk with, even through the bidding process.
One of the other leading vendors in the sort of best and final discussion must have brought like six management people, maybe six management people and five techies. And the room was filled, and that was the discussion.
IBM's was one person, the person that had been identified as the project manager, and it was terrific. He knew everything, he was easy to talk with, it was, I mean that was the guy that was going to be on the ground and he was wonderful to talk with. And that really made it a very easy selection process.
We were both pleased with SAP and pleased with IBM. And we decided to go ahead with the SAP Human Resources module, so we have now extended IBM's engagement, for just about another year.
So it was truly projected not as an IT project, and it wasn't run by the IT people. It was really run by the business people. The IT people were supportive; we were as much partners as IBM. And so it was changing the business process, and that's been very successful.
One of the great things that I think the IBM team brought to the table was really giving the local folks who are very, very good, but who hadn't done this before, hadn't built this sort of building, they gave them the confidence that they could do it.
And then in a sense the IBM team provided this power transfer that empowered the local folks. And many of my staff at the end of it said it was a great experience to be part of this sort of journey. And I think that really speaks well to the sort of philosophic approach of the IBM consulting team.
I was happy to begin the engagement with IBM, because it's a very powerful company. It wasn't as if you're bringing the 800-pound gorilla on to your campus. They became colleagues and worked right along side us. That's pretty impressive.
But the power of IBM is terribly important because when we ran into some roadblocks, IBM was able to apply that power. We were having trouble with another vendor, and it just took a couple of phone calls to get attention. That's power.
Toward the end of the implementation of the financial system we had to ramp up the training and had to very quickly build four classrooms, really computer labs. IBM brought in 100 laptops and set up these wireless labs, so it was almost like a sort of hospital triage center for computing. And that, too, was power.
During the course of the implementation we had a problem with one of our key staff members and IBM was able to bring in somebody who filled in that role perfectly. That, too, is power. And we never lost a beat, never lost a moment with any of those crises. They weren't crises; they were just taken care of. And I think that's an important point.
I would characterize the working relationship as certainly a partnership, but also very collegial. These are good folks. We're happy to have them here.
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