HUMANE
ESMU-HUMANE WINTER SCHOOL
KLM Case study : Group 6 Presentation
University of Klein-Le-Mas
A future for growth and excellence
Case Study Report
Group 6 – Green Badges
Roberto Barreri
Michael Sibly
Rudolf van de Bilt
Marie Claire van de Velde
Roberta Wooldridge Smith
Barcelona 21-03-2003
Executive Summary
The Group recognises that the very recent appointment of the new Head of Administration will mean that she will need to work within the existing structures and organisational culture currently present at Klein-Le-Mas. Consequently, the Group has devised an immediate plan of action which will enable her to address the issues which require immediate attention and itemised her intended modus operandi in each of these areas. It is further acknowledged that whilst some of these are straighfoward in the immediate term, others will require considerable time, consultation and financial support and will only be capable of achievement in a far longer timeframe.
Short Term Aims
1. Address falling unit of resource
Modus Operandi:
Ø Freeze on new appointments other than in exceptional circumstances
Ø Analysis of staff-student ratios to inform new appointments strategy
Ø Accept Government offer to redeploy staff
Ø Present plan to staff of whole institution to maximise transparency, set out business case and head-off potential difficulties
Ø Implement cut of 2% in departmental resources
Ø Review administrative management structure with a view to achieving cost efficiencies
2. Restructure administration
Modus Operandi:
Ø Institute single reporting line to Rector, removing dual reporting with Finance Officer. All further heads of administrative offices to report to Head of Administration
Ø Consider physical co-location of administrative functions with Estates Officer
Ø Extend remit of Research Planning Office to encourage greater proactivity and feed into earned income strategy.
3. Academic portfolio analysis
Modus Operandi:
Ø Consider further investment in existing strengths; conduct cost-benefit analysis of investing in current areas of weakness; consider funding premium attracted by students in different fields
Ø Consider portfolio of teaching and research against national priorities benchmarks to ensure appropriateness and high quality of portfolio
Ø Consider portfolios of other regional institutions with a view to developing potential strategic alliances/engaging in subject-specific collaboration
Ø Consider against student numbers. Use national trends as indicators of national recruitment difficulties to assess KLM´s performance.
4. Consider diversification of KLM´s funding base
Modus Operandi:
Ø Extend remit of Finance Office to include new Earned Income Task Group to consider diversification of KLM´s funding base
Ø Consider future of non-core activities eg catering and residences. Could these be enhanced to provide an income source? If not, consider subcontracting.
5. Sustainability post
Modus Operandi:
Ø Bid for post in field of transport
6. Customer satisfaction questionnaire
Modus Operandi:
Ø Consider implementation of draft (attached) with administrative colleagues to set targets prior to submission to Rector
7. Offer of sponsorship/finance from BET
Modus Operandi:
Ø Respond to Rector recommending rejection of offer on ethical grounds. Suggest that development of regional agenda might lead to further opportunities with companies less compromised by field of activity
8. Offer of sponsorship/finance from anonymous donor
Modus Operandi:
Ø Respond to Rector to accept.
9. Develop regional agenda
Modus Operandi:
Ø Start trilateral discussions with the Polytechnic and the Agricultural College with a view to identifying complementarity, developing research collaboration and submitting joint external funding bids.
10. Consider re-working KLM´s Mission Statement and develop corporate plan
Modus Operandi:
Ø Consultation with staff of whole institutions
Ø Collaboration with regional and business partners
11. Develop fundraising statregy
Modus Operandi:
Ø Found alumni association
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
Critical mass
Good overall staff/student ratio
Wide portfolio of faculties & departments
Opportunities
Good transport links by train & air (planned)
Good HEI-infrastructure
Businesspark with potential for growth
Complementarity of HEI’s
New system of funding induces change
Weaknesses
Staff are civil servants
Traditional managementstructure
Hierarchical
Traditional steering control
Portfolio tend to reflect earlier growth (the colonial period)
Dispersal of buildings lead to fragmentation
Inability to overspend /to make reservations
High dropout rates
Buildings: more than 50% in need of repairs or inadequate
Buildings mostly state owned
Highly dependent on regional students
Funding base highly dependent on teaching
Threats
Rigid appointment-structure (civil servant status)
Rigid funding-system
Degeneration of region
High unemployment rate
Lopsided demographic structure (retired people)
Competion for students with polytechnic
Conclusions from SWOT
External opportunities and threats:
The University of KLM is in many ways linked to the region of Pronord:
The university budget is part of the provincial budget of Pronord
Majority of students are from Pronord region
The regional government of Pronord formally appoints staff.
These links suggest that to a great extent there is an interdependence of the University of KLM and the Province of Pronord. In this respect the declining economic state of the region might lead to a more rigid control and even budget cuts by the region. However this mechanism also works the other way around. So if the region becomes more prosperous the University of KLM might prosper as well. In this respect potential new growth areas could be used to the advantage of the University of KLM.
The University of KLM should therefore emphasise its role as an important factor in the socio-economic development of the region of Pronord
This strong commitment of the university of KLM to the welfare of the region should be reflected in a willingness to cooperate closely with the regional government and other Hei’s. This co-operation, which should include the private sector as much as possible, could lead to the formulation of a Regional Innovation Policy. For the University of KLM this, ultimately, will lead to:
· New growth areas
Joint actions to acquire regional development funds leading to
· More contractresearch done for regional companies
· More contract education
· More university spin-offs
· Public/private partnership to finance (scientific) growth areas
· Combined marketing and PR
The changes in state funding mechanisms should be used to induce change in the management culture of KLM
Internal strengths and weaknesses
The funding structure of KLM should be diversified. It should be less dependent on teaching income. In this respect generating more research income has high priority. Critical analyses of portfolio of subjects are needed. Restructuring may be necessary. Good relationships with the regional government (see the above) might be a great help in overcoming problems with civil servant status of staff.
Potential income generating capabilities of departments and services should be explored and stimulated and while safeguarding the traditional recruitment area for students, new recruitment areas (national and international) should be opened up. The good transport links that Pronord will work to the advantage of this policy.
New Mission Statement
It is fair to say that in the light of this SWOT analyses and the first conclusions drawn from it, a new mission statement should be formulated. This is a process, which should include all levels of the university. However a first proposal for a new mission could be formulated as follows:
The University of KLM of the Region of Pronord meets the needs of society, encouraging a sense of initiative among its academic staff and students to promote scientific quality and excellence
This statement emphasises the strong links with the region, will lead to actions to improve the quality of teaching, while the involvement with the Pronord region might strengthen its research base in many ways.
One important conclusion may be drawn from all this. The university as a whole should become a more innovative university and this should be reflected in a more entrepreneurial approach from its management and staff
Question 1: Changes proposed to the administrative and organisational structure of the University.
The administration requires structural and physical coherence in order to ensure that effective and efficient communication between components is encouraged. The new Head of Admin should be physically proximate to her staff, who should not themselves be fragmented across buildings spread across Ybother. There is evidence that the administrative structure has not evolved during the last 30 years, and it is now unlikely that the structure is enabling the administration, and hence the institution as a whole, to respond to its current, and its potential future, operating environment.
A priority must be the conduct of administrative restructuring with a view to achieving a single reporting line through the Head of Admin to the Rector. To this end the duality of the reporting structure with the Finance Officer ought be resolved such that the latter also reports to the Head of Admin, as ought the Heads of Academic Development, Planning and Research. This unified structure will ensure the delivery of consistent advice from the Head of Admin to the Rector without any risk of divergence of opinion being expressed at this level. Such a structure will require all administrative colleagues to come to a collective view about a given course of action. Greater harmonisation will need, of course, to be underpinned by effective communication and physical proximity – ideally co-location – of all administrative offices would be ideal. The Head of Finance must consider in conjunction with the Director of Buildings/Grounds the opportunities for re-allocation of accommodation to achieve this end, acknowledging that this will not be achievable in the very short term and that the priority for the University will be the provision and equipment of academic accommodation.
The advent of a research planning office is a new development which should be welcomed, but if it is to succeed careful thought must be given to its management, reporting lines and physical location. Ideally it should co-located with other administrative functions, and certainly it should also be accessible to the academic units which it should serve not merely in terms of maintaining financial records for external research grant and contract income but taking amore proactive stance (with a concomitant likely requirement to invest in additional, specialist administrative staff) to work with departments in ´horizon scanning´ to ensure that Xland maximises potential revenue by identifying and responding to calls for projects where external funding is available, and where academic staff can benefit from professional administrative advice in compiling such bids.
Consideration should also be given to extending the remit of the current Finance Office from Pay, Purchasing and Planning to incorporate an element of income generation activity of which there is currently little evidence. It is not suggested that this activity should be the preserve of the Finance Office, merely that in the initial stages of development of an earned income strategy, this might be the more appropriate location for its management. It is suggested that a task group comprising senior administrative staff, advisers external to the University from the private sector and academics working in fields which might lend themselves to generating income be established as an initial step.
The issue of the management of ´non-core´- and certainly non-traditional - areas of activity will need to be carefully appraised. The University may wish to consider the relative merits of (a) sub-contracting areas such as residential and catering services to reduce overheads and, crucially, release space for co-location of the administrative function or (b) investing particularly in these areas should it view them as potential income generation opportunities.
Portfolio analysis of the range of educational programmes and research specialisms of the University might also usefully be undertaken at this juncture, in order to ensure co-ordination between administrative and academic structures and activities. There is substantial evidence that, as with the administrative structure, little or no strategic level review of the portfolio of Xland´s activity has been undertaken in the last generation in order to build on strengths, invest in areas of weakness, withdraw from areas in which resource should no longer be concentrated, or to benchmark the University´s activities against its external operating environment,. The University ought to consider carefully areas of teaching and research which are national priorities and capitalise on strengths. It should consider the relative sizes of its departments, aiming to achieve critical mass and provide a platform from which departments can develop on a 10-year horizon.
Areas of activity representing periods of the institution´s or Xland´s historical evolution should be reassessed against such current national benchmarks and priorities. This would apply particularly to provision in Asian languages and anthropology where numbers are low, the unit of resource for students is low and a high proportion of staff will be retiring in the medium term.
Such portfolio analysis ought also to be conducted in areas attracting relatively low student numbers: analysis should be undertaken to identify if this is a national or regional trend of whether there is a particular cause for concern at Xland. Small departments may be cost intensive to maintain hence unless critical mass can be achieved, and unless the University sees significant merit in maintaining activity in such areas, closures might be anticipated in areas such as music and urban planning.
The University should conduct a strategic analysis of its portfolio of activities also in terms of the unit of resource available for them and in view of the support in terms of facilities requirements they have with a view to resolving whether it wishing to maintain its position as an institution which continues to offer a wide portfolio of activities or takes a decision to focus its activities in niche areas where it can maximise financial, physical and human resources.
As already indicated, (see references to Asian Studies above) some areas lend themselves to consideration of this nature. Reference should also be made to the regional context in which the University of Xland is operating. Should a cost-benefit analysis suggest such a plan has merit, Xland might well consider strategic alliances or collaborations with the neighbouring polytechnic and/or agricultural college. There is some concern over the recent performance of the latter and assurances would need to be forthcoming that such a merger would (a) complement the University´s range of activity, (b) be financially sound and (c) lead to an overall enhancement in the profile of the educational programmes currently offered by Xland in relevant areas.