Integrated Systems: Management Approaches To Acquiring Them In Australian Universities

Teaching Note

This case describes the situation that Central Queensland University (CQU) found itself in during the late 1990s as they faced increasing pressures from the government for information reporting, internal pressures to decrease administrative requirements of their systems and yet provide increasing responsiveness to their students, and the deadline of December 31, 1999 to solve their Y2K problem. To address all of these concerns, CQU decided to implement PeopleSoft. This case describes the process that a consortium of universities in Australia went through in trying to address these issues, and then the process that CQU specifically went through to address their particular issues. This case illustrates how the “solution” of a packaged solution that is designed for the masses may not be appropriate for a particular organization. While this case focuses on PeopleSoft in an Australian university, the lessons learned are just as applicable in an industrial firm that is looking at implementing SAP or any of the other ERP solutions on the market today.

Questions for Discussion

  1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of collaborative IT projects in a particular industry?

Obviously, firms in a given industry will share many common processes, and to the extent that those processes are the same, systems across the industry can also be the same. In this case, all of the public universities in Australia have the same governmental reporting requirements. By sharing information across firms in a single industry, best practices can be unearthed and shared by all firms in the industry. Of course, that’s one of the disadvantages of a collaborative IT project also – the firms that have better practices and procedures end up sharing that knowledge with other firms in the industry. Furthermore, regardless of how similar the process are in a given firm, there are still firm-specific practices that make the processes different from firm to firm. Trying to use the same system in all firms in an industry without regard for these differences will result in failure

  1. What are the implications of this account to theories of strategic information systems development for competitive advantage?

A sustainable competitive advantage from a strategic information system requires that the system be a secret, or that the system contain features that cannot be duplicated in another similar firm. Maintaining secrecy about a system is virtually impossible given today’s very mobile IT workforce, so the alternative is to have features in the system that provide a firm a competitive advantage and yet, if copied, they would not yield the same advantage for competitors. In this case, the universities are competitors to a degree, since there is a finite number of students in Australia at any point in time. Each university functions slightly differently in terms of their processes, even though they have the same governmental reporting requirements, so it is possible that one Australian university could develop systems that provide it an advantage over the others, even if the others implemented the exact same system.

  1. What appeared to be the determining factor in the decision regarding which consortium to join?

It appears that CQU joined the UniPower consortium because they already had some systems that had been written in PowerHouse. Thus, they assumed that new systems would have some compatibility with their existing systems, and that their in-house staff would have some expertise with the underlying technology of any new systems that were created. Thus, the deciding factor for many of the universities was likely compatibility with their current systems and their current way of doing business.

  1. How do you account for the comparative success of the PeopleSoft product in Australia? What impact did the collaborative CASMAC project on have on individual IT managers in universities?

PeopleSoft, while widely known for their human resources programs, had made a significant push into the university market with their student system. This system was widely used in the USA, and the company had been willing to adapt the system for the Australian and New Zealand academic markets. Thus, they had an application ready to go, as opposed to the UniPower and UniOn consortiums that had to develop all of their applications.

The CASMAC project most likely motivated IT managers in the various universities to look at their unique information requirements, and thus to be more informed consumers of packaged solutions that were offered when the UniPower consortium failed to produce any useable software. Through the collaborative project, the IT managers would have seen the similarities and differences between their systems requirements and those of the other universities in their consortium.

  1. Do you view the CASMAC project as a positive or a negative experience for Australian universities?

The CASMAC project was a failure in terms of the stated goal – to help the Australian universities develop a common set of applications that could be used across all of the universities. Beyond that, however, the process of cooperation did force the IT managers and others at the universities to look at their overall information needs and to begin determining what was needed to meet those needs. As stated above, the IT managers should have discovered through this process which of their information needs were similar to other universities, and which were different. This knowledge should have been very valuable to them when they went through the process of acquiring systems like PeopleSoft, since they had a much clearer understanding of what they needed their new systems to do.

  1. What alternative outcomes may have emerged had the CASMAC initiative not occurred?

It is likely that when the Y2K deadline appeared on the horizon, many of the university IT managers, and academic deans, etc., would not have been prepared to know what they needed the new systems to do. Thus, much valuable time would have been spent on information requirements determination before RFPs could be sent out, or if the universities skipped this step, then their RFPs would have been incomplete. In either case, it is very likely that the universities would have ended up with suboptimal solutions, and quite possibly no adequate solution at all before the Y2K deadline arrived.

An alternative outcome is that firms like PeopleSoft, with their packaged solution, may have come calling on universities, and in haste the universities may have purchased these packaged solutions. For some universities this would have worked out, since the packaged solution would have been close to what the university needed. But for others, the solution would not have met the need.

  1. Do you think the basis for making a decision to invest in IT systems is different for public and private organizations? Is there evidence suggesting the application of more formal investment decision making in the commercial sector? Do you agree that the necessity to invest in an IT project can be assessed in the absence of financial criteria?

Organizations in the public sector must answer to external decision makers, just as private sector firms must. Universities and other public sector firms must answer to the government agencies or other authorities that have oversight for those organizations, and also to the funding agencies that provide funds for the operations of the organization. Private organizations must answer to the owners or stockholders. The difference is that the owners of a privately owned firm are concerned with the profitability of the firm, whereas the oversight bodies of a public organization are primarily concerned with assuring that the public’s interests are preserved. Thus, it is likely that private organizations are more likely to utilize more formal investment decision-making techniques, since the overall profitability of the firm is the driving decision criteria. However, there is evidence in the literature that shows that firms have made substantial investments in IT projects without any hard financial proof that the investment is sound. These projects are often justified on the basis of “if we don’t do it, we will go out of business.” Most Y2K projects were justified on this basis – firms believed that if they didn’t fix their Y2K problems, they would not be able to continue in business past January 1, 2000.

  1. What criteria would you apply to the selection process at CQU when it needed to choose between the respective products from PeopleSoft, Deakin Software Services and Technology One

The primary criteria would be, which one of the solutions comes closest to meeting CQU’s information requirements, both internal and the external reporting requirements. Secondary criteria would include costs to install, convert from old systems to new, and ongoing maintenance and use of the system, and the time required to implement the new solutions in the university.

  1. How would you define the role of an IT department when all of the significant administrative systems operated by the organization are packaged software products?

The IT department still has a very significant role in an organization even when all systems are packaged software products. First, the IT department is responsible for working with users in the various departments to determine their information needs. Then, the IT department should have a role in specifying the RFP, and in evaluating the responses to the RFP in light of the users requirements. Installation of a package may be done by the IT department, by the vendor, or by a third party. However, even if it is implemented by an outside party, the internal IT department should also be involved in the installation since they will be responsible for keeping the new system running, for implementing upgrades, and for making sure that the package integrates with the other systems that a firm runs. Furthermore, the internal IT department has a significant role to play in the creation and maintenance of the centralized database, and establishing permissions for the various applications and users to that data. Finally, the internal network falls under the control of the internal IT department.

Integrated Systems Teaching NotePage 1