UC2010: A New Business Architecture

Lessons from our Corporate Partners

The University of California enjoys strong relationships with a number of corporate partners, and the New Business Architecture Planning Group consulted a select group of partners to provide valuable insight throughout its deliberations.

While we have borrowed heavily from many corporate partners, the corporations that have been most heavily involved in the development of this report are:

Cisco Systems, Incorporated
Gateway Computers, Incorporated
International Business Machines Corporation
PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP

In addition to having significant business relationship with UC, these corporations have shared with the Planning Group their strategies for tackling many of the same challenges UC faces. Throughout the report there are references to concepts and models that are employed by these companies and that the Planning Group believes are relevant to a New Business Architecture for UC.

The "self-service" business model was a common theme to many of these companies when they discussed their internal business strategies with the Planning Group. These and many other organizations are investing in technology platforms to deliver Web-based business systems for their employees — systems designed to enable and support a self-service organization, where managers and staff have, on their desktop, all the tools they need to do their job.




	"Cisco has proven that the self-service model works; it increases customer satisfaction, improves employee productivity and reduces costs." Peter Solvik, Sr Vice President IT, Cisco Systems

Designed for optimal cycle-time and performance, ease of access, personalized views of information and extensive online help and training, these systems enable staff to learn about and perform a function in a single transaction. Eliminating the intermediate transactional processes between staff and the information and functions they require is the key to containing costs and reducing cumbersome bureaucracy. The University of California will benefit from pursuing similar strategies adapted to its unique environment.

The Planning Group also recognizes the considerable efforts by other higher education institutions, including Boston College,⁴ University of Washington, and University of Delaware, to explore information portal-based business models.