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Single Vendor Partnership

The University would contract with a vendor to supply core application software in areas where mandatory requirements could be met. Implied in this approach would be a willingness on the part of the University to change policies and practices where needed and possible to match software functionality available from this vendor. For each project implementation, the University would define mandatory requirements and examine the vendor partner's software to determine if these requirements were included. If they were included, the University would implement the vendor's software. If they were not included and the University was unable to change policies and practices and unable to customize the vendor partner's software to meet the requirements, the University would choose another vendor's product or develop the software in-house. In cases where the vendor partner had the needed software under development, the University would participate in the definition of requirements and would plan to implement the software if mandatory requirements were incorporated in the final product.

Some of the expected benefits of this approach are:

• Reduced procurement effort.
• The development of a seamless environment from one application to another for both casual and "power" users of these applications.
• A simpler technical environment resulting in reduced learning curve and support effort on the part of technical staff.
• The availability of an enterprise data model and a shared database that would reduce data entry effort and minimize the need for reconciliation between applications.
• A shortened scheduled for overhauling existing applications and implementing new ones.
• A possible added opportunity for exposure to best practices if the University participates with other higher education institutions in defining requirements for vendor software under development.