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An enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for higher education provides the core tech to manage institutional services, including faculty, staff, and student needs. Dedicated ERP software designed for higher ed can automate tasks, eliminate manual work, and bring together resources across campuses into a centralized platform. By streamlining the information flow between departments and financial, operations, and academic units, ERP software becomes the central hub for management.
While many schools have implemented ERP systems, many of these systems are outdated and do not benefit from the power of today’s emerging technology. Only 19% of institutions have completed an ERP implementation within the past decade. While another 17% are in the process of implementing a new ERP system, the rest are relying on old legacy software that does not support the full range of tasks needed for the efficient operation of a college or university.
Why are academic institutions implementing or updating their ERP systems? An Educause study of nearly 370 higher ed locations highlighted the top reasons for replacing software:
While your reasons may vary, if you have any of these concerns, it may be time to update your tech stack to a modern ERP platform.
The 5 major components of ERP systems in business are:
In higher education, however, ERP systems encompass a wide variety of capabilities to manage college and university resources. The most common components include:
There are several key benefits to implementing or upgrading your systems to a modern ERP system.
An ERP system connects data, processes, and reporting across previously disparate systems. Automation, workflows. and standards improve process efficiency. For example, admissions staff process applications faster by accessing centralized student data. Procurement teams can streamline department purchasing by implementing a digital workflow and approval process, leveraging eProcurement.
An ERP system centralizes data in a single source of truth to ensure that data is in sync, accurate, and up-to-date. Administrators can track KPIs like enrollment funnel conversion rates to guide strategic decisions.
An ERP system breaks up data silos to connect information across campuses and departments—registrar, admissions, finance, HR, and more.
Student self-service access via portals allows tasks like registering for classes or making payments. Alerts and notifications also improve communication and transparency.
Modern ERP systems have robust access controls, permissions, and auditing to meet privacy regulations like FERPA compliance for student data. Built-in validations improve data integrity across the system and adhere to cybersecurity best practices.
Common ERP data and unified processes improve communication between departments, staff, students, and parents. An ERP platform enables seamless collaboration and information sharing among key higher education stakeholders
Efficiencies, workflow automation, and paper reduction generate significant cost savings over legacy manual processes. Cloud deployment also reduces infrastructure expenses compared to on-premises software.
Colleges and universities integrating and upgrading the ERP systems need to follow a formal process to ensure an effective transition. Here are the key steps.
Conduct assessments to identify gaps in current ERP capabilities against objectives and pain points. Uncover less visible deficiencies like missing analytics and workflow bottlenecks.
Gauge organizational readiness through surveys and focus groups. Highlight change management and training requirements. Incorporate user input into design to help seed buy-in and account for potential impediments to implementation.
You will want to talk to a broad cross-section of stakeholders as different functional units will use ERP components differently. For example, science departments and food services have specialized inventory features, compared to admin units.
Account for all costs including licensing, project management, data migration, consultants, infrastructure, training, and support.
ERP failures generally happen because the system design did not account for all expenses and challenges. While studies show that 81% of ERP installations meet ROI expectations within a year or more after go-live dates, the remaining 19% failed to do so, leading to costly mistakes.
You do not want to replicate outdated workflow and processes in a new system. Leverage your digital transformation as an opportunity to fix problems. Standardize handling procedures based on best practices and technology, enabling automation wherever possible.
Remote and hybrid work schedules have become more common. There are plenty of examples. The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Support allows its 160 employees in the Chancellor’s office to work remotely. About half of the 300 workers in the IT department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign are now remote and nearly 100 work hybrid schedules. At Southern New Hampshire University, 88% of all employees are fully or partially remote.
Remote access and flexible scaling through cloud-based ERP systems are crucial to accommodate mobility needs.
Making substantive changes to systems and workflow is often more about the people than the technology. An ERP integration or upgrade significantly impacts users and disrupts legacy workflows. Do not underestimate the importance of effective change management to get teams to adopt and embrace new capabilities.
User training plays an important role in change management in such digital transformations. A Forrester Business and Technology Services survey ranked change resistance as one of the top five most frequent challenges in executing technology plans.
Working with suppliers, you can compare features, functions, and pricing to find the best-fit solutions for your college or university.
E&I Cooperative Services can help streamline the procurement process. As the only non-profit, member-owned purchasing cooperative that focuses solely on the education sector, E&I Cooperative Services has competitively solicited cooperative purchasing agreements tailored to the needs of higher education. E&I Cooperative Services aggregates volume buying across its member organizations to negotiate better pricing and terms than institutions can achieve on their own.
Once you are ready to go live, it’s a good idea to run systems in parallel or consider phasing in components to ensure functionality requirements work as intended. As you roll-out systems, encourage open feedback from users to quickly resolve concerns and continually optimize based on user input.
Managing procurement and inventory for higher education institutions requires specialized capabilities. ERP systems tailored for colleges and universities encompass modules and integrations to enable the right controls, flexibility, and analytics needed to run academic operations efficiently. There’s much to learn, which is why we’re providing this introduction to the ERP procurement process flow in higher education.
Higher education ERP supply chain management in ERP systems connects procurement requests from end-users across decentralized departments and locations to inventory controls, purchasing, receiving, accounts payable, and reporting.
In a typical workflow, orders are routed through approval chains while enforcing policies for spend authorization. Dashboards give procurement leaders real-time visibility into budgets and spending to monitor and assess categories of spend.
Higher education institutions have unique procurement requirements compared to corporate environments. Considerations span managing inventory for specialized lab equipment, books and course materials, IT hardware, facilities maintenance supplies, food services, and more.
There are several types of inventory management for higher education, along with procurement systems. A few of the more common ones include:
Procurement teams must account for decentralized decision-making across academic departments and administrative units while maintaining compliance with regulations. This requires an ERP system that enables integration with eProcurement systems, allowing departments to make inventory purchasing from approved suppliers with online catalogs.
For inventory and asset management, ERP inventory management for higher education systems have configurable categories and attributes for tracking. For example, lab inventory can record serial numbers, certification expiration dates, hazardous materials details, and maintenance records. Barcoding and RFID integration support inventory auditing and chain of custody tracking.
Inventory tracking systems are capable of monitoring inventory levels, setting optimal reorder points, and connecting with external systems to monitor pricing trends to recommend potential savings.
Examples of procurement systems in higher education tied to finance modules enable different types and methods of purchasing such as:
E&I Cooperative Services is the only nationwide purchasing cooperative dedicated to the education sector. With more than 100 ready-to-use contracts, you can find the ERP system, tech tools, system integrators, and consulting help you need for a successful ERP installation, upgrade, or digital transition.
By aggregating spend across 6,000 member institutions, E&I Cooperative Services creates significant cost efficiencies when negotiating contracts, passing along the savings to members. There is no cost to join E&I Cooperative Services and no obligation or minimum purchasing requirements. Members can review contracts and pricing and choose about whether to opt in.
As a member-owned organization, E&I Cooperative Services also shares proceeds in the form of equity and patronage rebates. For example, E&I Cooperative Services returned $6.32 million in patronage to members in 2023.
What are the 3 common types of ERPs?
The three most common types of ERP systems are:
What is the procurement process in ERP?
The procurement process in higher education ERP standardizes and manages the purchasing of goods and services to support university operations, centralizing key data and applying automation to enforce approvals, provide transparency, and optimize spending. This ERP integration enables real-time visibility and control over procurement spending across the institution.
Can ERP systems automate operations?
One big advantage of ERP systems is the ability to automate many functions, relieving administrative staff of a significant number of manual tasks. However, it still requires human intervention to configure rules, and monitoring to ensure outputs match institutional policies and requirements.
Systems typically come with a large variety of pre-built tools and allow for custom integrations, add-ons, and third-party integrations to expand automation.
Review available contracts at E&I Cooperative Services and see all the benefits of becoming a member. You can also connect with the dedicated E&I procurement specialist for your organization.
