Successfully Integrating Services at the University
by Brian McDonald, Founder, MOR Associates, July 2025
As universities face increasing financial pressures from reductions in state and federal funding, taxes on certain endowments, declining admissions, and escalating costs, many are exploring ways to optimize their current spending on information technology, human resources, and other administrative functions. Developing and executing a strategy for integrating what have often been long-standing distributed services is one option that can leverage resources, improve service, and reduce expenses.
The goal is to design and implement more scalable service models that maximize the organization’s overall resources while continuing to improve service and advance strategic priorities.
From 2017 to 2019, the University of Nebraska system undertook a significant information technology (IT) restructuring initiative impacting 375 staff. The primary goals were to unify three previously independent campus IT groups and one central IT unit, and to reduce the overall IT spend by $6 million. While there were substantial technical components, such as consolidating systems and integrating services, the most critical challenges proved to be organizational and cultural changes.
MOR had the opportunity to facilitate this initiative and bring the stakeholders together to create a shared vision, to develop clear priorities for the initial phases, and to gather everyone’s input on the future design of the emerging organization. The process leveraged MOR’s emphasis on leadership development, and collectively the cohort helped shape the desired culture and mapped a pathway to the desired future. The resulting strategic alignment led to the successful adoption of the integrated and improved “One IT” and the desired $6 million cost savings.
In addition to the service and security enhancements, this process helped set the foundation for ongoing innovation and collaboration across the University of Nebraska system. As Bret Blackman, System CIO at the University of Nebraska, shared in a recent forum, “The technology part is easy; it is the people and culture that are a challenge. MOR’s role in facilitating our integration process was instrumental in the success of this initiative.”
How MOR Successfully Facilitates Integrations
A guiding principle of every MOR consulting project, whether it is developing a strategic roadmap or creating a more integrated service community, is to bring the various stakeholders together to constructively participate in the process.
We believe change works when people feel that a change is being made with and for them rather than done to them.
MOR’s role helps clients achieve increased support, an optimal transition roadmap, and expedited outcomes. MOR brings both expertise and the credibility that comes from helping countless individuals and organizations in higher education in the work of deep personal and organizational change.
Engaging people in a process that respects them is the thread woven throughout the many valuable insights that follow on how to successfully design and execute major integrations.
Start with a Clear Purpose
At the outset, it is important to clarify the purposes, to be specific about the intent of the initiative. Everyone impacted by these initiatives needs to understand the “why.” The current resource constrained environment provides a context that makes moving in this direction understandable for most stakeholders.
University leaders we’ve worked with, including CIOs, have cited the following reasons for moving toward integrated service models:
- Optimizing the overall spend
- Reducing security risks
- Leveraging and scaling where there are advantages
- Eliminating duplication or redundancies
- Improving services
- Making it easier to teach, research, learn, and work
- Conserving resources, achieving savings
Involve All Relevant Stakeholders in the Process
Making sure all the appropriate people are involved is critical to adoption. Having a well-facilitated discovery and design process enables people to define the desired future state, the priorities, the issues, and the concerns. As noted, when change is being made with people, they feel greater ownership resulting in increased support for the implementation.
In many alignment efforts there are several ways to ensure there is a structure that supports stakeholder involvement and clarifies the decision-making model:
- An executive level that provides sponsorship and final approvals
- A steering committee that gathers input and shapes the recommendations
- A design group that is broadly representative providing the input, building the trust, and creating the alignment that leads to greater adoption
Leadership may decide that aligning services and resources is a strategy they believe will help optimize the overall spend, and they may be tempted to leap to action. For sponsors who want to move quickly, MOR urges caution. If only a few people determine how best to reorganize and then communicate it out, the process will not go well or be embraced. It will be correctly received as a directive and typically result in a backlash from the people who are on the receiving end.
Also, recognize just because people are nodding, don’t assume you have their support. One Provost shared with their Dean’s Council that they would be consolidating all the units across the university. The deans appeared to be nodding in support when in fact they were just acknowledging what they had heard. These deans went on to hear from their staff and faculty about why the change was a bad idea, how key people were going to leave, and how unresponsive the new organization would be. These genuine and imagined concerns went on to inspire a campaign that undermined the initiative.
It is important to respect the local expertise and relationships people have built in the decentralized units. Distributed faculty and staff sometimes have deep connections and comfortable patterns for how they interact. Moving toward a unified service model threatens to disrupt this familiarity. This will often create pushback and has resulted in some shared service models failing. In many integration initiatives, sponsors appreciated the local unique needs and relationships and left certain staff embedded in specific units, even though the reporting and coordination was with the integrated IT organization.
Another critical issue is how the financial and staffing structures will be managed. In some cases, people’s reporting lines move over first, the organization and technology follow, and budgets are reconciled afterwards. In other situations, the order can shift, though sorting out the finances can be a challenging component of these realignments.
Have a Clear Decision-Making Structure
Even with a process that includes all relevant stakeholders, decisions can still be made in a timely fashion. MOR recommends stating the expectation upfront that decisions will be made after consultation, not after achieving consensus. Communicating this early will dispel the misconception that this is democratic process. Clarity regarding the role of the steering team and the design group will prevent stakeholders from wrongfully assuming they will be making the decisions.
Establish Core Principles
It will be helpful early on to establish core principles. For example, distributed stakeholders will want to know how this will impact services. Will there be similar or even improved services? Will there be service level agreements with metrics? Staff will want to know how their employment and future reporting roles will be impacted. Establishing principles early on can address some of these concerns, though not all.
Below is example of established core principles from an IT Shared Services effort at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign that James Quisenberry, CIO for Student Affairs, was responsible for leading.
- Maintain service and support levels for each unit with staff that has historically served them
- Share the costs for IT services across the units in a way that is proportional and fair
- Leverage the size and scope of the new IT Shared Service to improve consistency, efficiency, and service
- Provide a richer and more supportive work experience for current staff
Manage Expectations
Set up a reasonable yet aggressive timeline as people will be anxious the longer there is uncertainty about their future and their part in the evolving design.
During the process, revisiting the purposes and intended outcomes will ensure people maintain sight of them.
Avoid using the words consolidate, centralize, reorganize, or restructure. They immediately provoke reactions from the people impacted, leading many to resist change efforts from the outset. Our brains are constantly on alert scanning the environment for threats. Reorganizing, for example, unintentionally signals “code red” to those who may imagine their jobs will be eliminated.
Some sponsors have been able to share at the outset that a given change effort will not result in layoffs. Other leaders have been able to share that whatever reductions will take place will be through attrition over time. Of course, in some cases there is a need to reduce cost near term, and this will lead to staff reductions. Being transparent is critical to the credibility of those leading this change.
Develop a Communication Campaign
Silence is taken as something secret is transpiring, so regular communications internally and externally are critical, even when there aren’t big changes to communicate.
Socialize the change, meet with key stakeholders early, recognize the first, second, and third level impacts and who will be affected, and have an outreach initiative. Have communication pathways in place, groups to turn to, and various ways to message and get feedback. It is helpful to have channels in place for two-way communication.
Creating a regular cadence to the communications, using various modes, and finding different pathways can address the need to keep messaging to the people who will be impacted by this initiative. It will be hard to over communicate.
In Closing
Successfully integrating administrative organizations across a university is as much about people and culture as it is about technology and budgets. The University of Nebraska’s experience demonstrates that while financial pressures and strategic goals drive the need for unified service models, the real key to success lies in a clear purpose, an inclusive process, principled decision-making, and robust communication. MOR’s expertise in facilitating these complex transitions helps institutions navigate both the technical and human challenges, ensuring that changes are not only implemented but embraced. By engaging stakeholders, maintaining transparency, and fostering a shared vision, universities can build organizations that are better aligned, efficient, scalable, and positioned to support teaching, research, and innovation well into the future.
If you’re interested in exploring how MOR can help facilitate your service integration, contact us, call 617-924-4501 or email us at [email protected] today to schedule an initial consultation.
- August 2025 (7)
- July 2025 (5)
- June 2025 (4)
- May 2025 (5)
- April 2025 (5)
- March 2025 (4)
- February 2025 (4)
- January 2025 (4)
- December 2024 (3)
- November 2024 (4)
- October 2024 (5)
- September 2024 (4)
- August 2024 (4)
- July 2024 (5)
- June 2024 (4)
- May 2024 (4)
- April 2024 (5)
- March 2024 (4)
- February 2024 (4)
- January 2024 (5)
- December 2023 (3)
- November 2023 (4)
- October 2023 (5)
- September 2023 (4)
- August 2023 (4)
- July 2023 (4)
- June 2023 (4)
- May 2023 (5)
- April 2023 (4)
- March 2023 (1)
- February 2023 (1)
- January 2023 (4)
- December 2022 (3)
- November 2022 (5)
- October 2022 (4)
- September 2022 (4)
- August 2022 (5)
- July 2022 (4)
- June 2022 (4)
- May 2022 (5)
- April 2022 (4)
- March 2022 (5)
- February 2022 (3)
- January 2022 (4)
- December 2021 (3)
- November 2021 (4)
- October 2021 (3)
- September 2021 (4)
- August 2021 (4)
- July 2021 (4)
- June 2021 (5)
- May 2021 (4)
- April 2021 (4)
- March 2021 (5)
- February 2021 (4)
- January 2021 (4)
- December 2020 (4)
- November 2020 (4)
- October 2020 (6)
- September 2020 (5)
- August 2020 (4)
- July 2020 (7)
- June 2020 (7)
- May 2020 (5)
- April 2020 (4)
- March 2020 (5)
- February 2020 (4)
- January 2020 (4)
- December 2019 (2)
- November 2019 (4)
- October 2019 (4)
- September 2019 (3)
- August 2019 (3)
- July 2019 (2)
- June 2019 (4)
- May 2019 (3)
- April 2019 (5)
- March 2019 (4)
- February 2019 (3)
- January 2019 (5)
- December 2018 (2)
- November 2018 (4)
- October 2018 (5)
- September 2018 (3)
- August 2018 (3)
- July 2018 (4)
- June 2018 (4)
- May 2018 (5)
- April 2018 (4)
- March 2018 (5)
- February 2018 (5)
- January 2018 (3)
- December 2017 (3)
- November 2017 (4)
- October 2017 (5)
- September 2017 (3)
- August 2017 (5)
- July 2017 (3)
- June 2017 (8)
- May 2017 (5)
- April 2017 (4)
- March 2017 (4)
- February 2017 (4)
- January 2017 (4)
- December 2016 (2)
- November 2016 (7)
- October 2016 (5)
- September 2016 (8)
- August 2016 (5)
- July 2016 (4)
- June 2016 (12)
- May 2016 (5)
- April 2016 (4)
- March 2016 (7)
- February 2016 (4)
- January 2016 (10)
- December 2015 (4)
- November 2015 (6)
- October 2015 (4)
- September 2015 (7)
- August 2015 (5)
- July 2015 (6)
- June 2015 (12)
- May 2015 (4)
- April 2015 (6)
- March 2015 (10)
- February 2015 (4)
- January 2015 (4)
- December 2014 (3)
- November 2014 (5)
- October 2014 (4)
- September 2014 (6)
- August 2014 (4)
- July 2014 (4)
- June 2014 (4)
- May 2014 (5)
- April 2014 (5)
- March 2014 (5)
- February 2014 (4)
- January 2014 (5)
- December 2013 (5)
- November 2013 (5)
- October 2013 (10)
- September 2013 (4)
- August 2013 (5)
- July 2013 (8)
- June 2013 (6)
- May 2013 (4)
- April 2013 (5)
- March 2013 (4)
- February 2013 (4)
- January 2013 (5)
- December 2012 (3)
- November 2012 (4)
- October 2012 (5)
- September 2012 (4)
- August 2012 (4)
- July 2012 (5)
- June 2012 (4)
- May 2012 (5)
- April 2012 (4)
- March 2012 (4)
- February 2012 (4)
- January 2012 (4)
- December 2011 (3)
- November 2011 (5)
- October 2011 (4)
- September 2011 (4)
- August 2011 (4)
- July 2011 (4)
- June 2011 (5)
- May 2011 (5)
- April 2011 (3)
- March 2011 (4)
- February 2011 (4)
- January 2011 (4)
- December 2010 (3)
- November 2010 (4)
- October 2010 (4)
- September 2010 (3)
- August 2010 (5)
- July 2010 (4)
- June 2010 (5)
- May 2010 (4)
- April 2010 (3)
- March 2010 (2)
- February 2010 (4)
- January 2010 (4)
- December 2009 (4)
- November 2009 (4)
- October 2009 (4)
- September 2009 (4)
- August 2009 (3)
- July 2009 (3)
- June 2009 (3)
- May 2009 (4)
- April 2009 (4)
- March 2009 (2)
- February 2009 (3)
- January 2009 (3)
- December 2008 (3)
- November 2008 (3)
- October 2008 (3)
- August 2008 (3)
- July 2008 (4)
- May 2008 (2)
- April 2008 (2)
- March 2008 (2)
- February 2008 (1)
- January 2008 (1)
- December 2007 (3)
- November 2007 (3)
- October 2007 (3)
- September 2007 (1)
- August 2007 (2)
- July 2007 (4)
- June 2007 (2)
- May 2007 (3)
- April 2007 (1)
- March 2007 (2)
- February 2007 (2)
- January 2007 (3)
- December 2006 (1)
- November 2006 (1)
- October 2006 (1)
- September 2006 (3)
- August 2006 (1)
- June 2006 (2)
- April 2006 (1)
- March 2006 (1)
- February 2006 (1)
- January 2006 (1)
- December 2005 (1)
- November 2005 (2)
- October 2005 (1)
- August 2005 (1)
- July 2005 (1)
- April 2005 (2)
- March 2005 (4)
- February 2005 (2)
- December 2004 (1)