Transforming higher education with Workday adaptive planning
In recent years, higher education institutions across the country have been facing unprecedented challenges: Decreases in federal funding, rising operational costs, shifting demographics and enrollment rates, and changing public sentiment around the value of higher education itself.
These factors have not only made essential operations like forecasting and budgeting more challenging. They have also underscored the need for these institutions to become faster, more agile and resilient. Traditional planning methods simply aren't enough anymore.
In a recent presentation, Workday experts John McGrath (Director of Workday Strategy and Innovation) and TJ Raines (Managing Director for Higher Education) offered an inside look at the shifting educational landscape and how forward-thinking institutions are transforming their approach to long-range planning through integrated, data-driven solutions.
The efficiency gap: What’s slowing institutions down?
Long-range planning in higher education entails taking numerous key factors into account: annualized budgets, capital budgets, project preparation, etc. Keeping a holistic view of these diverse elements while charting their long-term developments and potential interdependencies is an extremely complex and time-consuming task.
Raines was quick to identify the two major obstacles that are holding institutions back from achieving the clarity and efficiency they need to keep moving forward at pace:
Aging architecture
Raines describes outdated technology as an “anchor,” noting that traditional Financial Planning and Analysis programs present significant challenges and restrictions that prevent institutions from quickly gathering the information they need to move their organizations in a positive direction.
Disconnected data
69% of institutions run their operations on a variety of different systems, with only two or fewer functions connected in their planning process. Raines emphatically warns that siloed data makes the planning process difficult, if not impossible. Institutions are forced to pull data from multiple disparate sources and attempt to stitch it all together into a cohesive analysis. It takes an incredible amount of time and energy.
These obstacles create an efficiency gap that adds up to more than just lost time and spent effort. It compromises organizations’ agility, accuracy, and their ability to respond strategically to rapidly changing conditions.
The Strategic Imperative
Raines stressed that this is a critical moment in higher education history. The decisions institutions make today about their technology infrastructure and planning capabilities will set the stage for the next wave of growth and success. The institutions that thrive will be those that can
- Build agility to respond proactively rather than reactively to change
- Create systems that drive continued success through refined operational models
- Modernize technology infrastructure to optimize operations and unlock efficiencies
Beyond budgeting: Intelligent, integrated planning
Achieving these goals begins with pulling data out of the silos and bringing it into a centralized environment where it can facilitate planning and drive business strategy. According to Raines, 63% of organizations that have their functions connected can complete forecasts in less than three weeks.
Advanced FP&A software solutions, such as Workday Adaptive Planning, deliver a centralized, fully integrated source of data, streamlining processes, while also enabling institutions to make the most of the data that is being stored and managed within their organizations. They provide:
- Data Integration
- Process Efficiency
- Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Strategic Agility
These systems can cut across university functions to deliver data relevant to an institution’s specific models, priorities and situational environments and execute quick and nimble analyses. This provides institutions with a deeper understanding of their current realities and future possibilities, while opening up more time for strategic decision-making.
Want to learn more about how Workday Adaptive Planning can transform your institution's strategic planning capabilities? Contact us to learn more.
Real-World Scenarios for Workday adaptive planning in higher education
McGrath presented a live demonstration of Workday Adaptive Planning to highlight the practical capabilities and features of advanced FP&A solutions, revealing the sophisticated level of analysis possible when financial, HR, and student data are seamlessly integrated:
The Enrollment Growth Challenge
Increasing enrollment and tuition revenue over five fiscal years, while simultaneously improving affordability and student-to-faculty ratios is a complex, but very recognizable challenge for most higher education institutions. Add in considerations like limited dining and academic space, plus an upcoming capital campaign, and you have the kind of multi-variable complexities that would normally necessitate endless, complicated manual calculations.
Integrated planning transforms this challenge through:
- Student Data Integration, pulling real-time data from various student information systems, and tracking everything from semester enrollment and class levels to reasons for attrition and retention rates.
- Dynamic Scenario Modeling, flagging capacity constraints when enrollment targets were increased.
- Strategic Response Planning, suggesting potential solutions, such as sending more students abroad or a comprehensive capital campaign for a new dormitory.
- Financial Modeling Integration, modeling capital campaigns and debt financing, while even incorporating sophisticated elements like interest-only payments and endowment draw-down strategies.
What makes this level of integration possible is the solution’s ability to serve as the connective tissue between various institutional systems, such as:
- Student Information Systems (Banner, Ellucian, Colleague, PowerCampus, Workday Student)
- HR and payroll systems
- Financial management systems
- Research administration platforms
- Auxiliary service operations
Faculty Planning
Extending the demo, McGrath highlighted the solution’s strategic workforce planning capabilities to handle faculty planning considerations resulting from the increased enrollment, including:
- Current faculty capacity and teaching loads
- Merit increase requirements to maintain competitiveness
- Full-time equivalent (FTE) planning
- Long-term succession planning
- Total compensation impact across multiple fiscal years
The Path Forward
Higher education's moment is now. The institutions that embrace integrated, intelligent planning won't just survive the current challenges—they'll position themselves to lead the transformation of higher education for generations to come.
The choice is clear: continue struggling with disconnected systems and manual processes or embrace the power of integrated planning to unlock your institution's full potential. The technology exists, the success stories are compelling, and the need has never been greater.
The question isn't whether your institution can afford to implement integrated planning—it's whether you can afford not to.