University of Northern Iowa Streamlines Critical Evaluation and Negotiation Processes with Tambellini

UNI Faces Transformative ERP Transition

With a mission of creating, empowering, and innovating to enrich Iowa and beyond, the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) is guided by a commitment to excellence and student success. UNI is strategically building a solid foundation to support its goal of being a model organizational learning and growth community. As such, stewarding campus resources effectively is a top priority.

The server-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform UNI had leveraged for 22 years was reaching its end of life. As a top regional public university in the Midwest, UNI faced profound internal and external pressures and changes that required more agile, secure, and extensible administrative technology solutions. In early 2022, UNI embarked on a significant ERP system modernization project. The university independently evaluated available solutions and selected a fully integrated cloud-native solution suite for finance, human capital management, and payroll.

UNI leadership knew that transitioning to a modern cloud solution would impact many university divisions and mission-critical operations, and they identified six pitfalls for organizations undertaking ERP implementations. One pitfall was not choosing the right implementation partner. UNI needed to identify a strategically aligned implementation partner with higher education experience to guide the planning, implementation, and rollout of the new platform and manage any associated changes to university business practices and processes. UNI Senior Vice President of Finance and Operations Michael Hager sought to minimize risk in selecting the most well-aligned implementation partner by incorporating an unbiased third-party perspective.

“UNI was moving on an expedited timeframe and required support to accelerate its implementation partner evaluation, selection, and contract negotiation processes,” Hager says. Beyond the implementation, the university also needed help realigning its existing vendor contracts to minimize technical debt from solutions and services they no longer required after transitioning to the modern cloud solution suite.

UNI Seeks Higher Education-Experienced, Vendor-Agnostic Advisory Firm

UNI published an RFP and soon received a proposal from the Tambellini Group. Tambellini demonstrated extensive higher education market experience and relationships with the leading solution providers and offered a swift timeline for the evaluation, selection, and negotiation services.

“We were looking for higher education market experts with a strong knowledge base of the available options,” notes Hager. “We wanted a firm with strong but agnostic relationships with the solution providers and prior experience working with them. It is one thing to know the field and another to have deep enough relationships to have candid conversations with the solution providers. The firm also had to be client focused and willing to become versed in UNI’s operations and requirements before providing recommendations.”

UNI found that Tambellini was the ideal partner for its requirements, and in winter 2022, UNI engaged Tambellini’s advisory services for implementation partner evaluation, selection, and contract negotiations and contract negotiations with its legacy solution provider.

“We wanted a firm with strong but agnostic relationships with the solution providers and prior experience working with them. It is one thing to know the field and another to have deep enough relationships to have candid conversations with the solution providers.”

UNI’s First Encounter with Tambellini

Hager recalls that a few years before starting the ERP project at UNI, he had joined an online event for higher education CIOs focused on ERP systems. The event topics initiated an active discussion between the attendees in the event chat. “Every once in a while, someone named Vicki Tambellini would provide practical insight that was notably honest and straightforward,” Hager says. “It resonated because that is how we operate here at UNI—straightforward, yet professional. I brought up Vicki Tambellini to a colleague, who confirmed that the Tambellini Group has a reputation of providing candid, unbiased guidance on technology modernization initiatives.”

Tambellini’s Services Free UNI to Focus on Internal Planning

Hager says that leveraging Tambellini’s advisory services to evaluate, select, and negotiate with UNI’s implementation partner and negotiate updated contracts with its legacy solution provider resulted in significant savings for the university in both time and cost.

“The resources Tambellini brought to the table were impressive,” says Hager. “Tambellini’s granularity of knowledge and wisdom was exceptionally beneficial and streamlined our evaluation, selection, and negotiation. We found that Tambellini was exceptionally helpful in the implementation partner evaluation and helped us find a partner with the level and depth of expertise to support us at every step of the process. We now have a partner that was not on our original radar but turned out to be an excellent fit for us.”

“Tambellini helped us ensure we were framing our thinking the right way around what was a fair request. We’re also grateful that Tambellini was able to interface with our existing ERP solution provider to reorganize those contracts. It was valuable to have an intermediary party pragmatically focused on achieving the consensus required to move forward.”

Another pitfall UNI had identified for ERP implementations was not taking time to prepare the organization for change. “We avoided this pitfall and were prepared for our cloud solution suite implementation because we had the time to focus on internal planning,” Hager says. “Tambellini accomplished difficult tasks in the evaluation, selection, and negotiations processes faster and better than we could have alone. Our implementation partner has told us we are well ahead of the game compared to most institutions they work with.”

Tambellini Takes Direct, Honest Approach

“Tambellini’s willingness to have candid conversations and lend direct, honest feedback sets the firm apart,” says Hager. “Tambellini took the time to understand the nuances of our institution. Some consulting firms take a cookie cutter approach, and you’re unsure how customized their advice will be. But when we sat down with Tambellini, there was no determined outcome. Instead, Tambellini listened and considered our journey, basing its approach on where we were in our process and how our requirements aligned with the wealth of available options.” Hager says that Tambellini exceeded UNI’s expectations in its approach and outcomes.

To discover more ways we work with clients, explore Tambellini’s success stories.