Aquinas College
A high-powered technological partner that can solve issues
Why Aquinas College chose Ellucian Managed Services
Challenge
Support strategic decision making through technology
Results
- A partnership that solves issues
- Support through the change process
- Stronger position in the marketplace
Summary
As an economist, I believe in economies of scale and economies of scope. And that means that Ellucian, as a large entity, has expertise that we could never have ourselves. It's a way for us to be able to compete with the big boys without having to spend like the big boys.
We had a lot of IT challenges, and I think not at all unique for a school like us. We had underinvested in technology and in the people in technology for a long time. Technology was treated as sort of an administrative function as it were. You just cannot make strategic decisions without having the right kind of technology to underpin that.
Having expert partners who understand not just the technological part of it but also the people part of it, which Ellucian does very well, I think is essential.
Ellucian brings people in with the understanding that this is going to be hard for them and they've been through this before. Making it work and interact with the rest of the institution is critical. And Ellucian has a lot of experience in making all of that stuff work. So, all of those pieces together just made me really believe that we needed a high-powered partner.
The partnership that we have with Ellucian has benefited us in a lot of ways already, even though the fact is we're only a year and a half into this. I now feel like we have a technological partner that can solve our issues. And when I personally have a problem, I can call our guy on the phone and I know it's going to get taken care of. And there have been numerous examples of this.
We have, now, the ability to go to the marketplace in our recruitment in a way that's much more sophisticated than we were able to do before. And we're starting to see the benefits of that.