The University of California's Office of the President — which leads the system's 10 campuses and five medical centers — has taken interest in shared IT services, which could lead to new business opportunities now and in the future.
Tom Andriola, vice president and CIO for the president's office, said the university system needs to develop from the ground up a portfolio of shared services that can be used at multiple locations.
"This is leading us to develop new processes and mechanisms to take those services and teach us not only to develop commercial contracts, but also to spin out new companies. It's an exciting opportunity for IT professionals and a great way to develop new career paths for our people," Andriola said in a video update.
During a "CIO town hall" event last week in Oakland, Andriola said he has set a goal within the next six months to finalize funding arrangements for five shared services in the UC system, along with two IT services offered commercially.
The University of California's most visible effort in shared services currently is the UCPath project, which is implementing a single system for human resources, payroll benefits, general ledger, workforce administration and academic processes at all UC locations.
Andriola said UCPath is transformational and foundational for the university.
"It's not just about changing an IT system, retiring a legacy systems; it's about fundamentally thinking about running the university in a different way. It's about building a capability of doing things in a shared services model that is, quite honestly, very challenging and a learning process for the whole organization to go through," Andriola said.
The Office of the President went live with UCPath in November 2015, serving 1,800 employees. Three campuses — UCLA, Merced and Riverside, will soon begin a pilot of the new system. Last summer UC officials said the cost of UCPath would more than double, to $375 million.
