Innovation and Greater Efficiency
Last year, President Reveley announced plans for William & Mary to build a new financial foundation resting on four interdependent pillars: (1) continued taxpayer support for capital projects and, to diminishing extent, operations; (2) growing streams of earned income (tuition and fees, research grants and contracts, and entrepreneurial leveraging of William & Mary strengths to generate new sources of revenue); (3) greatly enhanced philanthropy (annual giving, endowment growth, funds for bricks and mortar); and (4) internal efficiency gains that maintain the quality of learning and campus life as cost effectively as possible.
In October 2010, President Reveley launched a project to pursue that fourth pillar. The effort began with a review to encourage innovation and greater efficiency in business processes, to be followed by a similar review in the academic sphere.
The review of business processes sought to:
- record gains already made
- develop and implement plans for even more efficient business processes and new revenue initiatives in each major organization
- initiate university-level projects to complement the unit-level plans.
In March 2011 President Reveley received a report (PDF) summarizing the findings and identifying projects that have now been launched.
The report concluded that William & Mary has been highly productive for a very long time, achieving great results with limited resources. The pressure to adapt and innovate has increased in the face of substantial cuts in state operational funds.
The Executive Summary (PDF) offers an abstract of the Business Innovation Report. A companion piece to the full report, William & Mary Innovation at Work, summarizes recent university efforts to become even more efficient.
Teams in units across campus have now launched 55 new organizational business innovation projects with various completion dates depending on their scope and complexity.
During the study, Deans, Vice Presidents, other organizational leaders and the organizational teams identified university-level projects that could significantly enhance innovation. President Reveley selected eight of those projects for immediate implementation.
The business innovation teams will continue to share ideas across campus, track implementation of organizational and university projects, and record and publicize gains achieved.
The next phase of the project, which is being led by Provost Michael R. Halleran, will focus on processes related to academic programs.