Office of Business Operations: Strategic Plan

Strategic Plan

The Business Operations Strategic Plan includes three areas of focus:

• Relationships
• Services
• Technology

Business Operations views the Notre Dame Community - students, faculty, staff and religious - as the primary client of our services. Additionally, a need has been recognized to foster strong relationships with physical neighbors, business partners, the South Bend community, peer institutions and the alumni network. A deep belief is held in nurturing and enhancing both of these internal and external relationships to improve the organizational effectiveness of the entire University, the South Bend community, and strategic communities throughout the world. Through innovative partnering relationships, Business Operations can create new and exciting opportunities for mutual growth that would be impossible unilaterally.

To enhance strategic relationships with the campus client base to assist in pursuit of the university mission.

• Become the preferred provider of products and services, provided internally by the university, to all member of the university community.
• Exceed client expectations with prompt and courteous response to service requests and issue resolution.
• Seek client feedback to assess performance and provide continuous quality improvement.
• Communicate and train clients about new Business Operations programs and practices.
• Employ fundamentally new client communication channels, including: user training, "Irish Buyer" Newsletter, Help Desk, surveys and web sites.
• Maximize use of the Business Operations website as an efficient and continuously available method of communication.
• Grow strategic alliances with the academic community to become their conference planning professionals.
• Position the Hammes Bookstore as an on-campus alternative social venue for students and faculty.
• Develop improved skills, contracts and ordering processes to support the research community in their supply and services needs.

• Encourage stewardship of natural resources and ethical decision-making.
• Strengthen relationships with government agencies such as IDEM, US EPA, DNR, OSHA, IOSHA, Department of Health, etc.
• Ensure contingency response and compliance-monitoring plans are current and effective.
• Increase client participation in the recycling program.
• Be cognizant of and responsive to the impact of business operations on the environment.

• Optimize the real estate portfolio by balancing the objectives of the City of South Bend, the neighborhood organizations and local property owners so that the portfolio provides the best overall value to the University and its constituencies.
• Maintain open communication between Asset Management and its customers/tenants to ensure the highest level of customer service and long lasting reputation within the Notre Dame and neighborhood communities.
• Work with community businesses to develop opportunities to compete for University business.

• Maintain effective working relationships with suppliers, contractors and vendors who are consistently capable of meeting the University's stringent cost and quality requirements.
• Coordinate the efficient use of external consultant groups to perform architectural, engineering, real estate development, project management, and other highly specialized activities.
• Partner with key suppliers of products and services to ensure quality, timely delivery and beneficial pricing.

• Invest in personnel development (training, certification requirements, and use of technology) to provide employees with the tools to make each department within Business Operations "best-in-class" and to lower expenditures for goods and services.
• Build, enhance, and develop the campus planning, design, engineering, construction and maintenance staff and its collective skills set and experience so it meets or exceeds the expectations of clients.
• Implement 'English as a Second Language" program as the work force is becoming more linguistically diverse.

• Retain qualified and talented people by assuring fair and competitive compensation for all staff members.
• Emphasize the importance of the portion of the compensation program linked to performance criteria.
• Recognize staff for their achievements through departmental and University awards as well as one-on-one congratulation.
• Implement career development and succession planning programs for all employees.

• Develop a strategy to implement a program that allows employees to exercise the full extent of their benefit package (i.e. FMLA) but does not adversely affect departmental performance.
• Increase staff synergistically with campus expansion and the increasing needs of clients in order to maintain and enhance unique service offerings.

Provide Outstanding Client Services

Business Operations will be the leader in providing structured and timely services that allow the University community to excel. For those services that exist today, the efficiency and effectiveness of our delivery will be improved to ensure that client needs are satisfied. For those services to be provided in the future, Business Operations will be vigilantly proactive to fulfill, or even create, the budding demand. The goal of Business Operation is to be the preferred provider of goods and services to the Notre Dame Community.

To closely monitor the ever-changing physical campus environment in an effort to maintain the Campus Plan as an important current, relevant, and useful document for the on-going planning work of the Notre Dame campus.

• Integrate the landscape, open space, transportation, and other recommendations of the Campus Plan into the design solutions developed for new buildings and infrastructure.
• Offer in-house landscape architectural design services to the campus in order to achieve a savings in annual fee expenditures while achieving a consistent approach to campus landscape design in harmony with the Campus Plan recommendations.

• Locate new food service operations in strategic locations throughout the campus to provide convenient services to the campus population allowing for increased productivity and an improved working environment.
• Identify existing food service operations that may benefit from renovations or should be closed due to poor financial performance.
• Investigate offering alumni the opportunity to inurn cremated remains in Cedar Grove Cemetery.
• Capitalize, to the greatest extent possible, on any licensing or merchandising opportunities that result from the attainment of an athletic national championship run in any sport.
• Focus on developing operational efficiencies within St. Michael's physical plant in preparation for processing additional poundage associated with the new Notre Dame Inn.
• Construct a new hospitality facility that will function to meet the fundamental hospitality needs of the University for institutional advancement and outreach, and to provide a community asset.
• Provide centralized procurement policies and guidelines to support the fiscal mission of the University.
• Focus on adding pre-legal contract negotiation and post contract administration support to departments.

• Renovate the North Dining Hall. The residential dining program is a key component of student life for both resident and non-resident students. It is critical that the facilities are sufficient to allow the program to change with the changing expectations of the students.
• Assure appropriate funding for continuous improvement in facilities, minor renovation and repairs and equipment replacement to appropriate serve the campus community.
• Provide a centralized surplus property and recycling program to manage "end-of-life" physical assets.

• Operate, maintain, renew and develop sufficient production and distribution capacity.
• Design, specify and install energy efficient systems and equipment for new and renovated buildings.
• Improve and maintain existing point of use equipment to provide efficient and reliable operations.

• Reduce cost through efficiencies of utilities operations, energy conservation, new equipment, energy and fuel procurement strategies, and new technology.
• Lower the total cost of ownership of materials, supplies and services by focusing on institutional spending patterns and the reduction in fragmented buying by all departments and colleges.
• Assess performance against Notre Dame internal goals and benchmarks at other institutions with a prescribed and predictive measurement process.
• Increase asset utilization of existing University property, such as vehicles, to avoid excess future purchases.
• Investigate agreement with AEP for interruptible power serving electric utilities.
• Combine General Services operations from its four current locations into one location.
• Increase area cleaned per custodian to meet industry benchmark levels.
• Decrease solid waste costs by implementation of industry best practices.

• Support the University Architect in the development of the Campus Plan.
• Facilitate the economic development of surrounding neighborhoods.
• Institute a system of asset and lease management, which encompasses Rental Properties, the Visiting Faculty Apartments, LaFortune Center, and lease management through the Development Department (Planned Giving).

• Promote public awareness of campus safety, health and environmental issues and regulations by offering safety training, developing safety committees and improving communications and information exchange.
• Protect the University's assets by proactive loss prevention measures and creative claim management strategies.
• Integrate safety and risk management into the institutional culture. Obtaining buy-in from departments, supervisors and employees to accept accountability and to take ownership of their safety, health and risk management responsibilities will drive a heightened awareness and priority for safety and health that will ultimately lead to a reduction in accidents and injuries.
• Improve fire safety by completing installation of alarms and sprinklers in buildings, increasing fire department manpower, and training clients that successful fire prevention is equivalent to fire protection.

• Re-enforce "safety first" into the transportation culture.
• Create a full service transportation agency that will allow clients to focus on the University's core mission rather than operational ancillaries.
• Deliver cost savings to the University through efficient use of assets

• Analyze remote campus acquisitions and expansions necessary for growing undergraduate and graduate programs.
• Expand the scope of remote campus facilities to include the acquisition and management of student housing.
• Provide consultative and managerial services to new and existing remote campus programs planning to expand.

Utilitize Innovative Technologies

Business Operations will capitalize on opportunities to implement innovative technologies to increase organizational capabilities. The goal will be to improve client experience, increase service potential, develop operational efficiencies, and accelerate the speed of delivery. Technology will be a tool to review business practices and institute positive change that will place Notre Dame as a "best in class" service provider.

To empower clients with self-service, user-friendly technologies as a sales, business process and communication medium.

• Implement a user-friendly and interactive e-commerce strategy to spur incremental sales at the Hammes Bookstore and other auxiliary outlets.
• Offer real-time, wireless technologies that will allow for ever-present access to voice and data services as wireless services become common in everyday life.

• Implement e-Procurement technology to serve as a backbone for many other planned and future initiatives. The vision for this project is:
  • To deliver quicker, more responsive purchasing support and process visibility across the entire campus user base,
    
  • To encourage on-contract spending and monitor compliance, reducing commodity spending,
    
  • To provide up-to-date product, pricing, and availability information through tighter integration with external suppliers,
    
  • To optimize the internal processing of requisitions, purchase orders, invoices and Request for Bids & Proposals, reducing transaction processing cost, and
    
  • To track spending behavior in order to identify further opportunities for strategic procurement initiatives and contract development.

• Install cutting edge and efficient utilities technologies to obtain increased operating efficiency and lower costs.
• Seek out existing and emerging technologies that integrate well with the campus administrative software replacement project.
• Gain client support and acceptance of new technologies and business practices.
• Ensure that clients are well equipped to make intelligent decisions through the use of technology thereby leveraging the efficiencies of self-service tools.
• Expand service offerings to clients with the use of laser sign engraving technology, computerized snow removal equipment, and University operated paramedic ambulance services.
• Implement new computerized maintenance software system including on-line requisitions to share data between multiple departments.
• Increase the use of the card access system to increase operational security.
• Establish a database of real estate properties to enhance our ability to provide advantageous, competitive pricing through market research and data collection.
• Increase use of the identification card transaction system to drive incremental revenue.

Conclusion