We are entering the next phase of Operational Excellence with the engagement of PwC to support our transactional finance, Research Administration and Information Technology workstreams. This work advances Pillar 4 of the UW Strategic Plan: stewarding and growing the people and resources that support our mission and strategic initiatives.
As President Jones shared in his State of the University Address, we are in the midst of one of the most challenging eras in the history of higher education, particularly for public higher education. But we are also in one of the most exciting times. We have a responsibility to reckon frankly with both the constraints and opportunities this landscape presents.
Operational Excellence is part of that responsibility: using every dollar effectively, addressing compliance risks and improving how we operate, with the goal of improving service and freeing resources to invest in student success, discovery and innovation, and strengthening the communities we serve.
Substantial preparation is already underway across these areas. The engagement will build on that work, including lessons learned from Workday Finance, research resilience and transformation planning, and the existing work of the IT Operational Excellence working group. It will also help us examine connections across functions so that improvements in one area do not create new complexity in another.
Why we selected PwC
PwC was selected through an extensive competitive request for proposals process involving faculty and staff from a broad range of organizations and functional areas. Their participation brought different operational needs and perspectives into the evaluation and helped shape our expectations for the engagement.
We selected PwC for the combination of expertise this effort requires: experience with complex university environments; knowledge of financial operations, research administration and technology; an emphasis on people and change management; and the ability to help us get greater value from systems we already own, including Workday and ServiceNow.
PwC’s approach centers the expertise and experiences of the people who deliver and rely on UW services. Change management and engagement of the consumers of administrative services is built in from the outset so employees can help shape improvements and receive the support they need as work evolves. This is a meaningfully different approach from prior large-scale administrative efforts, intentionally gathering broad feedback and engaging our key stakeholders in strong advisory roles.
What the engagement will deliver
Our approach will build on the early progress made to identify opportunities across the three workstreams, incorporate the expertise PwC brings to the UW and adapt to each workstream’s needs and stage of development.
Early deliverables will focus on governance, refining guiding principles developed in partnership with more than 300 faculty and staff last academic year and decision-making frameworks to clarify who makes decisions, how recommendations are evaluated, and how campus and unit perspectives inform the work.
Through January 2027, the assessment will produce a business case and phased roadmap for improving financial, research administration and IT services, with clear priorities, responsibilities and milestones.
UW ownership and responsible stewardship
UW employees, supported by PwC, will work together to assess current services and identify opportunities for improvement. The UW will make informed decisions about services, organizational changes, resources and implementation. Centralization is not the goal of this important work. Our goal is to reduce administrative barriers and give faculty and staff more time to advance UW’s mission, with standardization and centralization considered where it supports those outcomes. UW will evaluate recommendations through its established governance and decision-making processes, drawing on faculty and staff input and considering the needs of individual units.
Lessons from prior large-scale changes will guide how we phase the work, assess our capacity to implement changes and support employees. UWHR will participate throughout to ensure employee experience and workforce considerations shape the work.
We will weigh benefits against costs, risks and implementation capacity, with the goal of improvements UW can sustain. We will embed employee participation throughout this process and look to employees to connect this effort with the people who deliver and rely on these services.