Information Technology Transformation

Information technology is vital to UB’s success in the 21stcentury. But for information technology to be ready to respond, strategic changes had to be made in the structure that served the university in recentyears.

Most information technology innovations occur at the departmental level, and as they are adopted throughout campus an enterprise-wide support perspective is appropriate.  Our Information Technology services and organizations needed to move in the sameway.  There were too many duplicate services across departments, too many support options for faculty and students,and too little available resources to respond to needs.

In 2005, the Information Technology Strategic Transformation subcommittee gathered necessary information from the campus. A complete inventory of services, equipment and personnel was collected. Leading practices from UB and other universities were examined.  Key UB constituent focus groups were held.

After analyzing their findings, the subcommittee provided key deliverables:

• A set of guiding principles for the delivery of campus-wide IT services
• A set of IT strategic objectives to achieve campus priorities
• A service delivery model for providing IT services
• A governance structure for IT resources to ensure that campus constituent desires are understood, that campus priorities are met and that an environment favoring continuous improvement exists
• A preliminary technology investment plan for campus systems— - specifying systems, expected costs, and implementation time frames
• A white paper documenting the preliminary funding strategy and allocation method for the service delivery model and IT investments
• An initial cost/benefit analysis of the planned changes