Efficiency in higher ed: introducing the "BEST" team

Emily Weers

Executive Director, Academic Accounting & Business Services, Texas A&M University

The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of EAB.

Texas A&M’s centralization initiative

Shared services have become a hot topic in higher education in recent years as universities try to maximize expertise and minimize both tuition and fee increases. In December 2021, the president of Texas A&M announced an ambitious goal of centralizing five operational areas (finance, human resources, information technology, facilities, and marketing/communications) by the following September. Working groups were formed and centralization (to varying degrees) was achieved by the stated deadline.

Introducing the “BEST” team

Overall, we continue to move forward, but our progress is slow and further challenged by the number of changes taking place across campus. I believe we can continue to progress and achieve efficiency by creating a transaction processing team—called the “BEST” team (Business Execution Services Team) ~ an acronym because that is what we know best. These individuals will become experts in efficiently managing high-volume transactional items serving a particular college or division. The transactions may be specific to various systems (FAMIS, Aggiebuy, Concur) or types—purchase requisitions, travel, invoice payments, or payment card allocations.

Benefits

The BEST team provides the foundation for creating a data-driven organization that can focus on accuracy and processing times to determine and proactively anticipate appropriate staffing levels during peak seasons or times of growth. Other benefits include:

• Individual employees can hone their skills through repetitive tasks and transactions
• These employees being cross-trained to do more than one type of transaction gives variety to their work and the potential to learn about a variety of departments across the university
• Knowledge of the “entry” point of financial transactions will help them later in the Strategic Partner role when they are researching discrepancies or better trying to understand the revenue or expenses of the unit they are supporting

The initial phase would create a BEST team for each college or division and provide an opportunity for operational efficiency on a smaller scale, but in a coordinated manner across campus. Initially, there may be a BEST team assigned to each college or division, but this team would use the same processes and tools allowing for teams to support one another during the ebbs and flows of daily work. Over time, it may present an opportunity to further streamline and consolidate as best practices become evident. All business/finance teams will achieve success with proper training and understanding of their work and a willingness to be flexible and change to the ever-changing needs of technology and our organizations.

The Rising Higher Education Leaders Fellowship has been a wonderful opportunity to expand my understanding of operations and challenges in other areas across the higher education organization. My capstone partners were Cale Fessler from the University of Arkansas and Corinna Fitzgerald from Queen’s University.