How Ohio University’s Relationships-Based Approach Overcame Resistance to Transformation

At the end of October 2024, over 50 higher education leaders congregated in Washington, D.C. for the launch of EAB’s annual IgnitED summit to discuss the sector’s most pressing challenges, including how to successfully navigate an organizational transformation.

Recognizing the challenges of generating support and participation in transformation efforts, EAB experts presented in-depth case studies of three distinct approaches to organizational transformation. Each example showcased how an institution worked with its culture to catalyze transformation by assessing its campus conditions and employing an approach based on that diagnosis.

One of these examples was Ohio University, a large, research-intensive institution. Continue reading to learn how OHIO implemented a shared services center for academic and administrative units despite pockets of campus cultural resistance—and what lessons every institution can take away from OHIO’s successes.

Creating Ohio University’s Business Service Center (BSC)

What did OHIO change?

Ohio University achieved high voluntary unit participation in its new shared services center despite a history of unsuccessful shared services implementations. BSC leaders credited their success to leading with changes that appealed to community stakeholders. Find the highlights from OHIO’s BSC implementation below.

Centralized and consolidated business staff and processes

The BSC’s executive director consolidated four key service areas into the Business Service Center: financial planning and operational accounting (for administrative units), operational purchasing and travel, employment coordination, and process improvement. Through this process, administrative staff were moved from units across campus to the BSC. Additionally, they consolidated technology into a single system, which allowed OHIO to sunset three disparate legacy systems.

Adopted an automated ticketing system and live chat function

BSC staff collaborated with IT to adopt an automated ticketing system to manage and assign incoming service requests. The BSC technology manager also developed a live chat function to meet units’ desire for faster, personalized support.

Allowed units to opt into BSC processes

To maximize unit buy-in, BSC leadership allowed limited units to opt in to certain BSC processes or services they use. For example, units that yielded FTEs to the BSC could submit requests via email, rather than the ticketing system, overcoming stakeholder opposition to that process.

Invested in service staff engagement through recognition and training

BSC leadership made peer recognition awards part of every staff meeting to promote engagement. They also cross-trained staff (even though most have a specialization) to enhance workload distribution and increase flexibility.

How did OHIO implement changes?

Due to challenges implementing previous transformation initiatives, Ohio University determined that a “big bang” overhaul approach was not a good fit for its campus culture. Instead, OHIO opted for a customer-driven, relationship-based approach for the shared services transition, hiring a long-time employee (tenure over 25 years) to leverage their relationships and institutional knowledge to facilitate a more organic change process.

Campus conditions preceding transformation

Overall, EAB identified four replicable components that enabled OHIO’s success:

1. Community feedback

BSC leadership met with 100+ campus members, hosted 40+ department meetings, and established a research faculty focus group to determine activities to prioritize.

2. Coffee conversations

The BSC executive director, an institutional veteran (tenure over 25 years), sold stakeholders on BSC during informal meetings, targeting strong relationships and units that had done mini shared services transitions.

3. Inviting new units

Instead of compelling units to participate, BSC leadership incentivized units to opt in with openness to compromise and sizing potential savings.

4. Advertise successes

The BSC published an annual report highlighting completed process improvements, newest partners, customer testimonials, and more. The BSC website also featured a regularly updated dashboard that shows customer and staff satisfaction.

Results of OHIO’s transformation

In 2024, OHIO reported the following results from the implementation of the BSC.

Want to learn more about organizational transformations?

While not every campus shares the conditions present at OHIO, higher education leaders who reviewed this case study have been impressed by their resilience and success. IgnitED attendees (80% of whom were leading their own transformation efforts) seconded the importance of OHIO’s determination to lead with community engagement and compromise.

To learn more about navigating a change like OHIO’s, see our research on how to boost efficiency with shared services, jumpstart process improvement efforts, and fine-tune your shared services communication strategy.