Clemson University announced today the selection of Workday, Inc., as Clemson’s new enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution – the University’s first new ERP in more than twenty years. Selected after more than a year of competitive processes, the Workday platform will help enable operational excellence, drive digital transformation, and deliver enhanced experiences to faculty, staff and student workers.
The new ERP, Workday@Clemson, is mobile friendly and includes impressive self-service functionality for faculty, staff and student workers to enter time, submit requisitions, manage personal information and run reports, among other business processes.
“Workday@Clemson represents a transformative investment that supports the University’s continued growth and strategic priorities while accelerating collaboration, innovation and efficiency,” said Robert H. Jones, Clemson University’s executive vice president for academic affairs and provost. “This announcement marks a significant operational change for us to achieve long-term goals and to propel Clemson’s success and further strengthen our reputation, which is already among the nation’s best.”
Acknowledging that Workday@Clemson creates a transformational opportunity to optimize university systems offering more efficient, data-driven processes, Clemson executive vice president and chief operating officer Tony Wagner added, “Once implemented, Workday@Clemson will allow us to focus our attention on the frontline, faculty- and student-facing work so important to the land-grant mission of Clemson and the bold initiatives of Clemson Elevate.”
Workday delivers the proven ability to meet the unique and evolving needs of universities, and will empower Clemson to innovate, optimize and scale the new ERP to fit its core HR and Finance processes. “At Workday, our relationship with our customers goes beyond technology – we are committed to helping our customers maximize our solutions to see value realized,” said Robert Steele, group vice president of State and Local Government and Higher Education at Workday. “We are honored to partner with Clemson as they embark on their cloud transformation journey with Workday. Go Tigers!”
Clemson University selected Deloitte Consulting, LLP, as the firm to help integrate the new system. Deloitte brings considerable higher education experience to this multi-year transformative collaboration, offering a strong intersection of ERP experience and the knowledge of how to execute within the nuances of higher education.
Deloitte will work alongside Clemson to streamline key University functions such as payroll, human resources, supply chain, finance and budgeting with an enterprise-wide solution supporting Clemson’s campuses, statewide locations and related organizations.
“We’re honored to collaborate with Clemson University on this transformative mission,” said Jim Kemp, managing director at Deloitte Consulting, LLP. “Workday@Clemson isn’t just a technological shift, it’s a strategic advancement towards a future where technology and people come together to drive institutional success. We’re excited to combine our deep understanding of the nuances of higher education with our extensive Workday experience to help strengthen Clemson University’s reputation as an innovator in higher education.”
In preparation for Workday@Clemson, teams within the Division of Finance and Operations have actively engaged with representatives from units across the University to study how current systems support core processes. The teams identified significant opportunities for improvement. Led by Tyler Saas, associate vice president of technology modernization, and dedicated partners in Human Resources, Finance and Technology, they worked for close to two years to achieve today’s milestone for Clemson.
“In many ways, our work is just beginning,” said Wagner.
While most Clemson employees will not see an immediate change, Clemson’s team will work behind the scenes with Workday and Deloitte to outline next steps and begin engaging with the campus community, including campus user groups that will participate in design, testing and training development for this Universitywide initiative. Wagner hopes to see Workday@Clemson fully implemented, including robust support and training, within 24 to 36 months – an average implementation timeline for a project of this size.
Questions about Clemson University’s new ERP should be submitted using the Workday@Clemson “Ask a Question” webform.