As many in the Clemson family can attest, the University’s Human Resources and Finance systems and processes for critical tasks—budgeting, purchase requests, hiring, and much more—have been around for a long time. Too long, in fact. Work-around solutions and bolt-on additions helped for a while, but these decades-old systems have become outdated and cumbersome, hindering access to essential information, and slowing down how Clemson works.
University leadership has recognized this need to modernize key functions, and behind-the-scenes work is under way. The goal: to deliver a system that empowers faculty, staff and student workers to spend less time in systems performing recurring HR and Finance tasks, thus making it easier to focus on their primary Clemson endeavors.
The solution: a new, cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system
Specialized teams within HR, Finance and CCIT have worked diligently over the past two years to prepare for the migration of core Clemson HR and Finance processes and systems to a modern, cloud-based system–a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. This new ERP will streamline daily processes and make it easier for faculty, staff and student workers to support the University’s mission of teaching, research and service.
These ERP teams, or workstreams, include more than 200 Clemson colleagues who have helped develop a solid foundation for the comprehensive process transformation that will empower the University to design, build, test and launch a new ERP over the next few years.
Clemson is also ramping up its ERP-specific change network, which includes carefully curated Campus User Groups to assist the University in this undertaking. User Groups help to ensure faculty, staff and student workers are represented in the design, testing and training development phases of the ERP implementation, among other activities. Individuals selected for these User Groups, along with other colleagues from across campus and the state, will play a pivotal role in providing feedback on newly designed HR and Finance processes and the comprehensive training modules available to affected Clemson faculty and staff.
What’s next?
Regular ERP implementation updates and additional workstream information will appear in OUR Clemson over the next few weeks to help faculty, staff and student workers stay up to date on this exciting process. The University will announce the vendor selected to help Clemson implement the new ERP as soon as the procurement concludes.