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Business of IT >> More Than Money

6/27/2005

By Mikael Blaisdell

Forget India. “I just had a call from a company in California that had been referred to us by one of our customers,” Webster reports. “They said: ‘We need about a dozen people for about a year and a half. Rather than talk to India, we’d like to work with you and DSU.’” Webster understands the motivation for the calls, and expects the demand to rise as more people become aware of what his team can do. “It might cost them a little bit more money,” he says, “but we’re 8,000 miles closer, and the time difference is only a couple of hours, instead of 16.”

Startups like students. At Georgia Southern, outsourced software development capabilities are also attracting increasing interest from private industry. “We’ve expanded from one relationship to five [in the two years since the inception of the relationship with NCR],” Bradford explains. “Our newer clients tend to be smaller entrepreneurial startups, and they like working with our students. Startups are often very cost-sensitive, so they’re willing to have less-experienced programmers who work a lot cheaper.” The NCR project is continuing as well, says Bradford, and has a strong future. “My feeling is that because [the NCR product is] marketplace- driven, the demand for new features is never going to end. We’ll be continuously updating and working on this for the next 10 years.”

Mark Conway, who was the PeopleSoft director of Academic Programs responsible for developing and maintaining the company’s relationship with Dakota State, and who now is with business performance management (BPM) software provider Hyperion Solutions Corp. (www.hyperion.com), thinks that the future is definitely bright for cooperative partnerships between higher education and the private sector. “There are benefits all around, as long as the partners understand each other’s needs, goals, and expectations,” he says. “I call it enlightened self-interest. The relationship might not close business for a company this quarter, but it can help in branding, and can help to grow ‘mindshare.’ It can also fuel a pipeline of graduates who are knowledgeable about an industry and its products, and ready for hire.”

Bielec is equally confident about the potential for the campus IT outsourcing idea, and the market. “There are around 3,500 colleges and universities across the country,” he says, “and about 1,500 are small, private schools with a student body of 2,000 or less that are trying to do the same things as the larger research universities. They could fit into this model; a smaller school d'esn’t need to physically own the systems it uses, so long as it has access to what it needs.”

“Working with higher education just makes sense,” says Webster, and adds, “If PeopleSoft can do it, why can’t Barnes & Noble or any other company partner with a school?” The answer, he says: “They can.”

WHAT IS CAMPUSING?

YOU’VE HEARD ALL ABOUT OUTSOURCING ARRANGEMENTS in corporate America: Skilled members of an organization’s IT staff are hired out for consulting projects with other similar organizations, leveraging the specific expertise of the consultants in dealing with common challenges.



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