SMU Meadows Marketing & Communications
The company was selected through a competitive process comparing several firms offering similar services. SMU leadership felt that Bain was most experienced in higher education, and the Board of Trustees approved the selection at its February 2014 meeting.
The OE2C project will be conducted over the next 12-18 months, divided into 3 phases. The first phase is discovery and diagnostic, which will take place over the next 4 to 5 months. During this time, the Bain team will assess opportunities for cost savings and revenue generation, and present them to SMU for review. The next 3 to 6 months will constitute the design and planning phase of the improvements SMU selects to pursue. The third phase, over the following 6 to 12 months, will be the implementation of those changes.
We are conducting a thorough review of ways to save operational funds so that resources can be dedicated more fully to the academic mission. Some early identified examples are an increase in funding for graduate student fellowships and for super computing to support research.
Bain & Company has a proven track record of success with similar initiatives at other highly regarded universities. Bain & Company has a reputation as a highly collaborative firm. Its analysis will take into account SMU’s unique context and culture. Bain’s role is to provide recommendations as to process, structure and best practices. It will be SMU’s responsibility to decide on a course of action and methods of implementation.
Some changes and consolidation of duplicate functions to improve efficiency will require adjustments. It is not known at present what these might be. The chief aim of this study is to increase resources directed to the academic mission of the University, so any changes that could have an impact on faculty will be carefully deliberated with that goal in mind.