Minnesota State Colleges and Universities is dedicated to making higher education accessible for all across its 26 community and technical colleges and 7 state universities. To achieve this, the organization recognized the need to modernize its legacy systems.
The Institution chose Workday Human Capital Management and Workday Financial Management for a holistic, integrated solution and deployed them both simultaneously. Dr Jacquelyn Bailey, vice chancellor of information technology and chief information officer, says this big-bang deployment “just made a lot of sense because it meant we could iterate on what we needed and innovate faster.”
Early platform success fueled by role-based security.
The benefits of unifying both HCM and finance were quickly apparent. “We’re not operating in silos anymore,” says Bailey, highlighting improved collaboration between HR and finance teams.
And breaking down silos was made easier with the Workday role-based security model, which empowered campuses with more autonomy while enhancing security systemwide. “Security is incredibly important to us. The Workday security model gives us autonomy and assigns the right roles, so we can ensure the right access to data. It keeps things safe and secure, and it helps us move as a system together,” says Bailey.
Data-driven insights delivering cost savings.
Minnesota State is using Workday to solve its data challenges in several critical ways.
First, the Workday platform enables data democratization for campuses in a fair, equitable, and consumable way. This provides real-time insights into budgets and enrollment trends, which is crucial for Minnesota State’s Equity 2030 initiative that aims to close academic equity gaps for students. “We can’t close academic equity gaps without closing technological equity gaps,” says Bailey.
Without clarity into every aspect of the budget, this tuition-driven institution couldn’t plan effectively for the next four years. And understanding enrollment trends is vital to optimize the student body and make decisions about planning and programs. “Workday helps us identify where students are and where there are pockets of opportunity.”
Partnering for success.
When business processes evolve rapidly, change management can be a challenge. To address this, Minnesota State partnered with Deloitte on a leadership alignment lab to bring institutional leaders together. “Not everyone had shared goals at that time,” says Deloitte Principal Cathy Milazzo. The collaboration aligned digital transformation goals, ensuring Deloitte “understood not only how they have been doing business and running their business processes but also understanding how they want to solve some of the things that were challenging them,” says Milazzo.
This approach led to significant improvements in grants management. Previously handled manually at individual schools, grants management is now centralized, allowing consolidated reporting to state and federal governments.
Bailey adds, “Deloitte has been the right partner for us. They have a lot of experience that helps us do the work that we need to do every day.”
AI-powered continued emphasis on student success.
As part of its student support strategy, Minnesota State is now deploying Workday Student. This will streamline administration, academic planning, and financial aid management. It will also allow students to easily access information and complete tasks such as registering for courses and checking their grades.
As it educates students for the future, Minnesota State is not just embracing technology but also looking to use AI to support higher education in new and magnificent ways.
With Workday, we can close academic equity gaps and create a wonderful technological experience throughout our system.
Vice Chancellor of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer