Strategy & Operations

To navigate the future with confidence, you need to set a clear, compelling vision for how your institution will align its strategy, programs, and initiatives in support of your mission. Our strategy practitioners combine industry insights into the dynamics of higher education with cutting-edge methods to help your leadership address critical issues, drive value, and achieve transformational success. We work to build long-term collaborative relationships as we combine our talents to create and execute integrated, tailored strategies that span every area of your operations.

Working in close collaboration with your campus constituents, we can help you gather, measure, and analyze actionable data to produce detailed insights and tailored solutions. Bringing proprietary methodologies and deep experience to the task, we work to:

• Create and implement plans to enable data-driven decision-making across the campus, institution, or system
• Gather and analyze data to uncover trends and identify opportunities across all aspects of teaching and learning, research, and administrative functions
• Support the selection, implementation, and adoption of analytics products, business intelligence tools, data warehouses, dashboards, and KPIs that help your institution operate more efficiently and effectively

The administration of research is complex, and the regulatory landscape is constantly changing. Working closely with university leaders and researchers, we can assist with defining a pre-award and/or post-award strategy and operating model that supports the mission and overall research enterprise. 

Of equivalent importance is the proactive management of a researcher’s portfolio. Post-award efficiency and effective fiduciary management are often enabled through meaningful policies, process, and timely analytical support. Through assessments of research systems, processes, and organizational structures, we help your institution plan to adjust to the changing demands of research administration, using tools and technology to streamline workflow, manage compliance, and capture relevant metrics. This helps universities focus on delivering cutting-edge research, innovations, and discoveries that benefit society.

Responding to sustained financial pressures, a growing number of higher education leaders are reconsidering the sustainability of their business models. We help institutions explore approaches to strategic partnerships, mergers, acquisitions, and consolidations to regain financial resilience and advance their institutional mission.

Our team can guide you through the entire lifecycle, from preparation and due diligence to post-merger integration, with comprehensive consulting services. M&A and restructuring services we provide include:

• M&A strategy
• Transaction readiness
• Due diligence and execution
• Integration and divestiture support
• Joint ventures and alliances

In the current environment, few institutions can afford to overlook opportunities to realize operational efficiencies. We work with institutions and systems to improve the way they source and procure goods and services, which generates cost reductions that can be reinvested to offset tuition and fund investments. Together, we can design and implement strategies to analyze spending patterns and behaviors, implement and optimize sourcing solutions, and transform procurement operations to achieve meaningful, sustainable savings.