Case Study: Community College Embarks on Financial Reporting System Implementation

In 1996, the Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) became an independently managed, board-governed institution. NSCC is the primary community college body across the province, and represents thirteen main campuses as well as six community learning centers. The schools are housed across five main academic sectors, including business; access; applied arts and new media; health and human services; and trades and technology. NSCC provides a full range of academic programs and provides the majority of technical and apprenticeship training programs in Nova Scotia (Canada). The school has a yearly enrollment of 25,000 students, and a faculty and staff of 1,400.

Business Problem

Managing the financial activities of NSCC required the monthly generation and distribution of month-end financial reports to various decision makers across the province. The generation and distribution of those reports to over thirteen different physical locations was quite difficult. NSCC relied on financial legacy systems to run all of its financial applications and month-end processes, and to generate financial reports. The month-end process took up to two weeks to complete after each month's close; it then took an additional week to print and distribute the reports to the required financial decision makers across the various campuses and community centers under the NSCC umbrella. By the time reports reached the appropriate decision makers, the data was stale and did not provide any value for the decision making process. Aside from not seeing any added value, end users were not using the reports because of the time frame in which they were received. The lengthy distribution process became an excuse for poor performance, due to users not receiving the appropriate information in a timely fashion. Additionally, it was difficult to develop new reports or make changes to the current report structures, meaning that the overall process was difficult to manage.

Different decision makers across the organization needed to analyze the data in different ways. Without the ability to customize, to change, or to develop new reports, the reports themselves provided limited benefit to end users. Having access to print-based reports only allowed end users to view the reports without access to source data, and without the ability to manipulate the report structure.

Additionally, the office of the vice president (VP) of administrative services was experiencing difficulties acquiring financial planning information across the various campuses, due to discontent with the lag time between the completion of month-end processes and the time at which reports reached their destination. Instead of receiving feedback from various departments regarding planning activities, excuses were being given to the VP regarding the lack of information decision makers were receiving. Without the right information, the decision makers assumed they couldn't make the right decisions.