Our Enterprise Systems are continually evolving to better meet the growing needs of our university community. To get a clear understanding of what this means for the daily lives of our students, faculty, and staff, we sat down with Candice Zhu, our new AVP of Enterprise Systems, to discuss her vision for the future of our core business applications.

For Zhu, the ultimate goal is a seamless, frictionless customer experience—and getting there requires a cultural shift within IT. She envisions a team that moves beyond simply fulfilling incoming tickets to one that actively anticipates campus needs. “From a user perspective, they don't really care if a form is from the ERP, or if they are using a Java-developed application, or chatting with a bot,” she explains. What matters is that the system works intuitively and the final result is high-quality.

To achieve this level of proactive problem-solving, Zhu is asking her staff to become much more mindful of the customer journey. While not their exclusive focus, understanding the user's experience is a critical part of her strategy. She wants her team to take true ownership of the systems they manage, intimately learn the common pain points of our users, and bring forward creative solutions before a formal request for a fix is ever submitted.

At the heart of this push for better processes is the future of our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. These on-premise platforms currently house vast amounts of critical data about the University community, but their aging architecture limits what we can achieve. Upgrading to a modern, cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS) solution is a necessary step not just for long-term performance and accessibility, but to actually deliver the seamless digital experience our campus expects.

As we look toward these upgrades, the conversation naturally turns to Artificial Intelligence. While the idea of jumping straight into an AI-driven future is incredibly exciting, Zhu emphasizes the necessity of balancing this dream with our actual state of technological readiness. The long-term dream is to eventually have intelligent agents that can simply answer a question or process a complex request without the user ever needing to hunt through a portal. However, Zhu is quick to point out that we cannot skip the foundational steps. Jumping directly from legacy systems to advanced AI requires robust governance, strict security protocols, and pristine data management. 

To ensure we take the absolute best path forward, the university has partnered with Deloitte. Over the coming months, Deloitte will conduct a comprehensive assessment of our current ERP environment. Their ultimate deliverable will provide strategic recommendations on our next steps, helping us determine exactly how to securely and efficiently manage these massive data sets for decades to come.

While the technological roadmap ahead is complex, the guiding principle remains simple: putting the user first. By leaning on Deloitte's expertise to build a modernized foundation, Zhu and her team are ensuring the University is truly ready for the future. With a new culture of proactive problem-solving taking root, UD is well on its way to delivering the frictionless, seamless digital experience our campus community deserves.