National University of Ireland, Galway

Founded in 1845, NUI Galway is one of Ireland’s foremost centers of academic learning. With over 17,000 students and more than 2,400 staff, NUI Galway has a distinguished reputation for teaching and research excellence.

Chazey Partners was retained to compare NUIG support services to best practice benchmarks and provide NUIG with an opportunity to release potential efficiency gains. The scope included a review ten administrative support processes across five support areas.

The approach adopted for the report was as follows:

• Baseline in scope process cost and headcount in Central Support Services
• Conduct process review workshops with participants from Central Support and Schools & Colleges Administration to understand process flows, efficiency and effectiveness
• Interviews with users and customers of each process to understand the quality and effectiveness of process delivery and output
• Comparison of findings with available benchmarks to establish process efficiency and effectiveness gaps
• Activity Based Survey

The broad level analysis of potential benefits indicated significant opportunity within NUIG to conduct a programme within Administration Support Services to produce real cost savings and liberate headcount to resource more value creating initiatives and on the core academic mission.