Universities are complex institutions that balance public funding, responsible investment, and high-quality operations to support tens of thousands of students, but as operating costs escalate, funding and endowments erode, and tuition increases, TAFEs, colleges and universities are faced with the challenge: do more with less.

As a result, universities are turning their attention to transformation of their core administration functions and student facing service functions in order to streamline back office functions, improve efficiency and reduce costs.

Of the 51 universities across Australia and New Zealand, 27 run Shared Services (51%). There has been significant growth in the adoption of Shared Services across universities in ANZ over the past 10 years. Since 2014, the number of Shared Services has doubled, in fact compared to 2010, the number of SSCs has increased five-fold (SSON Network 2019).

Ahead of the Shared Services for Higher Education Summit 2019 we look at the strategies employed by five universities across the APAC region to streamline their shared services and further explore the impact these transformations are having on efficiency, operational costs and the student experience.