Nous Group University
COO Survey
Nous Group is an international management consultancy with over 500 people working across Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the UK. With our broad consulting capability, we can solve your most complex strategic challenges and partner with you through transformational change. Together, Nous and Cubane form one of the most authoritative higher education service businesses operating today – a true leader in higher education with global expertise.
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Building the plane plan while flying it: the challenges of a contemporary university COO
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The challenge of rapidly changing a system while it is in operation is often described as “building the plane while flying it”. However, as we uncovered, for university COOs the challenge goes further – they are seeking to design the structures of a system while it continues to meet the needs of users. They are, indeed, building the plan while flying it.
The inaugural Nous Group University COO survey ran from December 2021 – January 2022 and was supported by Cubane, a Nous Group company. It was completed via an online questionnaire that was sent to Chief Operating Officers and equivalents at universities and post-secondary institutions across Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the UK.
About the survey
Our findings are distilled into seven key themes:
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“It is clear to us that while the role of the COO has only recently evolved to include that of a strategic partner, by the end of the decade it will be more fully realised provided COOs can action these significant and strategic organisational changes.”
The evolving COO
Administrator to Chief Risk Manager to Strategic Partner
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1
The evolving COO | Administrator to Chief Risk Manager to Strategic Partner
Historically, COOs oversaw administration and compliance, then they began to manage enterprise risk. Now, they are also the Strategic Partner to the Executive with a focus on service effectiveness. This represents a two-step change in the COO role where each new state builds on (not replaces) the prior one. More than three-in-four COOs in our global survey noted that improving service effectiveness was in their top three priorities.
THEME 1
We just didn’t have time to breathe over the past two years. If I wasn’t opening the campus, I was closing it down.”
COO of an Australian Go8
3
Financial fortunes
Establishing long-term sustainability
2
Data-led decisions
A new pace and style for COOs
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4
The digital challenge
The great step change
University Chief Operating Officers (COOs) are emerging from two years of operational hypervigilance. These two years were a time of financial shocks, staff restructures, accelerated shifts to virtual learning, eerily quiet campuses, and students and staff seeking wellbeing support en masse.
INTRODUCTION
The insights in this report are informed by more than 70 university operational leaders from across Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand and the UK, and Nous’ experience for more than two decades as a global leader in higher education consulting. From this, we have distilled
priorities, role developments and strategic aspirations that we think
will characterise what great university COOs and senior leadership teams
will do in the years ahead.
70 university
operational
leaders ACROSS
In this time, universities and their COOs were forced to make faster decisions but then experienced internal barriers to change and agility more acutely than ever before. COOs had the opportunity to rapidly transform their operations on multiple fronts in parallel and, through this, find new ways to partner with - and at times lead - their executive peers. They also learnt how to drive performance, but often with less resources.
It is often said that good leaders never waste a good crisis. The emergence from the pandemic offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for COOs to make major changes and embed them for the future. As part of university leadership teams, every COO is thinking carefully about the changes that are right for their institution.
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Data-led decisions | A new pace and style for COOs
A new pace and style of decision making – ‘informed decisiveness’ – was established during the pandemic. This was enabled by clear and consistent communication of strategic objectives, a willingness to champion change and co-sponsorship with academic leaders. COOs said change management and better use of data analytics are essential to maintaining this new model of decision making. it as a high priority over the coming three to five years.
THEME 2
People leadership is a persistent priority for professional services, while internal stakeholder engagement will give way to evidence-based decision-making over the next five years.
“We are in a period of political uncertainty, with the outcome unclear but ongoing transformation is non-negotiable. This will require a more agile and adaptable workforce and focus on key drivers and evidence to ensure that change is meeting its objectives.”
COO of a mid-sized UK university
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Financial fortunes | Establishing long-term sustainability
COVID-19’s timing has led to a geographic bifurcation of the financial fortunes of universities: the UK expects to rebound quickly while Australia and New Zealand will take longer. Most COOs see a return to financial sustainability within three years. COOs have several levers available to improve financials, but the challenge is to ensure financial restructuring genuinely establishes long-term sustainability.
Expanding international enrolment has been the most common strategy to maintain target surpluses
“How we manage our estate and what we outsource is an opportunity. Universities need to recognise they are not builders or developers – we need to get really good at partnering. The flow of capital coming into the sector is a big opportunity.”
COO of a STEM-focused university in the UK
THEME 3
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The digital challenge | The great step change
The pandemic forced a great step change for digital investment in universities to improve IT systems and infrastructure.
COOs see process automation beginning to emerge but scaled efficiency gains are yet be realised. Universities continue to struggle with change management.
The majority of institutions have ramped up digital investment in the past year
“Digital transformation in student acquisition and service delivery will enhance the financial performance of the university, allowing greater investment in academic activity and improvement in rankings and recognition, thus producing a virtuous cycle of growth.”
COO of an Australian university
THEME 4
5
Tomorrow’s campus, today
The estate challenge
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Tomorrow’s campus, today | The estate challenge
The traditional university campus is having an identity crisis. Investment is down. Students don’t want to go to large lecture theatres. Staff don’t want to commute five-days-a-week. Many questions remain but COOs know the post-pandemic campus will not be the same as the pre-pandemic campus.
Nearly half of all COOs surveyed have reduced spending on estates and only one-in-five have increased. Universities have also spent less on maintenance during the pandemic, an unsustainable trend.
Investment in building and estates has gently reduced over the past year
“A big shift is required to build an engaging on-campus experience for staff and students. This will require new capabilities for staff; new enablers such as different physical and digital spaces; new roles and processes to support student, academics and co-curricular experiences; and support for academic staff to deliver changed value propositions.”
COO of an Australian university
THEME 5
6
Talent attraction
Fierce competition for strategic and digital skills
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Talent attraction | Fierce competition for strategic and digital skills
Sourcing talent is a growing challenge for COOs and their leadership teams. Competition for strategic and digital skills is fierce, both within the sector and across the economy. While more can be done to recruit and onboard external talent, the greatest untapped source is graduating students from their own organisations.
Universities must upgrade their capability and embrace creative solutions to talent development COOs identified both difficult and creative options to find and nurture talent:
“People coming from within the sector don't seem to have a 'commercial' understanding of how to run an institution. However, those who come from outside struggle to understand the lie of the land within the sector, which can lead to frustration.”
COO of a UK university
THEME 6
The difficult.
Investing more in the talent attraction and retention capabilities in human resources teams and addressing performance management will help universities make more of their professional services people. This investment will also help to develop and retain future managers and senior leaders.
The creative.
Graduating students from the institution are a largely untapped source of future professional services talent, as most universities are yet to implement graduate recruitment programmes of the scale and sophistication of similar sized organisations in analogous industries (such as Government or Professional Services).
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Market intelligence | Proving its worth skills
With COVID-19 hitting the system hard, COOs know that competition for students will reach new levels as universities seek to repair budgets. Market intelligence, particularly when integrated into the student recruitment process, can provide competitive advantage for universities. This requires a high level of collaboration and trust between marketing, academics and other functional units across the institution.
Market intelligence was particularly important for Australian COOs, who ranked it as the third most important administrative service for evolving their teaching and learning approach (45 per cent), compared to the rest of the countries surveyed, where COOs ranked it the sixth highest priority (26 per cent).
MARKET INTELLIGENCE
Nearly half of all COOs in Australia and New Zealand ranked market intelligence as an important administrative service for evolving their teaching and learning approach.
THEME 7
7
Market intelligence
Proving its worth
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Zac Ashkanasy
PRINCIPAL, NOUS GROUP
GLOBAL HEAD OF
HIGHER EDUCATION
zac.ashkanasy@nousgroup.com
Phil Copestake
MANAGING DIRECTOR,
CUBANE U.K AND EUROPE
phil.copestake@cubaneconsulting.com
Download the Nous Group University COO Report
Australia
New Zealand
UK
Canada
IRELAND
Get the latest insighst from our University COO Survey report.
77%
60%
53%
47%
30%
16%
14%
4%
40%
2%
16%
23%
19%
Changes to major capital (building/estates) investment in the past year (%)
61%
39%
32%
18%
20%
2%
27%
38%
54%
15%
46%
23%
0%
23%
84%
67%
40%
37%
35%
25%
12%
79%
65%
44%
37%
11%
42%
19%
AUTHORS
Survey results were supplemented by additional in-depth interviews with COOs throughout the same period, and additional commentary and insight from Nous Group consultants.
As this annual survey evolves, we look forward to broadening its reach, and exploring the insights over time, as they emerge.
To launch the report, we were joined in London by COOs and administrative and professional service leaders from Australia, Canada, the UK and Europe. We invited some of them to share their own priorities, challenges – and what most excites them about the changing nature of the COO role.