Executive Vice Presidents Nathan Brostrom and Peter Taylor delivered this message to all UCOP staff yesterday, Monday, Oct. 14, 2013:

We are writing to announce that, at the direction of President Napolitano, we are launching an Efficiency Review at the Office of the President. Its objective is to reduce costs, increase transparency, streamline processes, eliminate duplication and improve the quality of service both for OP staff and its campus customers.

President Napolitano has asked us to take this step mindful that the Office of the President has already undergone significant restructuring over the years. The organization has explored, with some notable successes, other efficiency measures. But her experience, both in Arizona and in Washington, D.C., is that more can always be done. And more must be done given continuing budget pressures to ensure that the Office of the President is providing the highest quality service at the lowest possible cost to the campuses and our other stakeholders.

This initiative will be different in two important ways. First, it has the full support of senior leadership, starting with the President. And second, and as importantly, it will be driven not from above but by all of you — those who do the work and know how it can be done more efficiently, effectively and at the lowest possible cost.

This will be a multi-leveled process:

Leadership:  The two of us will serve as executive sponsors for the Efficiency Review. Other senior leaders who comprise the President’s Operations Group (Provost Aimée Dorr, Senior Vice Presidents Dan Dooley and John Stobo, and General Counsel Charles Robinson), will be responsible for providing broad organizational leadership and review, in keeping with POG’s previous and ongoing work on budget, efficiency and organizational improvement.

Working Group: Associate Vice President Michael Reese will convene a working group of subject matter experts and divisional representatives, to be co-chaired by Kobie Crowder and Cathy O’Sullivan. Membership will include Karla Campbell, executive director of the Center for Operational Excellence; Ginny Cox Delaney, organizational consultant; Jason Simon, director of marketing and communications services; Donna Collins, deputy director of operations; Steven Murray, director of building and administrative services; Paul Weiss, chief technology officer; Shirley Bittlingmeier, ITS client services officer; and Jenny Gautier, deputy to the vice president for research and graduate studies. Others will be named as needed.

Operations Group: To ensure that we fully identify the range of efficiency opportunities as well as their impacts, we will deploy the existing OP Operations Council, which includes representatives from all the consolidated business units as well as from all divisions and major departments. This existing group has already been involved in a number of previous efficiency efforts, including the printer initiative, the technology asset management program, and the revised smartphone usage policy.

For the purposes of this effort, the OP Operations Council will be charged with outreach to the Staff Assembly and to other staff to solicit a broad range of other ideas for how the Office of the President can achieve greater efficiency. The Operations Council will be establishing mechanisms for soliciting your ideas and opinions in ways that will ensure anonymity and the raising of all possibilities.

This last point is the most important one: The success of the Efficiency Review rests with you and with the ideas you bring forward, your imagination in helping to implement new approaches to doing business, and your continuing commitment to ensuring that the Office of the President provides the best possible service at the lowest possible cost. You’ve proven before that you are capable of rising to these organizational challenges and making necessary change; we have full confidence that you will do so again.

Thanks in advance for your contributions and support,

Nathan Brostrom
Executive Vice President

Peter Taylor
Chief Financial Officer

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