The following text is taken from a press release and in no way reflects the opinion of the editorial staff.
VIVES, the largest university in West Flanders, will use the new ERP software for three important aspects of its daily operation: financial operation, purchasing policy and human resources.
“We thus meet the requirements of the main stakeholders of our organization: management body, management, audit committee, teachers, support services and researchers. As a higher education institution, we are a partially decentralized organization, willing to be supported centrally. Since this is a Software-as-a-service solution, we will integrate many of our applications into a standardized solution after implementation. Thanks to the flexible architecture of Unit4’s ERP solution, this requires little custom work,” says Mario De Brabander, VIVES Finance Coordinator.
Joris Ghysen, Sales Manager of Unit4, adds: “We have been able to serve VIVES perfectly, as we only focus on the services market, of which higher education is an important vertical. In the Netherlands, we have acquired a lot of experience with the financial systems of colleges and universities, which must be accountable to funders and report to them on the use of their funds in research projects. Flemish colleges and universities have similar needs and above all want a solution that is easy to use with as little cost of ownership as possible. The fact that the solution can to a large extent be functionally maintained autonomously – which was an explicit wish of VIVES – also implies a significantly lower cost of change. »
Convivial
The software is offered in a cloud environment, which works differently from earlier software. “Previously, locally installed software had a license and right to use, and the technical management (maintenance of the underlying infrastructure) was done by the customer himself. It is different for SaaS solutions; technical management remains with Unit4, allowing customers to focus on activities that generate value for their customers. In the case of VIVES, for both students and teachers,” says Ghysen.
Initially, a VIVES team made up of key users, namely management and finance, will gradually roll out the software, with a final installation date scheduled for January 1, 2024. “Within VIVES, we we had been bumping into the limitations of the current software for quite some time. We are therefore delighted that Unit4 was able to provide us with the software we were looking for. This will benefit all our stakeholders”, concludes Mario De Brabander.
Unit4’s USPs in the higher education market
Fit for purpose: targeted on this service market, one of the group’s main segments
Very flexible in a standard environment: no need for programming and configuration, customers are more independent and less dependent on the external supplier.
Total cost of ownership controlled, also takes into account the total cost of change
