Our Goals
The strategic goals and associated initiatives described below represent the Finance Division's collective priorities for 2023 - 2027.
Progress toward achieving these goals is fundamental to realizing our vision of a thriving community, enlightened insight, enhanced experience, and innovative spirit.
While some initiatives may be completed in a matter of months, others may be completed in phases that could span multiple fiscal years. Updates on our progress will be provided on this page, on the Strategic Initiatives page, and through the Finance Bulletin.
Employee Recruitment, Development and Engagement
We listen.
We cultivate.
We celebrate.
We grow.
Goal:
Recruit and foster the development of employees in an environment that values diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. Create a culture of highly talented individuals who are engaged and committed to contributing to the success of the division and university.
Impact:
Thriving Community
Objectives
- Promote the Center of Excellence (COE) to share expertise in all areas of financial management for the campus community and position the university to best respond to emerging financial issues, challenges and opportunities
- Cultivate and support development and mentoring opportunities for staff with focus on enhancing professional competencies and capabilities
- Offer career path resources to broadly increase knowledge of development and promotion opportunities to enhance productivity and engagement
- Leverage a multi-skilled workforce to meet changing needs
- Identify and leverage the benefits of various work modes to implement a flexible work methodology that is fair, equitable, agile, and effective
- Focus on improving efforts that promote fair treatment, equal access to opportunity, mutual respect, and diversity education and training across the Finance Division
Key Initiatives/Projects
- Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Initiatives:
- Develop programs and opportunities that promote a persistent sense of belonging with an intentional focus on historically marginalized voices
- Measure and report division climate transparently
- Improve policies, processes, practices, and structures to instill DEIB as a cultural norm by incorporation into our prescribed actions
- Provide tools and resources that reduce bias language in communications and intentionally promote DEIB matters in a proactive, timely and relevant way
- Physically relocate Finance Division business offices to Bakery Square Office Three
- Identify high-performing individuals to participate in leadership and specialized expertise development programs and provide opportunities to leverage acquired skills
- Support continual learning through staff development plans, training and certification opportunities and informational programming
- Execute DEIB programs and training opportunities to promote fair treatment, equal access to opportunity and mutual respect
Learn more about our current Strategic Initiatives and Projects
Accomplishments in
Employee Recruitment, Development and Engagement
FY24 (through Dec. 31, 2023)
- We successfully coordinated and executed a move of our business offices to Bakery Square, which allows for purposeful collaboration within Finance and with other administrative units who are part of a growing CMU administrative presence and community at BKSQ. This space provides a more comfortable modern office space for our employees with a focus on sustainability and improved accessibility. In doing so, Finance also helped the university make strategic changes to optimize physical space and resources.
Updated: January 2024
Next update: July 2024
Financial Sustainability and Reporting
We illuminate.
We analyze.
We empower.
We serve.
Goal:
Ensure financial sustainability for the institution and improve management reporting and analysis to stakeholders to increase transparency and provide enlightening insights for more informed and predictive decision-making.
Impact:
Enlightened Insight
Objectives
- In conjunction with the Chief Information Officer the Office of the Provost, develop a data sharing strategy to more efficiently harness higher quality data for analysis
- Report dynamic and forward-looking financial information to more proactively support processes and enable nimble business decisions
- Use rigorous analytical methods that blend elements of customer, business, and market intelligence and consider operations, risk, and financial stewardship ideals to integrate finance and business drivers in processes and decisions
- Obtain deeper insights into university financials and critical elements of business-lines to provide more comprehensive oversight and manage better deployment of capital in strategic initiatives
- Define a reporting strategy to enable more timely reviews of information and identification of issues requiring action
Key Initiatives/Projects
- Financial closeout of CMU Australia (CMU-A) operations with diligent risk mitigation and compliance in areas such as banking and audit.
- Partner with colleagues across administrative and academic units to support data governance, analytics and strategy efforts to maximize available data sets and to facilitate analysis of data.
- Collaborate with colleagues across administrative and academic units to develop leadership and managerial dashboards to support academic program and senior leadership decision making.
- Obtain deeper insights into the university's financials through standardized unit level data metrics to enhance oversight and efficient deployment of capital for strategic initiatives.
- Focus on improving diverse supplier usage for sub category goals by expanding tier two supplier data, leveraging diverse supplier mapping and aligning efforts with key campus partners
Learn more about our current Strategic Initiatives and Projects
Accomplishments in
Financial Sustainability and Reporting
FY24 (through Dec. 31, 2023)
- International Finance assisted Heinz College and university leadership with the wind-down and closure of university operations at CMU-A, including required audits and regulatory obligations per the Australian government. CMU is no longer registered as a foreign corporation in Australia, and International Finance will continue to work with Heinz College and other university partners to complete the close-out of CMU-A financials in Oracle.
Updated: January 2024
Next update: July 2024
Policies, Processes and Compliance
We partner.
We guide.
We clarify.
We improve.
Goal:
Maintain well-developed policies that enhance compliance and are supported with consistent and streamlined business processes to decrease redundancies and efficiently serve university stakeholders.
Impact:
Enhanced Experience
Objectives
- Simplify manual processes to drive overall efficiency and effectiveness, and/or in preparation for transition to digitalization
- Collaborate with campus partners to analyze risk from a holistic viewpoint to further risk mitigation and enhance compliance
- Reshape established service delivery methods, process and support structures to more tightly integrate with identified objectives
- Evaluate, develop and maintain finance policies and procedures to provide guidance, clarity and ensure compliance
Key Initiatives/Projects
- Transition non-qualified scholarship processing to Student Accounts.
- Conduct analysis of university properties with regards to real estate tax exemption to determine appropriate actions as needed.
- Assess revisions to U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Uniform Guidance to determine risks and impacts to the university.
- Convert CMU Qatar (CMU-Q) student refunds from manual form process to an electronic process.
- Add process visualizations to the Finance Division website to increase transparency and understanding and redesign key web pages to be more process driven, user friendly and intuitive.
- Evaluate, develop and maintain financial policies and procedures to provide clear guidance, ensure compliance and align with university objectives.
- Simplify, standardize and streamline manual processes to enable process efficiency and/or automation opportunities to save time and allow for more value add activities.
- Enhance the financial review process to provide better insight into opportunities and challenges by providing training and documentation, standardizing fall strategic review presentations and providing website information for ease of use and increased accuracy and efficiency.
Learn more about our current Strategic Initiatives and Projects
Accomplishments in
Policies, Processes and Compliance
FY24 (through Dec. 31, 2023)
- The Provost Office and Finance partnered to process the Rales Fellows’ Non-Qualified Scholarship (NQS) payments through Student Accounts. The transition of payments going through Student Accounts will increase process efficiences and streamline efforts by the Accounts Payable and Taxation teams.
- Completed comprehensive analysis of taxable and non-taxable university properties to ensure the university pays the appropriate property tax and that property listings are accurately maintained.
- Various teams within Finance partnered with colleagues from the Office of Spnsored Programs (OSP), the Office of Research Integrity and Compliance (ORIC), the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), and research personnel to review 2023 revisions to OMB Uniform Guidance and its impacts. No negative impacts to the university were observed, however documentation was created to help evaluate and execute future enhancements.
- In collaboration with Enrollment Services and finance personnel at CMU-Q, implemented business process and system improvements to process CMU-Q student refunds electronically via Student Information Online (SIO), eliminating the existing manual process. This has improved the refund experience for university staff as well as CMU-Q students.
Updated: January 2024
Next update: July 2024
Systems and Technology
We question.
We tinker.
We simplify.
We build.
Goal:
Update and implement systems and identify tools to more effectively utilize technology, reduce manual effort and optimize processes.
Impact:
Innovative Spirit
Objectives
- Continue to automate repetitive transactions and other standardized activities to increase "touchless" finance activities and workflows
- Make user-friendly automation technology broadly accessible to staff to enable digital transformation in the Finance Division
- Support and partner with data governance efforts to maximize value and trust in data assets; increase data competence and literacy; cultivate data sharing that improves the ability to conduct data analysis; create practices for shared accountability and communication around data assets; and ensure data is secure and meets compliance and legal regulations across the university
- Implement technologies that enable operators and users to engage in financial processes, whether in or out of the office
- Expand the technological foundation of key business process with systems, applications, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and other FinTech that more efficiently and effectively support critical finance functions
Key Initiatives/Projects
- Future of Financial Planning (FFP) software selection and implementation, following extensive testing and change management to engage campus.
- Identify and implement automation technology (e.g., robotic process automation, machine learning, artificial intelligence) that is user friendly and compatible with both current and future systems to enable a digital transformation.
- Study, scope and provide a recommendation for a budget system and a treasury management system that will provide enhanced functionality, more robust real time analytics and process efficiencies.
Learn more about our current Strategic Initiatives and Projects
Accomplishments in
Systems and Technology
FY24 (through Dec. 31, 2023)
- Orchestrated and led the RFP for a cloud-based Budgeting & Planning system solution and implementation partner, incorporating scorecard evaluation (written & in-person demos), selection, and award, delivering the best-in-class solution for CMU; on track to implement Oracle Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) related to Budget and Forecasting.
Updated: January 2024
Next update: July 2024