The higher education administrative suite should define best practices and enable the integration of the financial, HR and student information system (SIS) functions to dynamically balance and optimize institutional resources. The suite should integrate all departments and functions across an institution onto a single information system that can serve all of the departments' particular needs. Most suites today enable the flow of information across the institution in end-to-end business processes through a comprehensive set of interconnected modules. However, models of how information flows across departments vary greatly among the suites, reflecting the providers' various visions, technologies and product strategies.

Although some institutions make best-of-breed selections of individual core applications, the integrated suite represents the choice of the thousands of higher education customers represented by the vendors included in this Magic Quadrant. The integrated suite continues to show value for the ability to leverage product development, shared "best practices," common database and data definitions, packaged integration, technology, and skill sets. These core administrative applications represent the largest IT expenditure in an institution's budget.

The analysis of administrative suites in this research is not focused on any one core application, such as the student system, but on the full suite of applications and offerings. However, a single core application can have an overall effect on the strength of the suite as a whole.

Higher education CIOs worldwide grapple with the challenge of the single largest IT expenditure decision they will face: the integrated administrative suite, or what some still refer to as higher education enterprise resource planning (ERP). Although startup providers seldom take on the higher education market for HR, financials and student systems as an integrated suite, existing providers are seeking new customers by moving into new geographical areas or beginning to work with institutions of new and different types, sizes and levels of complexity. The competition is strong, and most providers in this year's Magic Quadrant are focusing on growth beyond their traditional placement in the marketplace. In part, this reflects new interest in hosted models and shared services, renewed institutional imperatives to contain costs, and compelling user experiences in Web 2.0 and beyond.

Datatel, Oracle and SunGard Higher Education (Banner) continue to be placed in the Leaders quadrant. Collectively, their suites represent approximately two-thirds of the institutions running an integrated administrative suite (HR, finance and SIS), the majority of which are in North America. All three providers have moved higher and farther to the right on the Magic Quadrant, which reflects continued execution on vision in the increasingly comprehensive suites. Jenzabar (with two suites, CX and EX), in the Challengers quadrant, is consistent in its support and service for one of the largest customer bases in the higher education market. Campus Management continues to make visionary decisions in pursuit of growth within the traditional higher education market.

The higher education market outside of North America has been slower to embrace the integrated suite. However, this is beginning to change. Spain's Oficina de Cooperacion Universiteria (OCU) has experienced continued growth in Spain and Latin America, demonstrating the move from legacy and homegrown applications for the first time into integrated suites. This year, Italian-based Cineca has been added to the Magic Quadrant. Cineca, with a presence at 83 of Italy's 96 universities, also demonstrates the move from legacy and homegrown to best-practice provider offerings.

With the growth of activity by higher education providers seeking entrance into new higher education markets, the possibility of new partnerships as well as mergers and acquisitions can be expected.

The growth and development of open-source and community source applications is not discussed in this research because no open-source integrated administrative suites are currently available.

Higher education administrative suites are becoming more complex, and interoperability issues have pushed vendors to create, acquire or build partnerships with other vendors to meet pressing needs. A higher education administrative suite comprises at least three components that are loosely or tightly coupled:

• Financials, including procurement, accounts payable, accounts receivable, fixed assets, general ledger, budget development, sponsored research accounting and endowment management
• HR, including personnel management and payroll
• Student information, including enrollment management, financial aid (with communication management, packaging and reporting), registration, grading and transcript, advising, and degree audit

Although the following capabilities are not requirements for inclusion in this Magic Quadrant, they are important to higher education and are often included in requests for proposals and requests for quotations:

• Grant management, with both pre-award and post-award tracking and management
• Advancement, including fundraising, corporate giving and alumni management
• Facilities scheduling
• Enterprise portals

The interoperability of modules within a suite, along with middleware, will push some vendors toward partnerships and development in the middleware space. Security and identity management strategies are expected to be included in vendor offerings.

To be included in this year's higher education suite Magic Quadrant, vendors must have:

• A customer base that includes degree-granting institutions — public and/or private
• A full-function application suite, minimally including a student system, financials and HR
• Regular inquiries from Gartner clients during 2008

This year, we have included one new vendor, Cineca, the major vendor of academic suites in Italy. Cineca's applications include interesting features that are especially suited to the needs of European higher education institutions.

None.

A vendor must be able to deliver on a vision, and the Magic Quadrant's vertical axis (Ability to Execute) measures how well the vendor performs against today's assessment metrics. The following criteria are considered when evaluating the ability to execute:

• Product/Service: Current higher education suite functionality across the application components described here. This includes the underlying technical architecture and the completeness of the modules/components offered.
• Overall Viability: The organization's overall financial health, the financial and practical success of the business, and the likelihood the company can or will continue to invest in its higher education suite.
• Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor's capabilities in all sales activities and the structure that supports them. This criterion includes an assessment of the suite license cost, implementation cost and ongoing cost of ownership.
• Market Responsiveness and Track Record: The vendor's overall effectiveness in the market, including its responsiveness to users, its ability to articulate a clear value proposition and the number of live implementations of its higher education suite.
• Marketing Execution: The level of public-domain awareness of the solution and the perceived quality of the vendor's brand in the higher education market.
• Customer Experience: The vendor's ability to deliver a product that meets the institution's needs, as well as the ability to provide pre- and post-sale support that enables clients to successfully employ its higher education suite. This includes the quality and availability of vendor support, in addition to implementation services.
• Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments with respect to the higher education suite. Factors include the quality of the organizational structure, such as skills, experiences, programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the vendor to operate effectively and efficiently in the higher education market on an ongoing basis.

The vendor must have a vision for the higher education market that matches the currently stated and expected vision for client/prospect institutions. Our assessment of a vendor's Completeness of Vision includes the following criteria:

• Market Understanding: The ability of the vendor to understand higher education user needs and translate those needs into products and services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision listen to and understand higher education user wants and needs, and they can shape or enhance those wants with their added vision.
• Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages that match their vision for higher education with the products and services offered, that are consistently communicated throughout the organization, and that are externalized effectively to the higher education market.
• Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling higher education administrative suites that uses the appropriate network of sales, marketing, service and communication affiliates that extend the scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and the higher education customer base.
• Product Strategy: The higher education administrative suite product strategy, covering breadth and depth of functionality, underlying technology, and openness.
• Business Model: The soundness of each vendor's strategy to bring higher education administrative suites to market that are sustainable for the future.
• Vertical/Industry Strategy: Not rated.
• Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes.
• Geographic Strategy: Not rated.

Vendors in the Leaders quadrant have the highest combined measures of Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision. They are performing well, are prepared for the future and have strong customer bases that have fully implemented their suites. Additionally, each of the vendors in this space has functionality beyond the minimum requirements for inclusion in this Magic Quadrant. These vendors' assets include strong channel partners, consistent financial performance, broad platform support, good customer support, the most-comprehensive and scalable products in the market, and the ability to deliver all the key higher education administrative suite capabilities. Strong vision reflects a solid product and go-to-market strategy for higher education, combined with a management vision for higher education.

Challengers often have a substantial number of installations, but lack the vision of leaders or don't own all the most-relevant components of an administrative application suite for higher education. Instead, they leverage partnerships to round out their solutions.

Visionaries have strong vision, but have not completely executed on that vision. They may partner for several core administrative suite components and/or be in the process of completing the development of their own.

Niche players successfully focus on a small segment of the market, or do not focus on a particular segment but have modest horizons and possibilities owing to their inability to innovate or outperform other vendors. A niche player may also be a recent entrant to the market that has yet to establish "mind share" for its ideas and market share with its products.

• Agresso has more than 600 higher education customers — mostly in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) — using Agresso's HR and/or financial systems (including the recently acquired Coda financial application).
• One of Agresso's real strengths is its "post-implementation agility" that stems from a good track record of adapting to national regulation and industry culture for the finance and HR systems.
• Agresso's 2005 acquisition of U.K.-based Distinction Systems enables it to compete in the post-16 education sector, especially in the U.K. However, we have not yet seen convincing signs that Agresso has been able to capitalize on this.
• Agresso has experience in running shared services for the public sector and is involved in discussions about shared services for the higher education sector in the U.K.

• Agresso doesn't seem to have made much progress in executing its road map, and still has to show that it can integrate the Distinction solutions into its suite and achieve the synergy effects that it anticipated from the purchase.
• Agresso's recent acquisition of Coda, although increasing market share in its strength area, raises concerns about Agresso's ability to focus needed resources on its higher education suite.
• Agresso's vision for its higher education suite is rather conservative compared to the visions of its competitors in the Magic Quadrant.

• Campus Management's student system is a practical fit for higher education institutions looking for a Microsoft-based solution.
• Campus Management's low-cost, tight integration of modules; fast implementation; and move to open application programming interfaces (APIs) and hosting options are establishing the company in the traditional small-to-midsize college market.
• Small-to-midsize institutions are increasingly including Campus Management on their lists of potential suite vendors, indicating the increasing strength of Campus Management's sales and marketing organization.
• Campus Management has a close development relationship with Microsoft.
• Campus Management is innovative in developing new products and vendor relationships that should have a positive effect on future growth.

• Campus Management's core suite (HR, finance and student system) is unproven in complex institutions, such as those with graduate schools, advanced research or medical programs, regardless of size or number of full-time equivalents.
• The company's ability to attract clients from the traditional higher education nonprofit sector to its core suite has been slow but is gaining momentum.

• Cineca is Italy's largest higher education administrative suite provider, with applications in 83 of the country's 96 universities (traditionals, telematics and special schools).
• Cineca is a nonprofit consortium with 32 universities, two research institutes, and the ministry of higher education and research as its members. With this construction, Cineca has many high-quality channels into the higher education community, providing a solid base for product development.
• Recognizing the internationalization of higher education, Cineca is participating in European standardization efforts and attempting its first move abroad by entering the Turkish higher education market.
• Cineca's road map is promising, with features related to the Bologna Process as well as innovative features for supporting the research process.
• Cineca's strong relation to the government helps in providing functionality to integrate reporting on the national level as well as initiating international contacts.

• Today, Cineca's ERP suite is only in Italian, except for some Web services that cater to international student self-services.
• Cineca is unproven in an international setting, and will have to show that it can sustain an international venture in terms of investments, localization and sustainable support.
• Cineca's consortium and nonprofit status may present problems in how it should finance its international endeavors.

• Datatel has the strength of a large installed base of more than 760 North American colleges, universities and community colleges.
• Datatel's Colleague suite is mature in all core areas (HR, financials, SISs) and the acquired Active solutions (ActiveAdmissions and ActiveAlumni) have excellent brand recognition and complement Colleague.
• Datatel has a tremendously loyal customer base, with a reported 99.6% client retention rate.
• The exclusive focus on higher education and the deep knowledge of the higher education market support an excellent marketing and sales organization.
• Datatel has built a closer working relationship with Microsoft as a development partner, which should strengthen development of .NET and other Microsoft-based offerings.

• This year, there have been customer concerns regarding problems with delivery and implementation of some of the Microsoft .NET-based products.
• Unidata customers should considering migration to SQL or Oracle.

• Integrated Tertiary Software (ITS) knows its customers very well and has more than 20 years of experience in the South African education sector. ITS's customers regard the company as partner as well as vendor.
• ITS provides a lower-cost alternative for institutions considering an integrated solution.
• They have built their solution around proven technologies, including Oracle running on Unix platforms.
• ITS continues to retain customer loyalty with dedicated employees and client-focused service.
• The product road map for modernization continues to be developed, and customers value the changes being made.

• Limited resources forced ITS to move slowly in its upgrading and modernization.
• The company's small size continues to be a challenge as ITS increasingly competes against larger companies.
• Current customers remain concerned about the ability of the company to meet their needs over the long term but, at the same time, value the staff and their dedication in providing service.
• ITS has an extremely diverse customer base. While the company's move outside of Africa has extended its reach, some customers and prospects question ITS's ability to support the differing needs of small to very large institutions in several countries.

• Jenzabar's Internet Campus Solution (JICS) is a portal solution that continues to add high value to the CX administrative core applications, as well as a favorite of customers for its ease of use.
• Jenzabar has a large installed customer base, and the user community is active.
• Although Jenzabar is developing additional solutions, the core suite of HR, financials and student systems continues to be a strong focus of its customer base.

• CX runs within Jenzabar's Java-based system. However, institutions should consider CX only when a Unix- or Linux-based platform and an IBM Informix database are a technology fit.

• Jenzabar has one of the largest installed customer bases, and the user community is active.
• EX user response continues to be highly favorable regarding the company's JICS portal and CRM solutions.
• Jenzabar's EX's SQL Server-based solution is well-positioned for the smaller college market. It provides an out-of-the-box integrated approach to the administrative suite.
• The partnership with Microsoft Dynamics GP announced in July 2008 will provide additional strategies for offerings to prospects and customers using GP applications.

• Although small-to-midsize institutions seeking a Microsoft-based suite should consider Jenzabar EX, larger institutions would be better served by another suite.
• Customers of EX appreciate new developments and products but express concerns regarding support costs.

• With its origin in the higher education community and its corporate form as a consortium of six universities and the financial group Grupo Santander, OCU has many high-quality channels into the higher education community, providing a solid base for product development. OCU provides flexible contracting in terms of support and upgrades.
• OCU has strengthened its leadership, with a greater focus on integration and implementation of the suite.
• OCU's road map is promising, including features related to the Bologna Process, EU grant management and best practices for "academic analytics."

• Although relatively impressive in its range of features, OCU's financial strength and breadth of support do not match those of its global competitors.
• Some of the road map features promised last year, including the Bologna Process and European Union grant management, have not been delivered due to government delays beyond OCU's control.
• Although other language options are available, only Spanish and Catalan versions are currently operational at client institutions.
• With support services being provided for a growing number of customers in Latin America, OCU must continue to find ways to deliver satisfactory support services there.

• Oracle's greatest strength in higher education is more than the software and services it offers. It has a strong, veteran management team with a vast knowledge of higher education. This has paid off in consistency of vision and services.
• The integrated suite for higher education has taken on a decidedly customer focus, which is starting to pay off in the marketplace. Moreover, current customers are beginning to see greater cohesion in the vision for the suite.
• Recent acquisitions position Oracle to provide services and functionality within its own suite that competition must rely on third-party tools to provide.
• Increased functionality has made the student system a leading product that pushes other vendors to emulate.
• The move to support global clients has resulted in more understanding and support for regional differences.
• Oracle services continue to grow, while its reliance on system integrators continues to diminish, which places Oracle closer to its clients and gives the company a better understanding of the needs of higher education.
• For higher education clients running Oracle PeopleSoft applications, development and enhancements to current higher education PeopleSoft applications will continue without the pressure of needing to decide on a future move to a Fusion product. Oracle's Applications Unlimited strategy remains clear and straightforward.

• Many clients and prospects still fear the size of Oracle and their reliance on it as a single vendor for applications and middleware.
• Outside North America, finding third-party firms with consultants experienced in using Oracle's higher education applications continues to be challenging.
• For higher education clients waiting for a new Fusion student system application rather than implementing Oracle's current offering, the current student information system is on an evolving Fusion application development path without a specific timeline.

• SAP has a strong business process focus and knowledge that enables institutions to leverage good-practice standard processes within the higher education community and between verticals (such as higher education and life sciences).
• SAP's Higher Education & Research solution is built on a strong technology infrastructure foundation, an open architecture and an integrated approach to development. However, this requires a commitment to SAP NetWeaver.
• SAP is known globally as a leader in business application industries, with more than 400 higher education customers using its financial, HR and/or logistic applications.
• SAP is actively addressing the relatively large part of the total cost of ownership that is in implementation with its "accelerator packages."
• SAP is attracting new higher education customers in all emerging markets, which is an indication of its global reach.

• SAP is not winning new clients in the established markets for the full suite, including the SIS, because it has not invested in developing features and functionality such as financial aid as an "out of the box" solution.
• Recognize that SAP's focus on sustainable integration with flexibility will require you to create an application strategy that defines how SAP-centric and NetWeaver-centric your organization wants to be.
• SAP is still considered a boutique provider in the higher education administrative suite market, and is lacking the full range of functionality and features found in more-mature SISs.
• Purdue University's decision to not implement SAP's student system raised concerns among other research universities in North America. The decision to not move forward with the student system at Universidad Complutense de Madrid — Spain's largest university — raised similar concerns for research universities in EMEA.
• SAP's financial aid function, which is considered a core function in North American SISs, is contracted separately to a third-party vendor, Sigma. SAP's lack of control of future product development and release dates of the Sigma product will become a recurring cost and concern for institutions. Even in SAP's open architecture, this is a bolt-on application that requires additional implementation time.
• Some customers have found working with SAP's service and support difficult, as well as a perceived inflexibility in consulting pricing models.

• SunGard Higher Education has continued to benefit from bringing all of SunGard's higher education products and services into one higher-education-focused organization (see Note 1).
• SunGard's vision for higher education administrative applications and services continues to reflect strong leadership and years of higher education experience. They move and act like a leader and expect the competition to follow their lead, not supplant it.
• The fully integrated suite has embraced the Unified Digital Campus (UDC) concept and tightly integrates identity access management, the Luminus Platform, workflow and service-oriented architecture.
• Banner has made significant strides to shore up its support for universities outside North America, and has strengthened its support and knowledge of regional cultures and needs.
• The Banner UDC continues to be considered by a wide range of institutions, and larger research institutions are more likely than a few years ago to consider Banner UDC as one of the two student systems to consider. The move from SAP to Banner UDC at Purdue has strengthened SunGard Banner UDC's position in the research university space.

• Cautions are few for leaders, but as with all products and services, clients need to make sure that the SunGard vision for Banner matches their current and future needs.
• Banner administrative applications offer a limited set of open APIs that enable other vendors to more easily integrate their products.
• The September departure of SunGard Higher Education CEO Brian Madocks creates an unknown.

• The PowerCAMPUS Unified Digital Campus (UDC) continues to provide smaller campuses with an integrated suite that is less expensive and easier to support than SunGard Higher Education's Banner UDC and some other integrated suites.
• PowerCAMPUS leadership draws from the SunGard higher education leadership and direction across the higher education organization.
• The SunGard UDC has filtered to PowerCAMPUS and shows promise for the future.
• More than 150 small institutions are currently running PowerCAMPUS UDC in North America. PowerCAMPUS UDC is now expanding its customer base into international markets.

• Upgrades have been slow in coming, and current customers have had to wait for anticipated new features that they feel are needed today. This has caused grief for current customers and PowerCAMPUS support people.
• Small-college prospects have expressed surprise that the total cost of ownership for PowerCAMPUS UDC is no different from solutions used at somewhat larger institutions.
• The September departure of SunGard Higher Education CEO Brian Madocks creates an unknown.

• TechnologyOne has established a reputation as a provider of applications to higher education in Australia.
• TechnologyOne meets all government and legal requirements "out of the box" for the Australian higher education market.
• Some features in the core student system, such as Research Enrollment/Tracking and Graduation Processing, are considered valuable features by Australian customers and uniquely preconfigured compared to North American competitors in the Australian market.
• Financial application users find the reporting features easy to learn and use.
• TechnologyOne has recently completed the technical migration of most of its products, including HR, Financials and Student Management, to the .NET platform.
• TechnologyOne is a well-established software company in Australia rooted in the financial services, government and education sectors. TechnologyOne develops, implements and provides support services for its own products and has recently increased its implementation and support resources by more than 200%.

• Only one institution has implemented all three required components (HR, financial and SIS), which makes comparisons with institutions running fully implemented integrated suites difficult.
• Although TechnologyOne's current HR solution is a competitive general-purpose solution with a broad base of customers, at this time it does not support some of the important, unique HR requirements of higher education institutions.
• The University of Melbourne, a major win for TechnologyOne, has missed published deadlines. Other universities have expressed concerns about the availability of implementation resources for additional projects. The company's two major .NET student system clients, the University of Melbourne and Queensland University of Technology, are being watched by other clients and prospects, and their experiences will have an impact on future sales.