OHIO University Business Service Center Staff 2023
OHIO Business Service Center Annual Report
December 2023

Annual Report

Hi and welcome to Ohio University’s Business Service Center Annual report. This initiative is still relatively new but we are committed to sharing information with you and we hope you enjoy learning more about recent achievements, up-to-date metrics and how we are working towards excellent customer service.

We still have a lot of work to do and we are looking for faculty and staff to engage with us on process improvement items. If you would like to participate in any way, please send me an email at krugman@ohio.edu .

To close, I just want to say that I am incredibly grateful for our campus partners who have been willing to help us develop our existing services, OHIO leadership for their vision and support and lastly our awesome staff who strive every day to provide fantastic customer service. I hope you enjoy learning more about the OHIO Business Service Center.

About the OHIO Business Service Center (BSC)

Business Service Center models are well established across higher education institutions and throughout industry. The OHIO BSC was created to provide centralized support for the institution in the areas of purchasing and travel, budget development, operational finance, and hiring services.

We aim to ensure consistent, simplified, high-quality administrative services in support of the academic mission as well as streamlined processes that support faculty, staff, and students.

The end goal is to provide exemplary customer service while creating efficiencies that, over time, will lead to improved service delivery. Benefits of the Business Service Center include:

  • An expert community available to answer questions and find answers. You won’t have to worry about your question sitting in someone’s inbox for weeks — you will receive prompt communication and will be kept in the loop while we find you the correct answers.
  • Relief from certain transactional work being handled by strategic people in your unit.
  • Continued operational excellence support — our goal is to make processes more user-friendly and efficient through technology and process improvement.

Continuous Improvement

“Process flow in higher education is like a spaghetti chart because of its customized nature and the number of wide and varied overlapping processes and systems. A people-heavy work structure adds to the complexity, however, there is still commonality within those customizations and that is what the business service center is trying to capture and improve. The scale of this undertaking is substantial, and this is an investment toward continuous improvement to make the lives of university stakeholders better.”
— DR. ZAKI KURUPPALIL
RUSS COLLEGE, PROFESSOR AND CHAIR, ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
CO- CHAIR OF OHIO BUSINESS SERVICE CENTER ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. Zaki Kuruppalil

Our Awesome Achievements

$42,000 saved with advertising procedural change with Indeed.com
93% overall Customer Satisfaction
3,000+ requests from August - October 2023 with 89% Customer Satisfaction
225+ positions facilitated through employment process across the University from April - October
33% of University budget managed by the OHIO BSC
Consolidated departmental purchasing cards and made available at Lindley Hall
Eliminated multiple unnecessary procedures & policies in partnership with Central Finance
Transparency Created new ticketing & request intake system with focus on transparency
Changed timeframe for accounting corrections from 60 to 90 days to provide additional time for planning unit-level research reconciliations
And much much more

What Our Partners Are Saying

“I have used the OHIO BSC extensively for both travel and purchasing. Staff in the BSC have provided me with outstanding service and have taken care to understand specific needs surrounding my requests. I greatly appreciate their attention to detail and service orientation to helping members of our community get things done.”

— Scott Titsworth
Dean, Scripps College of Communication

"I recently used the BSC to process the food expenses for a student meeting. This was my first time using BSC and I found the experience to be smooth and efficient."

— Carl Brune
Professor and Director of the Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics

“HTC partnership with the OUBSC began just a few months ago and already we have gained efficiencies in procurement, found a better understanding of university policy, and created a relationship with finance staff that has streamlined our budget procedures.”

— Beth Novak
Interim Dean, Honors Tutorial College

“The procurement and travel services provided by the Business Service Center have made approval, monitoring, and financial management work flows tremendously more efficient for me. Knowing that attentive, helpful, and knowledgeable staff are available to assist with transactions enables me to focus on other work as I no longer have to manage and advise processes in multiple work management systems.”

— Katy Matheuws
Senior Director of Administration, University Libraries

It’s All About Our People

We know people are our most valuable resource, and we want to invest in them. We are committed to hiring internal talent whenever possible, not only to provide promotional opportunities to existing OHIO staff, but also to leverage history, OHIO-specific expertise, and relationships already built on campus.

We have subject matter experts in purchasing/travel, operational finance, and employee hiring, but are also creating additional specialties where needed. Current specialty areas include travel, student reimbursements, and PTA account creation. 

Through an anonymous survey, we solicited feedback from our staff to determine their levels of satisfaction in working in the OUBSC. Overwhelmingly, the OHIO BSC staff reported that they felt valued, had good relationships with their managers, and believed they were making an impact on the BSC and university. With an astonishing response rate of 58%, over 92% said overall they were highly or moderately satisfied working in the OHIO BSC.

Almost 60% of BSC employees volunteered for a new professional development opportunity on creating a culture of customer service. We are committed to providing outstanding service on campus, and our staff are eager to be a part of that movement. The staff recently created a new customer service vision for our unit: “to become the most trusted unit on campus” . We know there are a lot of excellent units on campus, so this is a lofty goal, but our staff want to be known for being knowledgeable, creative, good listeners, problem-solvers, and persistent in what we do so that we can provide the customer (i.e., our faculty, students, and staff) what they need to be successful. With an overall customer satisfaction rating of 93%, we know we are purposefully making an impact, but we plan to only get better.

What Our People Are Saying

“ I feel like we have a great group of people who really do work well with each other. I feel valued as an employee and what I do is an important part of making our team work!”

— BSC Employee

“As the weekend comes to an end, I feel excited to get back to work the next morning. I have never felt like that before, even though I was happy in my previous job... I love our Team though and think these are some of the best people on campus”

— BSC Employee

Future Vision

Our vision is to be the most trusted unit on campus.By providing excellent customer experiences, reliable service, and forward-thinking innovations, we plan to help Ohio University partners improve experiences for students, faculty, staff, and guests who use business services. We will continue to expand services to additional partners across campus throughout this next year, fine-tune our technology approach, and, through analysis and feedback, improve processes. If you are not yet a partner and would like to be one of the next to convert or if would like to expand your existing portfolio of services, please contact Heather Krugman ( krugman@ohio.edu ).

Our Partners

College of Arts & Sciences

Scripps College of Communication

Honors Tutorial College

Russ College of Engineering

Housing and Residence Life

Division of Student Affairs

Culinary Services

Office of Information Technology

Division of Finance and Administration

Ohio University Libraries

Office of Information Technology

University College

Office of the Provost

Office of the President

More Coming Soon . . .

What Our Customers are Saying

"Whether it's budget/finance assistance, help with job postings, I-9, or other new/existing staff paperwork, this team is always AMAZING!!"

— Megan Vogel
Chief of Staff, Division of Student Affairs

"Always very prompt, knowledgeable and very patient. Can find answers to even difficult questions. Very supportive and professional."

— Julio Arauz
Associate Professor and Graduate Chair, McClure School of Emerging Communication Technologies

"I was amazed at how quickly this transaction was processed. I appreciate the quick response. Thank you to all who were involved!"

— Ruth Blickle
Administrative Services Associate, ROTC

"Very knowledgeable and willing to assist or find alternative ways to make things happen. Superb customer service."

— Marian Carr
Administrative Services Associate, The Office of Global Affairs

"Communication was good. I was kept up to date on the entire process."

— Megan S.
Student Employee

"Jennifer Campbell did a wonderful job of shepherding me through the process. She even offered to go far beyond the call of duty and to argue with the conference hotel on my behalf about a booking difficulty that prevented me from getting reimbursed for one night. Kudos!!!!!"

— Florenz Plassmann
Professor, Economics

"The BSC training was helpful and the staff is quite patient as we navigate the new system. They answer all my questions in a timely manner."

— Aimee Edmondson
Professor, E.W. Scripps School of Journalism

"I really enjoy how streamlined the book purchasing process has become. The option to work with Little Professor is especially excellent, as I love to support local business. Thank you for your quick response and all the help!"

— Holly Ningard
Assistant Professor of Instruction, Sociology and Anthropology

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