Focusing on our Customers

Given our rapidly changing IT environment, and informed by input from faculty, staff, and administration, it has become clear some enhancements are needed to improve these services. Specifically, there is a desire for better coordination of academic IT services (i.e. classroom and distance technologies) and closer collaboration and communication between central and distributed (school) IT.

The VPCIO is addressing these needs by creating a more focused alignment of customer-facing services across UB. To accomplish this, we’ve launched a search for a new director-level position. The Director of Customer Service will manage a new team that unites UBIT customer-oriented staff in a comprehensive support organization. He or she will also create an improved support structure for our customers, conduct emerging technology awareness, enhance IT communications across UB and launch other customer enhancing initiatives.

So, what does this mean to UBIT staff? Central IT will see improved focus on IT goals and initiatives necessary to serve the campus. They will experience a clearer process for prioritizing UBIT activities as determined by the entire institution’s needs. Distributed IT will have an identified champion within Central IT for addressing faculty, student and administrative IT needs, as well to someone to coordinate initiatives of mutual interest.

The new Director of Customer Service, anticipated to arrive in the first quarter of 2015, will work with the VPCIO, distributed and central IT leadership, faculty and administration to build a more cohesive, collaborative, and communicative IT environment. Once fully functional, this approach will allow UBIT to better meet the growing and changing technology needs of our faculty, staff and students.