UIDP 1-Minute Survey | Reorganizing Corporate Engagement Offices
A number of universities have reorganized their corporate engagement offices in the past several years to centralize operations and with an eye towards an enhanced customer experience. UIDP was interested to learn about our member representatives’ experiences with reorganization–whether they’re part of a university that does corporate engagement or an industry member representative that engages these offices. This survey used branching to gather separate insights from university-based respondents and industry respondents. See the full report.
These results will seed the presentation and discussion at the UIDPConnect 2020 workshop, “Corporate Engagement Centers – Internal Models of Organization,” led by Penn State University’s Priya Baboo. Learn more and register.
We found that 75% of universities have recently reorganized their corporate engagement offices or are planning to do so, Among university respondents, a majority (56%) had reorganized their corporate engagement offices within the past five years. Another 19% said they were considering or planning a reorganization, and only 16% were not considering it.
Personnel resources (having the team on hand to implement the change) was the top challenge cited by this group (54%). Lack of leadership buy-in was cited by 28% as a factor, as well as funds needed to reorganize (26%). Among additional responses, faculty engagement, the nuances of navigating the university’s culture, and innate resistance to change were also factors.
A majority of industry respondents (56%) said they are working with universities that take a holistic approach to industry engagement. Among these respondents, the majority said they realized benefits from working with a centrally-managed corporate engagement office, such as increased visibility to events/initiatives in the university, better strategic partnerships, and streamlined coordination.
In an effort to get at challenges for industry, UIDP also asked those respondents what hurdles they face when working with universities. The nine respondents ranked “difficulty with coordinating across many touch points” first, but “reduced visibility to events/initiatives across the university” was cited by almost as many respondents.
