Texas Christian University Revolutionizes Procurement, Boosts Efficiency Across the Board

JAGGAER Contracts Plus enables academic institution to create dynamic dashboards for optimizing resources throughout the university.

Executive Summary

Texas Christian University (TCU), a prestigious private university, faced the challenge of managing over 3,600 contracts annually using a legacy system that lacked efficiency, transparency, and visibility. The manual processes made it difficult to achieve consistency, delayed contract reviews, and increased the risk of errors, all while relying on a small administrative team. As TCU expanded, particularly with the addition of a new School of Medicine, they needed a modern solution to streamline contract management and procurement.

By implementing JAGGAER One, TCU was able to automate repetitive tasks, improve visibility into contract processes, and create dynamic, configurable dashboards that enhanced control over procurement and contract review. The shift allowed for simultaneous contract reviews, significantly reduced errors, and improved overall procurement efficiency. With these automated solutions, TCU optimized resource use, minimized risks, and positioned itself to manage continued growth and complexity with increased agility.

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Out of the Dark and Into the Light

Fort Worth is a city with a rich cultural heritage and strong ties to the old American West. It’s home to the Texas Christian University (TCU)—12,000 students and 1,500 staff located on a 302-acre campus that’s been voted by the Princeton Review as being among the most beautiful in the country.

TCU plays a significant role in Fort Worth, serving as a major academic institution, cultural hub, and economic driver for the city. It’s a dynamic place. One that continues to grow in both size and complexity; the addition of a new School of Medicine in the last five years has marked a significant development for the university. Not surprisingly, TCU engages hundreds of suppliers. It annually handles around 3,600 contracts, with the finance and administration office managing approximately 2,500 of those.

As a private institution TCU is not bound by certain public purchasing requirements—something that historically has been as much of a hindrance as an advantage to getting things done.

When it came to contract management, a legacy system amounted to little more than a document repository combined with manual processes. “It made process consistency difficult to achieve,” sums up Matthew Wallis, Director of Contract Administration, TCU. It meant a lack of visibility, susceptibility to error, and little in the way of functionality; for example, subject matters reviewers had to be sequential, not simultaneous—causing inevitable delays.

“Like many in higher education, we operate very lean on full-time employees per volume of contracts worked. Added to that, my office also covers primary legal work on contracts. For a long time, it was just me handling 2,000 contracts,” says Matthew. “I became very adept at being my own, administrative assistant, paralegal, and attorney, to deal with it all!”

A move to JAGGAER was an opportunity to create greater efficiencies for the university by integrating purchasing and accounts payable systems with a full procure-to-pay software approach. It was to be a pivotal moment. “We were in the dark ages when it came to systems when I joined TCU, and we really didn’t come out of it very much until we adopted JAGGAER,” says Matthew.

Creating Dynamic Dashboards to Meet User Demand

A key appeal of JAGGAER for TCU was that it required minimal involvement from technical teams and IT infrastructure as the university migrated away from outdated platforms. Previously, upgrading and testing on older platforms was a monumental undertaking, often leaving the team several versions behind. “Going to cloud infrastructure just took all that away,” observes Justin Botros, Assistant Director of Financial Business Systems, TCU. Plus, the switch to JAGGAER meant the finance team could own much more of the process, with implementation, maintenance, and ongoing use being the responsibility of the finance team alone.

TCU engaged a third-party implementation consultant who advised on the best uses of JAGGAER across TCU, then broadly implemented the platform in a basic capacity for Matthew and his small team to build upon. “We managed almost every bit of the planning, implementation, and kickoff within our unit —and it didn’t take a lot,” said Matthew. He and the team customized the system’s user-friendly dashboard interface, customizing it for different users—a simple 3-step process that required no coding or IT support. “It’s literally just using a couple of basic JAGGAER tools,” says Matthew.

Beginning with JAGGAER for payments, invoicing, and for contracts, not only has the solution been transformative for TCU, it’s also easy to transform. “This is not a hard system to use,” says Matthew. “The person who knows what they want to see,” adds Justin, “is able to create exactly what they want to see.”

Bringing Functionality to Enhance Visibility, Reduce Risk, and Increase Transparency

And what they wanted to see was functionality. Now, by being able to customize the system, functionality has been achieved—with users able to search for specific contracts, save searches, raise payment requests, or perform whatever specific task they need to—all from one platform. There is improved visibility into the contract process for everyone, from requesters to management. Sequential reviews are a thing of the past—they can now happen simultaneously, and follow a set process for consistency, making handling them much more efficient.

A considerable time saver for the contracts team is the ability to customize templates, with built-in conditional clauses based on the needs of engagement—adding such things as insurance or indemnification as required—whether it’s a main contract or an addendum. This automation is a huge advantage, allowing advanced users to handle simple contracts themselves. “It’s down to JAGGAER that a small team can delegate tasks, without delegating their authority,” says Justin. It means Matthew and his small team are no longer spending time on routine tasks and have room to focus on higher level work.

“It allows uniformity of what is collected and documented per contract type,” says Justin. With JAGGAER there’s no mystery to what comes out at the end. It’s going to be the same thing but with the language specific to that particular contract.” Templates also allow users to input details, such as for a speaking engagement, which then automatically populate the contract document. Previously, speaker forms would have been sent via word document and reviewing them would have taken 30 minutes; now it takes two.

Previously, TCU’s approval and signature process had been consolidated, with Matthew and the CFO handling most contract signings. “I personally signed about 95% of the contracts I worked on,” says Matthew. By integrating Adobe Sign to enable e-signature, he no longer signs any. Instead, approvals and signatures are now distributed across management, ensuring a seamless and delegated process. “And it takes 30 seconds to do it,” says Matthew. There are other benefits to once error-prone manual processes being confined to the past, “I’m confident that when units launch their form contract for signature, there aren’t going to be mistakes,” says Justin, “because the system’s automated to do it for them.”

The system’s transparency allows everyone to see comments and approvals in one place, eliminating the need for lengthy email threads. The CFO, for example, can quickly access all necessary information and comments in one spot before signing, making the process clear and efficient.

An unexpected outcome of JAGGAER’s functionality has been the integration of certificates of insurance and insurance requirements into the system. Now varying levels of insurance, different amounts, brokers, and expiration dates are all automated within the same contract management system. “It used to be handled in Excel spreadsheets,” says Matthew. “The improvement in risk management is huge.”

Implementing JAGGAER has significantly improved TCU’s contractual protection and overall efficiency. By capturing all business processes and ensuring seamless communication between contracts, suppliers, and payments, TCU has enhanced decision-making, minimized risks, and increased financial transparency. For Matthew and the team, there is much yet to explore. “My goal in putting in a new system was to be best in class and use it to its fullest potential,” he says. “Now we have to keep adding on and making it better, so you walk away a year later going, ‘wow, look at it now’.”

Conclusion

Texas Christian University’s adoption of JAGGAER One marked a pivotal shift in the institution’s ability to keep up with their own expansion. Leveraging JAGGAER One’s automation, transparency and configurable dashboards, TCU turned a complex, resource-intensive contract management process into a streamlined, efficient operation. What was once a laborious process with manual tasks and limited visibility has been replaced with a modern, transparent system that ensures contracts are handled quickly and accurately, strengthening compliance and generating value. TCU’s commitment to innovation and excellence has both enhanced procurement efficiency and set a new standard for how universities committed to progress can strategically manage their resources to support growth.

“To me, the biggest advantage of JAGGAER is effective use of resources and time across the university, allowing people to spend less time and energy but get a better result.”
– Matthew Wallis, Director of Contract Administration and Counsel, TCU

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