Exploring intercollegiate athletics operations, organizations, and Athletics Development to create successful athletics experiences, management, and administration.
When higher education institutions are able to marshal limited resources and programmatically make great strides, true transformation can occur. TSI helps our intercollegiate athletics clients define and improve their organizational effectiveness, student-athlete experience, Athletics Development and philanthropic components, and holistic impact on their intercollegiate athletics programs. We help our clients create an optimized environment for students, administrators, and faculty.
The intercollegiate athletics department is often seen as one of the most visible aspects of the institution. Faced with increasing regulation, decreasing support, and increasing administrative costs, Athletics departments must continually assess their operations to ensure efficiency, compliance, and fiscally responsible and manageable decision-making.
Whether focusing on strategic planning, student-facing, administrative, or financial processes, development and philanthropy, or foundations relations and advancement challenges, TSI has worked with a wide range of intercollegiate athletics departments to make tangible improvements. TSI provides outside expertise to assist institutions to confront their biggest challenges and decisions while maximizing opportunity.
Transforming Solutions is dedicated to helping intercollegiate athletics departments fulfill their missions to meet institutional objectives and priorities. Deeply grounded in understanding the needs for effectively operating intercollegiate athletics departments, we focus on aligning each institution’s definition of success with actionable recommendations to achieve desired end results. Focusing on defining and improving organizational and operational effectiveness, enhancing the student-athlete and constituent experience, and supporting and managing change initiatives, Transforming Solutions’ customized approach will help your athletic department optimize its people, processes, and technologies.
Athletics Development & Revenue Generation Within intercollegiate athletic departments, fundraising and revenue generation are critical components to ensuring a championship experience for student-athletes. From ticket sales and annual giving, to major and principal gifts, philanthropy can create a competitive advantage that will lead to success in the classroom, in competition, and in the community. TSI will support institutions and athletic programs by providing comprehensive services focused on enhancing all components of fundraising and revenue generation. We will lead efforts to gain a deep understanding of the organization’s fundraising enterprise, which will lead to the identification of new philanthropic and revenue generation opportunities. Once growth opportunities are identified, we will help design a plan to align the donor experience and giving opportunities with organizational and operational goals and objectives. To achieve this alignment, TSI will provide detailed, actionable recommendations that are interwoven with the desired end results and definition of success of the institution.
Process Improvement TSI will help institutions define the current state of identified business processes, conduct an analysis of those processes, and lead the design of desired future state processes to assess process operations and efficiency. Through this analysis, TSI will identify pain points and waste within processes, opportunities for improvement, potential tangible and intangible benefits of improvements, metrics to assess operations and improvements, and actionable steps towards improvement strategies. The use of process improvement strategies will increase operational effectiveness by improving transparency, increasing responsiveness, and enhancing the quality of service.
Organizational assessment TSI has a deep understanding of the approach to improving organizational effectiveness as well as the nature of work that typically occurs in Intercollegiate Athletics Departments. TSI will spearhead the assessment of the organizational structure, staff roles and competencies, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and training needs to determine alignment with the institution’s vision, mission, and values. We often conduct benchmarking to determine appropriate staffing levels, best practices, and structures and support organizational change through recommended action steps to increase effective management and adoption.
Operational assessment TSI will work closely with institutional leadership and or designated project teams to evaluate existing model(s) of operations to determine potential opportunities for growth and improvement related to people, processes, and technology. This evaluation will identify controls, checks, and balances for optimizing operations and compliance while assessing current and potential risks. Grounded in extensive expertise and best practices, we will support transformation and operational change efforts and goals by providing high-quality recommendations that are actionable and attainable. We do this by ensuring we understand the athletic department’s short- and long-term goals as articulated by your team and the key constituents and stakeholders it serves.
Athlete and Constituent Experience Within higher education, the experience of student-athletes, the athletics community, and alumni and donor groups is an important factor for athletics departments. To best understand and ensure high-quality services and experiences are provided, TSI will support institutions in defining the athlete and constituent experience. We will lead efforts to assess and define the athlete and constituent experience to illuminate needs, expectations, experiences, and desired experiences. Once needs are identified, we will help design a plan to align desired experiences with organizational and operational goals and objectives. To achieve this alignment, TSI will provide detailed, actionable recommendations that are interwoven with the desired end results and definition of success of the institution.
Change Management In all of our work, we hold people in very high regard. To achieve any desired change, we must focus on the people side of change. Therefore, TSI weaves change management methodologies into all of the work conducted with clients. We will drive organizational change management and communication efforts to articulate and manage transformation. These practices help foster a culture of transparency, clarity, and effective communication while maintaining a pulse on challenges, bottlenecks, or disruption for those who are most critical to the success of change initiatives. Working closely with clients for a customized and personalized experience, TSI pulls from expansive experience to enrich the experiences of clients with pragmatic, cost-effective solutions for change.
The following are the most frequent service areas we employ to help our Intercollegiate Athletics Constituents:
TSI worked with us to complete a strategic technology assessment, which included the difficult task of coordinating and articulating our vision and strategy for new technology. The project was a great success: they ensured that everyone participated in the process, that all voices were heard, and that deliverables were on-time and distributed to all participants for thoughtful feedback. On a day-to-day basis, TSI was enthusiastic and dedicated to our work, always demonstrating that our success is their success. They have acted as key advisors to me and as coaches for the entire project team. We so enjoyed working with the TSI team and hope to continue to do so in the future.
Transforming Solutions, Inc. proved to be very adept in creating strategic and practical approaches to our complex improvement project. They gathered data efficiently and effectively, creating buy-in amongst our faculty and staff as they did so. Dan and Alan did this by spending a considerable amount of time on our campuses working directly with groups of our staff and faculty. Ultimately, TSI presented us with a detailed process map of our communications, identified key areas for productive improvement, and worked with us to tailor their final recommendations to our specific needs. The team of TSI does the job and does it well.
TSI staffs their project teams with high quality, knowledgeable, skilled, and dedicated individuals, assuring you that your initiative will be a success!
TSI joined the UF team at an important inflection point. We were in the very early stages of asking ourselves what ‘next’ looked like for our fundraising program and what technology ecosystem would be required to actualize it. Dan and his team led us through an extensive planning and preparation process that set us up for success in the implementation of our new CRM and the associated platforms. In the planning and preparation phase, we worked with Dan to develop visioning statements, create a roadmap, and secure funding.
I really enjoyed working with TSI, particularly, I loved the way you ran the brainstorming sessions early on, which can sometimes be extremely disorganized if not done right. I respect and admire your ability and instinct to facilitate discussions and to tease out useful information. I believe your success is a result of natural ability, and lots of hard work and preparation. I’d love to stay connected and to serve as a resource if I can be of value to the things you do.
From program reviews, organization or operational assessments, to strategic planning, process improvement, and enhancing the student-athlete experience, TSI helps institutions strategically improve their athletics programming and operations. We address program concerns using assessment and analysis and develop strategies to resolve challenges, increase support, and enhance opportunities for improvement.
TSI understands that intercollegiate athletics is one facet of institutional operations. With that said, we recognize that resources are limited and efforts for meeting departmental and institutional are immense. We will work with you to optimize a budget that accommodates your budgetary needs while allowing for thorough, high-quality services to meet your mission and goals.
Yes. In order to best meet your needs and ensure high-quality service, TSI uses methodologies that are flexible and customizable and can easily be implemented remotely. Our experienced consultants are well-trained to engage clients and stakeholders remotely and are skilled facilitators in any environment. Whether running large group events, small group discussions, focus groups, constituent experience sessions, interviews, or work sessions, TSI is able to adapt to the needs of the client.
