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Clients - Universidad Privada Antenor Orrego

Selects Banner to Offer Unprecedented Web Applications and Personalized Service in Peru

Emerging Internet cafes are just starting to provide an avenue to the World Wide Web in Peru where the majority of households and schools are without Internet access. But in the fall of 2003, self-service Internet applications will be commonplace for students at the Universidad Privada Antenor Orrego (UPAO). Soon after, faculty and staff also will have self-service applications available to them. UPAO is the first institution in Peru to license a large-scale ERP system with self-service Internet applications. Its choice of solution: Banner Student, Faculty, and Finance with self-service Web applications for Student and Finance.

According to Dr. Guillermo Guerra Cruz, president of the University, Banner will enhance the University's academic product by giving students a relationship with professors and personnel in a 24/7 environment; and it will simplify administrative activities while lowering costs.

"Banner and its self-service applications will be an auxiliary tool set for the student. It will facilitate communications with faculty while giving the University control over processes," emphasized Dr. Guerra. "The University is committed to implementing new technologies that improve our institutional performance and that enhance our institutional competitiveness through new and better best practices that support national and international accreditation."

Dr. Guerra cited the following capabilities within Banner as enabling the University to enhance its institutional performance and competitiveness:

"Banner will let us provide better services to our constituents by giving them speedy and effective access to information, both academic and administrative. It will allow us to provide better and personalized service to our users," said Dr. Guerra.

Equally important, by using Banner during their University career, students will become familiar with leading-edge technology. This will enable them to easily navigate the technological infrastructure within any industry in which they are hired.

Currently, the University has a legacy administrative system. It lacks integration among the departmental modules and does not support Web-based applications. Also, the University wanted to move to a client-server model. In this network architecture, computer processing is distributed among many individual PCs (clients) and a more powerful, central computer (server) that accepts requests for resources.

"We selected SunGard Higher Education because Banner has the best integration and functionality of all the administrative systems we reviewed; and SunGard Higher Education is focused solely on higher education," recalled Dr. Guerra. "So far, their services in consulting, technical support, and training have been excellent."

SunGard Higher Education also was able to help UPAO secure the financing that was essential to the project. SunGard Higher Education introduced UPAO to the Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im Bank) of the United States and helped the University work through the financing process. As the official export credit agency of the United States, Ex-Im Bank helps finance the sales of U.S. exports, primarily to developing markets, by providing guarantees, export credit insurance and loans (www.exim.gov).

"SunGard Higher Education's relationship with the bank was essential to helping us secure the financing," recalled Dr. Guerra. "We could not move forward on this project without the financing."

News of the University's plans has created a high level of interest among the competition, said Dr. Guerra. At present, UPAO is rated among the top 10 best institutions in the country. It expects to be one of the best in all of Latin America within five years. As the University moves forward with its implementation of Banner, Dr. Guerra anticipates that the 24/7 leading-edge technology environment will be a magnet for younger learners. Already today, the institution attracts learners from Denmark, Austria, Germany, France, and the United States, as well as from Peru.

"Our communities deserve academic and administrative services that ensure the highest-quality education. Improving our information and communications systems is an important strategy for meeting this mission," said Dr. Guerra.