Success Story
How UC San Diego Health Sciences Modernized Financial Planning with Tru Consulting and Anaplan
Academic Medical Centers
What happens when a complex, fast-growing institution outgrows its financial systems? This case study breaks down how UC San Diego Health Sciences partnered with Tru to modernize planning and support long-term growth.
Industry
Academic Medical Centers
Platform
Anaplan
Use Case
Faculty Financial Planning
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Situation
UC San Diego Health Sciences (UCSD), a multibillion-dollar enterprise, includes UC San Diego Health, three professional schools, and various institutes. It plays a key role in patient care, research, and medical education. Operating in a complex, matrixed environment, the institution’s financial processes, like budgeting and forecasting, have long been handled through siloed, manual systems such as Excel and Access across hundreds of units.
Rina Davison, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences Administration, has been with UCSD for 28 years. “We’ve grown rapidly, but without the tools to support that growth,” she said. “We couldn’t afford to keep expanding personnel, so we needed a modern solution to empower our existing team.”
Enter Param Narayanan, MBA, Director of Business Analytics, who brought a fresh perspective from outside academia. “When I arrived, I quickly realized there was no centralized system. Each department was using their own version of the truth,” said Param.
“There was a massive opportunity to align planning, automate routine work, and deliver data driven insights across the institution.”
The team began evaluating enterprise platforms. Anaplan stood out for its web-native, user-friendly interface and scalability. But UCSD needed more than a tool, they needed a partner who understood higher education’s unique governance, structure, and challenges. That partner was Tru.
Solution
UCSD partnered with Tru to implement Anaplan, starting with a faculty financial portfolio planning solution.
“Our goal was to improve financial transparency and reduce manual work across more than 2,000 faculty and 800 fund managers... Tru helped us gather input from over 100 stakeholders, align conflicting requirements, and standardize processes that had evolved in silos over years.”
Tru guided the team through:
- Strategic scoping of solution phases
- Building flexible models to manage PI portfolios, payroll forecasting, and benefit calculations
- Stress testing to handle up to 3,000 concurrent users
- Governance and user adoption strategies
“What began as a health sciences tool evolved into a campus-wide initiative,” said Param. “We received immediate interest from Academic Affairs and departments across the university who had the same planning problems.”
Results
Rina emphasized the cultural shift: “We had a campus-wide habit of passing spreadsheets from one person to the next for 30 years. Tru helped us reimagine that entirely. They pushed us to innovate.”
Over time, the system’s usage expanded beyond Health Sciences. “What began as a health sciences tool evolved into a campus-wide initiative,” said Param. “We received immediate interest from Academic Affairs and departments across the university who had the same planning problems.”
Efficiency Through Automation:
Faculty financial forecasting, once done manually in 500+ Excel files, is now standardized and automated in Anaplan.
Scalable Across Campus:
The system grew from supporting 1,200 users to over 3,000 across multiple units.
Strategic Reallocation:
Fund managers now spend less time maintaining spreadsheets and more time supporting faculty and research missions.
Faster Onboarding:
New employees now ramp up quickly using pre-built, standardized tools embedded in the platform.
Proactive Insights:
With TruEd’s foresight, UCSD implemented stress testing, governance controls, and collaborative prototypes before issues emerged.
“I’ve worked with many consultants in the past, Tru stands out. They’re not just technical experts—they bring business process insight, higher ed fluency, and a truly collaborative spirit.”
Conclusion
UCSD Health Sciences is not just upgrading tools—it’s transforming how the institution plans, collaborates, and scales. Thanks to the strategic partnership between UCSD, Anaplan, and Tru, the university is reimagining data, planning, and people management for the modern era.
One phrase to describe Tru?
"They get us.” — Rina Davison
One word to describe Tru?
“Successful.” — Param Narayanan, MBA