Q&A About Syntellis with Strata CEO John Martino

In 2023, Roper Technologies announced its acquisition of Syntellis Performance Solutions and the combination of Syntellis with Roper’s Strata Decision Technology. Recently, I connected with Strata’s CEO, John Martino to discuss what has happened since the merger and what higher education institutions can expect from Syntellis.

Below is a synopsis of my conversation with Martino and Kevin Bresser, vice president of sales at Strata. Their responses have been edited for brevity.

What key updates are important for customers and others to know since Syntellis’ merger with Strata?

First, Syntellis remains committed to the higher education industry. While Strata has historically focused on solutions for healthcare, the acquisition of Syntellis has made higher education a very large and important strategic component of our business.

We’ve also been working to better communicate and demonstrate the Axiom Higher Education Suite’s broader financial planning and performance management capabilities. This represents a shift from the perception that we are solely a budgeting solution. The breadth of our tool is not only the core budgeting functionality but everything else that it does, whether it’s strategic financial planning or capital planning.

Traditional budgeting solutions are often associated with complex, enterprise-level implementations, but we want to emphasize tools like Axiom™ Strategic Financial Planning and Axiom™ Tuition Revenue Planning, which assist leadership with informed decision making.

Our recent work with Colgate University and Binghamton University illustrates how institutions are adopting our specialized tools without overhauling their entire budgeting processes, highlighting the added value we provide beyond budgeting. Colgate University went live with Strategic Financial Planning, not to change budgeting or operational processes, but to leverage the tools at the leadership level.  Binghamton University also became a client and uses Tuition Revenue Planning and Strategic Financial Planning to inform the budget. Again, they’re not necessarily going to automate the budget process, but are using the tools to assist with decisions and to better understand their data. There’s a lot of opportunity for the market to think beyond budgeting, and Syntellis is able to support those institutions.

Can you discuss the relationship with Roper Technologies?

Roper Technologies, which led Syntellis’ acquisition, is Strata’s long-time parent company. The publicly traded company, based in Sarasota, Florida, provides stability and support while allowing Syntellis the autonomy to foster an aggressive approach to continuous improvement. This benefits our team and customers, including existing and new higher education institutions.

What investments in product innovation and client support have happened since the merger?

At a high level, we have demonstrated our commitment to product innovation and customer and client support by investing in more resources, expertise, and skillsets across our entire organization. At the core of everything Syntellis does is our long-term partnership methodology and approach: Syntellis is with our customers every step of the way from our solutions to our services and support. We have dedicated individuals focused on the different industries we serve, including finance, healthcare, and higher education, which has a strong depth of expertise.

We also released enhancements to our Axiom Strategic Financial Planning and Tuition Revenue Planning tools. Customers can access enhanced scenario modeling functionality and additional use cases within the tools, such as credit hour caps.

We continue to add new courses, most of which are free for customers, to Syntellis Academy, our online learning management system. This includes new courses for Tuition Revenue Planning.

Our newly developed work groups focus on certain areas of the Axiom system and the annual planning process and cycles. For example, one work group took a deep dive into reporting and analytics to help ensure that new users on campus understood table structures and the different ways to run a report. Based on positive feedback, Syntellis will continue to support the work groups, which are open to all Syntellis’ higher education clients.

What can institutions expect from the Axiom Suite roadmap?

Higher education institutions can expect a continued commitment to the client experience, primarily a more efficient, smoother client onboarding and implementation process. I think that starts with data integration. Whether it’s automating data integration or streamlining the process, enhancing the tools we offer across the entire Axiom suite is a big focus. It’s part of our broader effort to serve our higher education clients and ensure institutional leaders have the right solutions to make strategic and informed decisions.