Evaluate: the model that tells you which path actually wins.
Tier 2 begins only when Tier 1 finds a gap large enough to justify the next fee — that test is published, not discretionary. Once it clears, Tier 2 builds the five-year comparison your institution needs to choose between staying outsourced, restructuring the contract, or moving independent.
The gate, plainly
Tier 2 is not automatic. It proceeds only if your Tier 1 findings clear a multiple of Tier 2’s own fee — the same ROI test that gates Tier 3. If your Tier 1 result doesn’t clear that bar, we tell you so in writing, and the engagement stops there at no further cost. Tier 2 is priced and quoted independently of Tier 1.
What Tier 2 builds
A full five-year scenario model: your current outsourced terms, a renegotiated version of the same contract, a hybrid structure, and a fully independent operation — each modeled on revenue, cost, staffing, and risk, using your institution’s actual numbers rather than industry averages. This is the same underlying model referenced across the Independent Operations Pathway service, scoped here specifically to produce a decision-ready comparison rather than an execution plan.
What’s inside the model
Full peer benchmarking against your enrollment band, Carnegie classification, and region — not a national average. A technology and infrastructure map: what a self-operated or hybrid store would need in POS, inventory systems, and data ownership, and what that currently costs your operator that you never see itemized. A staffing model sized to avoid both the cost of overstaffing and the operational risk of understaffing. And a full accounting of what independence actually costs to run — the "true cost of independence" that most outsourcing pitches never price against what you currently pay.
What you get in writing
A board-ready report laying out each scenario side by side, in the format built for the specific conversation you’re about to have — with your board, your CFO, your current vendor, or your own team. See Board-Ready Reporting for what that document actually contains.
Who should be in the room
Finance and business office leadership are the baseline. Depending on what the model shows, the Provost’s office (academic materials access and Inclusive Access economics), General Counsel (contract risk and termination clauses), and Auxiliary Services (operational continuity) each have a real stake in what Tier 2 finds — see Who We Serve for why each seat matters to this specific decision.
Independence, unchanged
The model doesn’t favor independence over renegotiation, or vice versa — it favors whichever number is actually larger for your institution. NxtChapter has no commission arrangement with any operator and no stake in which path you choose. Read the Independence Statement.
Timeline
Once the gate clears, Tier 2 typically runs longer than Tier 1 — the model requires more source data and, often, a working session or two to confirm assumptions with your team. We’ll give you a specific timeline once your Tier 1 findings are in hand.
Tier 2 starts with a Tier 1 finding.
If you haven’t run the diagnostic yet, that’s where to start — it’s the only way to know whether Tier 2 is worth commissioning.